DHS music director names 20 students who who will sing backup for 'Foreigner' at fair

Du Quoin high school students will be performing with the band Foreigner at the Du Quoin State Fair on Saturday, Aug. 23 during the band's classic hit "I Want To Know What Love Is."

Foreigner will donate $500 to the department for appearing with the band and those same student will also sell Foreigner CDs at the concert to raise monies for Foreigner's charity partner, The Grammy Foundation.

Tryouts were held and it gets down to these 20 singers who will sing the chorus to "I Want to Know What Love Is." Members of the chorus will be Sydney Gilliam, Katelyn Gregory, Hannah Werner, Kelly Genesio, Summer Sanders, Jennifer Lambert, Alexis Lilly, Cassie Bramlet, Tiamara Hamilton, Michelle VanZandt, Abigail Vancil, Carlie Daffron, Chandra Gilliam, John Monroe, Tyler McRoy, Logan Stanley, Aiden Porter, Carson Bookstaver and Hayden Schubert.

"We are going to rehearse with them around 5 p.m. on stage. We will be selling their CDs in the grandstand before and after the show," Smith said. "They told us just to come, but each of the singers has the song and we will rehearse it," she said.

It will be a great night for the community.

Both Foreigner and The Grammy Foundation are intent upon helping to keep music education available to students as part of the core curriculum in high schools throughout North America.

The entire proceeds of the choir's CD sales from this show are contributed to this initiative.

The band's latest CD, a three-disc set entitled Feels Like the First Time, features two CDs (one contains acoustic versions of the hits and the other CD contains newly recorded studio versions of the hits), was released on Razor & Tie Records. Feels Like the First Time debuted in the Billboard Top 200 chart at #43, selling over 10,000 units.