Spring Sing. Spring Sing. Spring Sing. Hundreds of Harding students spend countless hours throughout the semester practicing for an event unlike anything many of them have ever been a part of before. For a few, however, Spring Sing is not a novice idea; it is a routine.
Junior Kendall Carwile is participating in Spring Sing for the third consecutive year. Carwile performed in women’s social club Delta Nu’s show her freshman year, directed the club’s show her sophomore year and is large part in Delta Nu’s show this year.
“Spring Sing is so important for people to get to know each other and start forming relationships,” Carwile said. “Having that shared experience is really special and you can always know that they’ve gone through exactly what you’ve gone through.”
Carwile said many people do not perform in Spring Sing more than once, or even at all, because they believe the time commitment is too great. She disagrees.
“People associate doing Spring Sing with having no time to do anything else, which honestly really isn’t the case,” Carwile said.
Junior Bailey Patterson, on the other hand, has found her three years of Spring Sing to be time-consuming, sometimes becoming overwhelming. Patterson was large part in the Chi Sigma Alpha, Regina and Sigma Phi Mu show her freshman and sophomore years and is a director this year. Despite the stress of the hours of preparation and practices, Patterson said she believes the time commitment has been worth it.
“I think that doing Spring Sing multiple years is something that people should consider more than they do,” Patterson said.
As a director, Patterson added that she is grateful for the experienced members of her show. By having people around that have an understanding of the process, the attitude of the entire group remains more positive during the more challenging practices, according to Patterson.
“It’s easy for people to focus on the negative side of things, but if you can get multiple people who were involved multiple times, then it’s easy for (those) people to say ‘this is normal,’ and ‘this is just how Spring Sing is,’” Patterson said.
Alumnus Riley Sneed participated in Spring Sing during each of his four years at Harding, from 2013 to 2016. For Sneed, four years of Spring Sing was a major accomplishment of his time at Harding.
“After you’ve graduated, you will never think twice about the amount of time and effort that you put into your school work, but you will think back with amazement on (participating in) Spring Sing four years in a row,” Sneed said.
Sneed said that he initially joined Spring Sing his freshman year, because many of his friends were involved. He returned to the show the next year as a director and again his junior and senior years, because it provided him an opportunity to get to know the other members of his social club.
“My favorite part was definitely the friendships that I made,” Sneed said. “Many of the friendships that I hold close today began during one of my four seasons of … Spring Sing.”
Alumna Jeanie Linton also remembers her time in Spring Sing fondly because of the relationships it allowed her to build. Linton participated in Spring Sing as large part in 2012 and 2013 and as small part in 2014.
“There’s no feeling like setting and achieving goals as a collective group — being stressed together and feeling ridiculous together,” Linton said.
Even though she did not participate in a show her senior year, Linton attended the show as a spectator and supporter of the students that did. Now a graduate student at Harding, Linton also attended the show the past two years.
“I love the environment Spring Sing creates on campus and in the community,” Linton said. “People have huge respect for what Spring Sing creates and means across Harding’s history.”
