2024 Clarke Central High School Glad’s Got Talent competitors stand in the E.B. Mell Auditorium on April 19, 2024 after the annual Glad’s Got Talent competition. Tri-M Music Honor Society President Julissa Zuniga, a CCHS senior, appreciated that this year’s show expanded student participation with Burney-Harris Lyons Middle School and Clarke Middle School students. “I want (all students) to be able to display their abilities,” Zuniga said. “I definitely want to be more inclusive (with everything) because it’s a talent show, but we mainly focus on singing or instruments. Last year was the first year (in a while) that we included dance because it was something that students were interested in.” Photo by Peter Atchley
The Tri-M Music Honor Society’s 16th Annual Glads Got Talent will return to CCHS on April 23 at 6 p.m., with CCSD middle schoolers performing for the first time alongside CCHS students.
The 16th annual Clarke Central High School Glads Got Talent show, held by the Tri-M Music Honor Society, will be on April 23 at 6 p.m. in the E.B. Mell Auditorium to showcase the diverse talents of CCHS and feeder middle school students.
The Glads Got Talent show is a longstanding celebration of students’ talents seeking to award three competitors for CCHS, and three for Burney-Harris Lyons Middle School and Clarke Middle School in the middle school divison. Through the years, talents have been instrumentally focused, such as violin playing or band performances, but in the past three years, dancers and rappers have also taken to the stage.
“(The show) is important because there’s only so many ways kids can express themselves and this is an outlet for that, because some kids don’t fit into certain music classes,” Tri-M President Julissa Zuniga, a CCHS senior, said. “If a (student) wants to express themselves through an interpretive dance, a song or (a) band with their friends, that is something that they can come and audition for and express to the whole school another side of themselves.”
For the first time since the inaugural show in 2010, students from BHL and CMS have been invited to compete alongside CCHS students during the show. Zuniga and other Tri-M Executive Board members held auditions on March 26 from 3:45-5:30 p.m., and reached out as a way to market the show for CMS and BHL students.
“We want (middle schoolers) to see that there are other musical pathways that they can follow, (like) dance. They could follow (any talent) they’re interested in, like having a band with their friends,” Zuniga said. “We want to show them that if they truly want to do it, they can if they put the effort in.”
“If a (student) wants to express themselves through an interpretive dance, a song or (a) band with their friends, that is something that they can come and audition for and express to the whole school another side of themselves.’”
— Julissa Zuniga,
Tri-M President and CCHS senior
To judge the Glads Got Talent show, Tri-M Adviser Dr. Eunice Kang, the CCHS fine arts department chair, will invite local talented professionals in the music industry. To win, a student must score highly in fundamentals like pitch and rhythm, expressive qualities like style and dynamics and overall showmanship.
“The more you perform in front of others, you become more confident and less self-conscious. Usually, when it’s the first time someone’s performing, they might not have that confidence yet, but they’re working towards it,” Kang said. “That’s really the point (of a talent show), to give lots of performance opportunities so students gain more self-assurance.”
