10-12 students looked forward to the second annual Faculty Shine with the high expectations set last year. Without a doubt, the faculty exceeded these expectations. At first, I was a little skeptical when Paul Marcus hadn’t shown up and Mrs. White began doing a very well executed performance of “I’m a Little Teacup” (nobody knows whether that was planned or not), but then finally Mr. Marcus showed up and sang one of the most iconic songs ever sung in Simms, I Am Not Trapped. It is a very ironic song as well, since most of the time we do feel trapped in Simms. He unsuccessfully tried to get the student body to sing along, but we just didn’t want to ruin it.

Up next, Mr. Watson, Ms. Valenzuela, Ms. Brown, and our own local celebrity, JZ,  sang I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys. When Mr. Watson began singing, even though the mic wasn’t fully functioning, the students went wild. Mr. Zuffranieri sang next, which provoked an even louder reaction from the students, possibly because his mic was the loudest of the four, or possibly because we love knowing that JZ is not merely a Jeopardy whiz kid. Next up, Ms. Valenzuela nailed her solo. Ms. Brown, who has recently released a CD of “Trop Rock” music with her band, also revealed some hidden talent none of us had seen before. Right now, according to Mrs. White, they should be in Bangkok debuting their Backstreet Boys tribute band.

After this was a somewhat confusing appearance of Mr. Kim and his cowbell, which were both dragged off stage before Mr. Anderson and Mr. Kevan performed Beachball Ballet, by far the most visual (and scarring) representation of their bromance yet. It obviously took a large amount of focus and practice, but they pulled it off. Mr. Kevan tells me, “It was fun to be a fool. We put the time in to try to execute perfection. We failed a little on our execution, but I think it came out alright.” Despite Keevan’s modesty, the performance was quite near perfection, the most impressive part being when he managed to go under Mr. Anderson’s legs while still keeping the ball between them. There were, however, some complaints from the junior powderpuff boys that, if Mr. Kevan and Mr. Anderson could do that in front of all of 10-12, why were they not allowed to perform certain dances for powderpuff? The Advocate will not take a stance on this.

Mr. Lipkowitz admitted it was a hard performance to follow, but Mr. Lipkowitz and Mr. Packer, AKA Packowitz, played some very cool folk songs. They were much mellower than what followed but still their ability to play together so well was impressive. This, however, is probably because they spend so much time together at school they might as well live with each other, another iconic duo on campus.

Last year, quite a few teachers in leather jackets performed a dance to Greased Lightning. Mr. Kevan told me, “the faculty stepped up in the last days before the Shine.” This was obvious, especially in their dance to MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This. The gold parachute pants and silver jackets were a spicy touch to their well coordinated dance choreographed by Ms. Rojas. Ms. Good said that teacher shine “was a blast.” I know I’m biased towards my two teachers, but Mrs. Good and Dr. Metzler were the stars of the show. I have never seen anyone look cooler in a backwards hat than Mrs. Good, and Dr. Metzler is probably the only multivariable calculus teacher who can pull off dancing like that. This fine and funny dance crew was rounded out by Ms. Mariner, Mr. Jacoby, Ms. Jayne Williams, Doc K, Ms. Dara Johnson, Ms. Fleig, Dr. Morris, Ms. Janet Wilson, and of course, our fearless leader, Ms. Lenhart.

The last performance began with Mr. Lokke playing the school song on electric guitar, and then a unique version of Don’t Fear the Reaper (or in this case, Don’t Fear the Teacher), with Mr. Corbin as the lead singer. Finally, Mr. Kim had a spot for the cowbell. Doc Rubie said, “We didn’t practice at all, as you could tell, but we put it together last week but it was a lot of fun to get up there and just be goofy. That’s what [Mrs. White] said – go up there for public humiliation. Yep, that’s me!” Doc Rubie learned the solo in about a week and killed it. Other reapers included Ms. Valenzuela, Ms. Matter and Ms. Brown. The show ended Doc Rubie and Drew Zampella, one of our SAGE Dining chefs who played the drums, shredding for a solid two minutes to conclude Teacher Shine. It was overall a huge success and there was not one person in the audience who could say they didn’t enjoy themselves. Check out the videos below to see some short clips of the performances!