A freshly renovated auditorium at HHS greeted guests of various programs over the last month after the project that began at the beginning of the year concluded Jan. 26. Improvements to the lighting and sound systems, and brand new seats and carpet transformed the space that has since hosted football’s end-of-season banquet, show choir’s spring parent show and the South Central Classic, as well as the Black History Month program.
HHS principal Joel Henneke said the school has eyed auditorium renovations for some time.
“For quite a while, I felt the auditorium needs attention,” Henneke said. “It wasn’t quite commensurate with the rest of our facilities, just with regard to quality.”
Auditorium manager and show choir director Byron Mosquera was also involved in the renovation discussions and said they were focused on upgrading the presentation of performances as well as the physical facilities.
“We had a lot of meetings prior to the actual renovations with some architects,” Mosquera said. “They wanted to make sure the new things they were giving us, specifically with light and sound, were going to be what we need for all the events that we have.”
Mosquera said he is thrilled about the look and possibilities of the new auditorium.
“I’ve been blown away, honestly, completely blown away,” Mosquera said. “There is so much that can happen in there right now.”
Junior Luke Richards helps with the technical aspects of show choir and the auditorium, assisting with operating lights, sound, the curtain and the presentation screen.
“I had to be trained on the lightboard and the sound system, so I have primarily been working on lighting because we haven’t had time to train other people,” Richards said. “That’s my primary job right now, but soon we will be training the rest of stage crew.”
Richards said the parent show “went surprisingly really well,” despite needing to train on the new technology.
“We had good responses with all the new stuff,” he added. “We had a little hiccup with the curtain…but that’s since been fixed and we’re good to go.”
Now that the new auditorium is finished, Henneke believes people can see show choir’s full performance and other programs at their best. He admitted that each year he could tell an acoustic difference between the show choir performing at HHS and their performances at other schools.
“We’ll have the quality sound,” Henneke said. “We’ll have the great stage lighting, and the seating there is great…we’re gonna get the feel.”
The auditorium had to be done in a specific amount of time for the show choir to host its annual South Central Classic competition. Henneke said there was very little “wiggle room” in finishing the renovations on time, but credited “great people in the district facilitating that.”
Feb. 19 was the first time in several years the school’s annual Black History Month Program was held in the auditorium. In previous years, the program was held in the competition gym to provide enough seating for the students, faculty and guests. The tech crew helped with the preparation for the program in its new home.
Mosquera said he and Richards were in the sound booth for the program, but pulling off the program was a team effort.
“We had some other tech crew students that were backstage helping with pushing the piano out, or adjusting microphones for the people that were going to come out and speak,” Mosquera said.
The next auditorium event is the Hall Kent Talent Show March 6.
