By Zach Hester, Reporter • zach@southerntorch.com

RAINSVILLE, Ala. — The Senior Beta team from Cornerstone Christian Academy will be heading home from the national competition in Savannah, Ga. with an extra piece of luggage. That extra piece will be a first place trophy for their spectacular win in Group Talent.

Since 2016, Cornerstone Christian Academy has been devoting countless hours and amounts of energy in producing some of the best group talents at the state and national level conventions.

Their first show at the Alabama State Beta Convention in 2016 actually took first place, and they took that performance to a top ten spot at the national convention in New Orleans.

Since July of 2017, Cornerstone had been brainstorming new ideas after a loss in Orlando.

“We left Orlando discouraged and questioning whether or not we wanted to sacrifice so much of ourselves again to this competition,” said Cornerstone student Maggie Wilks. “We realized it was not up to us to disregard and not use the amazing talents [God] has given our small club.”

After deciding on a Pirates of the Caribbean themed show, the ambitious club had a renewed sense of excitement for their talent. Instead of going with normal painted backdrops, they built a full pirate ship, a project led by sophomore Tanner Gatewood.

The twenty-foot-long wooden frame was wrapped in canvas and painted like wood and quickly became the show’s focal point.

“In order for our show to win, we knew that each and every person on stage had to become their character,” said Wilks. “We had the famous characters of Captain Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones, and Calypso, but our show required much more than three main characters.”

After winning the state competition in April, Cornerstone was invited to compete in Savannah.

“Since April, we have worked on perfecting and detailing our show and working on becoming more like our characters. At nationals, this was our strength on stage. We were able to truly become our characters and make the audience believe who we were,” Wilks concluded.

Congratulations to the Cornerstone Beta team on this great honor!