The Iowa High School Music Association All-State Festival starts tomorrow and four Greene County High School students will be performing.

For two of those students, it will be their first trip to Ames. Freshman Jacob Hansen is the youngest of the four qualifiers to make it for choir. During his audition, he tells Raccoon Valley Radio it was a unique experience and he talks his reaction when he made it through without being recalled.

“As soon as I saw my name wasn’t on the recall list, I was like ‘That’s it, it’s over. Michael (Kennedy) is on the recall list there’s no way I made it.’ At that point when I saw my name on the first round list (of qualifiers) I was numb. Like I was just kind of void of all emotion. I was happy, yeah, but I wasn’t jumping up and down in excitement.”

Senior Kenna Marquardt is also a first-time qualifier for choir and she describes what she is looking forward to the most at the festival.

“I’m really excited to sing with everyone there. There’s probably going to be around 600 people in the choir, so it’s going to be a really big sound that is an experience that you’ll only have one chance to do so, I’m looking forward to it.”

Hansen and Marquardt join Michael Kennedy and Noah Von Stein for the festival Thursday through Saturday in Ames.

You can hear more from all of the students on today’s Community State Bank in Paton Let’s Talk Greene County program.