Each year in April, during the week leading up to Show Choir auditions, the Yeloviches open up their home on Crest Road in Papillion to any students wanting extra help learning the choreography and music or just wanting companionship and a safe space to work on audition material.
The camp extends for two hours after the week’s school-sponsored daily workshops end, usually from 5-7 p.m. The Yelovich family has two Titan Show Choir alumni, Ashley and Jacob, and one current Titanium member, sophomore Virgil Yelovich.
The prep work to get the family’s 2,410-square-foot house ready to host upwards of 60 people by the end of the week presents challenges, “but for the most part, we just shove things to the side and hope there’s enough room,” Virgil said.
Virgil’s older sister, Ashley, who graduated in 2020, is to thank for this tradition. She started it during her freshman year.
“It was basically just her inviting different people, and then it kinda just became this rumor like, ‘Oh we’re hosting this thing at our house,’ and then we just started doing it,” Virgil said.
Over the years, the Yelovich family has invited various alumni to help out with the camp. The main runner has been Jacob, who graduated in 2023.
One of the helpers this year was senior Jack Goecke. In the 2023-24 show choir season, Goecke auditioned for the first time and made the highest group, Titanium.
Goecke attended the Yelovich “camp” in April 2023, leading up to his first ever show choir audition.
As the audition process rolled around again this year, Goecke went to the post-audition-prep camp as a coach, rather than a student.
“After a year of being in Titanium, now that I know what I’m doing and knowing what they look for – how they were on us so much. – I can essentially help them for what the directors are looking for in Ti,” Goecke said.
For Titan Show Choir alumni, the camp has provided an opportunity to pay it forward.
“Going there after and having extra help from people who knew what they were doing definitely helped me,” Goecke said.
