By Emily Miller
REXBURG—A well-loved Rexburg tradition is back after taking a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19.
The Thanksgiving Community Choir will begin rehearsals on Sunday, Oct. 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Rexburg Tabernacle Civic Center, and will continue each Sunday until the Thanksgiving Day performance, Thursday, Nov. 25.
The choir will be directed by Steve Dresen, choir director and fine arts chair for Bonneville High School in Idaho Falls, and voice teacher at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg. Dresen has led the choir in some of the previous seasons, as well.
There are no auditions, but organizer Gwyn Harris says singers will learn six pieces in six weeks, so previous choral experience is a plus.
The program will feature a variety of folk songs and patriotic songs, along with Thanksgiving messages provided by a narrator.
Kathryn Collier of Sugar City and her daughter, Jenni Warner of Rexburg, will perform a violin duet, and the audience will be treated to a traditional organ solo that Harris says she always likes to have in the program.
“This little pipe organ that we have in the Tabernacle has a long history of sacrifice of people who, a long time ago, gave of their resources so we could have a pipe organ,” Harris says.
After the Teton Dam Flood in 1976, which devastated much of Rexburg, the organ was badly damaged when a vandal broke into the Tabernacle.
“After the flood, someone got in there and took an axe to it,” Harris says.
She says the costs to repair the organ amounted to more than the original price of the organ, but that the community held a drive to fix up their beloved organ.
“I always like to include that organ because of the history behind it,” Harris says.
This is Harris’s 29th year at the helm, but the tradition is at least 40 years old, she says.
“John thompson—who lived in the community and was on the faculty at Ricks College—he started it as a program on Thanksgiving for his ward and whoever wanted to come, and it just grew from there to become a community event,” Harris says. “When he retired from Ricks, he moved away and asked if someone would step up and take over the program.”
Around the same time, Harris says, the city decided that Rexburg needed an arts council.
“I was asked to be on that arts council, so I thought that would be a good project for the arts council to assume the responsibility for,” she says. “You know what happens when you come up with an idea—you get the job. So this is my 29th program.”
Harris would like to remind everyone to consider their Thanksgiving plans before committing to singing in the choir.
“Some people would like to come and sing and then then they realize they’ll be out of town for Thanksgiving,” she says.
Harris says the program will be approximately one hour long.
“So people can plan on putting their turkey in the oven, coming to the program and hurrying home to make their Thanksgiving feast,” she says.
Admission to the concert is free, and Harris says it has traditionally been a fun place for people to meet up with old friends.
“It’s a little meeting place for people who are back in town for the holiday,” she says. “Please bring families and come and enjoy. It’s not a religious program, but it’s just a place to reflect on our blessings and what Thanksgiving is really about.”
See rexburgcommons.com for more local news and events.
