‘Eternally grateful’
Longtime Cibola choir director moving on to Gainesville, Fla.
Brandon Stroup, longtime director of the choir program at Cibola High School, founder of the Deseret Chamber Choir and conductor of the Messiah, is moving on but he leaves behind memories of many special moments he helped create in the community.
For family reasons, Stroup has resigned his position with Cibola to move to Gainesville, Florida. There he will teach choir to grades 6-12 at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, a K-12 school attached to the University of Florida.
The leaving is bittersweet, he acknowledged. “Yuma is a wonderful community. I have met the most amazing friends who then became family here. And Cibola has been an incredible place to work, especially with Ericka Nelson
alongside me.”
He leaves satisfied, though, to know he has made an impact on the community through the special musical moments he helped create.
As a highlight of last year’s holiday season, nearly 300 voices in the Cibola High School choral program filled the auditorium with the beautiful music of Christmas from the light-hearted “Mele Kalikimaka” to the soaring “O Holy Night.” It was a performance met with applause, standing ovations and perhaps a few tears from sold-out audiences four nights in a row.
As it turned out, that was to be the choir’s final concert for the school year – and the grand finale of director Brandon Stroup’s tenure at the school. Just a few weeks before the choir was scheduled to pres
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