Chattanooga State Singing Tigers hitting high notes on campus

It's not a class or a show choir, but when members of the group walk into the rehearsal classroom in the C.C. Bond Humanities Building at Chattanooga State Community College they become one in song.

There are teenagers and baby boomers, business majors and human services majors. Some seek a career in music; others simply enjoy the harmony.

They are the Singing Tigers, a group of CSCC students with a love of music. They were intentionally recruited to be diverse, to inspire each other and to be ambassadors in the community.

"We want to inspire a generation of greatness, with the purpose to unite students," said Carlous Drake, the group's director and adviser for the school's Project Ahead, a student support group.

Since the Singing Tigers are a club, they do not compete with the school's other music programs. But they do perform at school and community functions such as a faculty/staff Christmas luncheon, Epilepsy Foundation Christmas event, Black History Month celebration and church services.

Their primary musical genre is inspirational gospel, Drake said, but their repertoire varies.

"We're not too pigeonholed," he said.

With members from 18 to 62, including a mother and son, the Singing Tigers don't exactly fit the image of the show choir competition group chronicled on the Fox television series "Glee," but their diversity does offer similarities.

"We're a family," said president Cassandra Tuder, a social work major. "Each of has a story to tell. We're going to make things happen."

Formed with 12 students in the spring of 2009, the group now numbers from 30 to 50, depending on the time it's members can give.

The group's accompanist is Carlous Caldwell Drake, known as "C Minor," its founder's son and a CSCC student himself.

"I asked him to come here and start his music production career, to help me cultivate this choir," said the elder Drake.

The younger Drake, who's had a band since eighth grade and is the music director for youth at Olivet Baptist Church, said the group has helped him learn leadership and teaching skills and more about music in general.

"I'm in [the school] for him," he said of his father. "His music is my music. [The group has helped me put my] best foot forward."

L.J. Wallace, like the younger Drake, is in his first semester at the school and in the group. And like the accompanist, he has his eye on a career in music. In fact, he wants to establish his own record label.

"It's been an amazing experience to meet different ... people," he said. "I'm glad I'm a part of it."

Toward the other end of the group's age spectrum is Regina Reynolds, 52, a mother of four and grandmother of eight who is in the school's Human Services Specialist program. Enrolled at CSCC because she felt she could do more than sling hash or clean houses, she figured the group also would stretch her.

"This drew me," she said. "It took me outside my comfort zone. I have a tendency to be shy. I've grown."

The group, rehearsing recently for a brief mid-December Christmas tour, took on songs such as "Aim High" and "Try" that the elder Caldwell wrote.

With inspiring words and soaring melodies, they reflect the director's continual attempts, he said, to get the students to "see the big picture" and believe in themselves.

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