Ever since I was in elementary school, I can remember attending the Dinner and Dessert Shows. It was a special occasion for me. I dressed up in nice clothes, spent the day with my family, and usually, if I was lucky, I ate one of those Oreo dirt cup desserts with gummy worms. The best treat of all, though, was seeing all the different high schoolers participating in the amazing acts.

Every year I recognized the performers because they had been in the musical or played on the basketball team. I always thought it was amazing that these students were so involved yet so talented, and I knew someday I wanted to perform up on the stage like them.

When I was in seventh grade, I had still consistently been going to watch Dinner and Dessert Shows, but it was even more special because my older brother, Ty, was old enough to participate. This was cool because I knew more of the students on stage performing. I loved the show so much that I didn’t want to see just one performance, but all three. Unfortunately, in seventh grade I was not very financially stable; therefore, I had to find other means of going to the show without buying a ticket. Luckily, they needed volunteers to help serve at the shows, and I jumped at the chance.

As a server, I helped set up, serve the meal, refill guests’ drinks, and make lots of small talk. Though this may not sound exciting, it was a great opportunity to work on my “people skills” and, most importantly, see the show again. Between serving meals and filling drinks, we servers watched the acts on a TV monitor backstage. It was always fun to see the show live one night and then experience the behind the scenes action the next night.

I continued being a server through my seventh and eighth grade years, and when I was a freshman, as you can imagine, I was more than eager to try out. Because I had been to the Dinner and Dessert Shows so many times, I knew exactly what acts I wanted to try out for. My favorite part about Dinner and Dessert Show is choosing songs that you, and the audience, will love and being able to add costuming, musical instruments, or set pieces that make it special.

My freshman and sophomore years, I performed in three different acts, and my junior year I participated in four. Needless to say, this year I am excited to start preparing acts. Though it is my final year as a performer, I know in the future I will be buying tickets to watch as this awesome tradition continues in years to come.