Written by Katherine Stinnett
Spring Sing is a time of year for us five Stinnett sisters. We jokingly wish each other, “Happy Holidays!” when the fresh air of spring arrives. We often follow with, “It feels like the Friday of Spring Sing outside,” to describe a perfectly crispy sunny day.
My oldest sister brought home a DVD of her first Spring Sing in 2006 — “Toon In.” Together, the Stinnett sisters experienced the buzz on campus and took in the grandiosity that was Spring Sing — “Camaraderie” the year after. Every year forward, we eagerly counted down the days to our favorite weekend in Arkansas and slowly, the anticipation of the arrival of spring itself would become tradition.
The girls and I rotated one-by-one out of our seats in the Benson, up to the stage, and gracefully returned to cheer on the next sister. We spent those weekends together recounting favorite host numbers, best club shows, acting out the funniest intros and talking about the hosts like they were A-list celebrities.
From my first viewing, I waited. That waiting softened into longing. I longed for my own jersey night, longed to direct my own show, longed to be on stage in my own costume. I also spent lots of longing at the mailbox for the Spring Sing DVD we had ordered and I should have been jump-roping — the digital age was about to peak, Katherine! All that waiting accumulated into some of the most heartfelt memories for all of us and made our own time as students that much dearer.
Finally, my semester of splendor arrived. The TNT/ZP directors wrote and executed a winning show in 2015 — Charlie and the Chocolate Tragedy. That Saturday night celebration felt like a win for the whole Stinnett family — we had never placed first! And I’m wearing a green wig and orange face paint in all the pictures!
Because of my grown affection, I rallied another win for TNT/ZP/Stinnetts with the help of my team of penguins, and I interacted with Spring Sing as often as anyone would let me over the course of my four years. I made costumes, painted sets, talked through ideas and rehearsals with anyone who would listen and even worked as my best friend’s dresser when she hosted. Many of my good friends throughout college hosted or danced in the ensemble — little Katherine couldn’t believe she was going to Sonic with A-list celebrities almost every night of the week! Little Katherine also didn’t know to look forward to the daily phone calls she would get in New York when her youngest sister made her directorial debut. That year of chats are now cherished memories to add to the heaping pile that makes my heart so fond of Spring Sing.
I quickly learned that the heart of Spring Sing lies in the people who create it — more than a weekend of shows or a first place trophy. It’s the memories and songs and reunion. For Club Directors and Production, it’s a year of creative labor coming to life. For a lot of us, it is or was a semester (or two… or eight) of creating friendships that still have life or getting to show a semester’s creative work that then creates the life on campus for all of us to enjoy and remember.
As of 2023, the last Stinnett sister to grace the stage bowed her last. So, to be back in 2024 as a Judge for the 50th feels like the closing of a nearly perfect circle. Once our expectation, now our experience makes up almost twenty years of history that connects us five sisters to five decades of footsteps that, too, pattered across the Benson stage.
The connection that many tie to Spring Sing comes in vast variety, closed circle or not — it lives in the memories, the present moment, the expectant future and in the faces that come to mind in reflection.
The quick, crisp, airy breeze on the Friday of Spring Sing continues to remind me that across five decades, still, United We Stand.
