On Wednesday April 1, Benilde-St. Margaret’s was announced as one of the three winners of the Jostens and GRAMMY Foundation® Rock Your School Song Concert.

In order to be considered for this exemplary award, the schools must submit a video showcasing their school spirit and their musical talent with their school song being sung. For BSM’s video, a combination of choir members and cheerleaders were featured singing BSM’s rouser showcasing school spirit with musical talent. Seniors Stephanie Galvin, Luke Guidinger, Annie Dillion, Malik Nolen, Zeph Kaffey, Azzaria Jackson-Sherrod and juniors Sabrina Ehrmantraut, Joey McClain, Rachael Long, and Sophia Wolf participated in the video.

“Ms. Rahn told me that Jostens was looking for people to do it [the competition]. They were looking for schools to do it so they were actively pursuing people and she said doesn’t look like a lot of people are doing it, you should do it. You just had to submit a video of people singing your school song. So it could be a choir it could be anything. Just sing your school song was all that they asked for,” Director of Vocal Music, Concert Choir & Pop Choir Director Nancy Stockhaus, winner of the recent MN Private School Association Teacher of the Year award, said.

Due to the constraints regarding the due date, Stockhaus and the students participating were on a time crunch. “I had a very small window of time in which to do it, and i basically had one day and it was during choir and nobody could do anything after school, it was just really hard so I decided that right after the concert, the concert was on Monday, I told them to bring all their stuff I think of Wednesday we decided and I took kids that were in choir class so that we could do it during class. And we just happened to have three former cheerleaders in choir so I said you guys bring your cheerleading outfits and then I just grabbed kids who wanted to do it and some kids didn’t want to do it,” Stockhaus said.

In a statement from the GRAMMY Foundation®, Chuck Mooty president and CEO of Jostens said, “The judges at the GRAMMY Foundation selected the winners based on the inventiveness, performance and presentation of their school song, and the work they did was remarkable. These students are bringing national attention to the value and impact of music education in schools.”

Winning this award is monumental for not only the choir, but the entire music department as a whole. “It opens up a lot more opportunities set wise and costume wise because having that funding means we can add details to the shows that will make it better for both the performers and the audience,” senior Stephanie Galvin who was featured in the video said.

“Well it’s really exciting, we were really excited. I was surprised because I submitted the video before we left for Christmas break and I really forgot all about it, I totally forgot we even did it. So when I got an email that there was a Google blast with Benilde winning this award I was just shocked, I had no idea that we would win it. But we get $2500 as a grant that we can use in our department which is pretty nice because we can use it towards equipment, or music, whatever we happen to need,” Stockhaus said.
With the $2500 awarded to the department, there is a myriad of things the money can be used for. The department doesn’t a plan set in stone with how to use the money but are brainstorming what it could go towards. “We’re thinking of using it next year possibly, our risers we stand on on getting really wickity and to the point where it makes me a little nervous when there’s a hundred kids standing on them so I’m thinking of replacing a few sections of risers, it’s not a very romantic way to use the money or anything but it’s a very practical thing that we could immediately use the money we could use it for choir concerts and we could use it for Mass. That might be something we use it for,” Stockhaus said.