Students sing at Pearl Harbor event

Chorale honors late teacher who planned Hawaii trip

Armada High School chorale students recently traded Michigan’s chilly temperatures for Hawaii’s sunny shores, but their purpose was Pearl Harbor remembrance rather than purely a vacation.

The trip was made Dec. 4-10 to serve as a performance opportunity, living history lesson and to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It also served to honor the teacher who originally planned the trip: Rachel Ulinski, who died suddenly in June and did not have a chance to see the chorale perform in Hawaii.

“Rachel Ulinski was the choir director here for over a decade,” Armada High and Armada Middle School Choir Director Sara Surzyn said. “She really transformed the choral program in Armada. She was very close with the students who are now seniors and juniors in chorale. She is the one who reached out to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade and set up the trip. The trip was organized and planned for us by Historic Productions.”

Armada High School is located at 23655 Armada Center Road in Armada. Ulinski began working with Historic Productions in 2019 to organize the trip for students.

“Originally the choir was supposed to go in December 2020, but COVID shut that down,” Surzyn said. “She was finally able to get the trip back up and running.”

On Nov. 17, 2022, Ulinski wrote a letter requesting the financial support of individuals and businesses in the community for the trip, so that all chorale students could attend.

“Our organization is planning a trip to Hawaii to perform at the historic programs and at the WWII 80th Anniversary Commemoration Committee Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade (an event in which we were invited to participate on Dec. 7, 2023),” Ulinski wrote.

“Her daughter, son and husband joined us on the trip for many of our activities in Hawaii,” Surzyn said. “They knew it was her dream to take her choir to Hawaii and they wanted to see it come to fruition.”

Surzyn said Armada High School has a chorale and a concert choir. She also runs the Tri-M and the Music Conservatory at Armada High School with Josh Bobek. The chorale, which consists of advanced students, went to Hawaii. The chorale is an audition-only choir, and 15 students from the class were able to attend the trip.

“The choir did quite a bit of fundraising for this event,” Surzyn said. “One of our main fundraisers was at Strikers Entertainment Center in Richmond. Many people also donated as part of Rachel Ulinski’s memorial fund.”

Students learned about Pearl Harbor history while on the trip to Oahu, Hawaii,

but Surzyn also prepared them prior to the trip by inviting a veteran and local Pearl Harbor expert to the classroom to discuss the 1941 Japanese attack.

During the trip, students went to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial to pay respects, and performed on the U.S.S. Missouri. Some of the songs they performed on the U.S.S. Missouri included the national anthem, “Song for the Unsung Hero,” “Imagine,” “O, America,” and “Mary Did You Know?”

“We also ran into an Air Force veteran while we were touring the U.S.S. Missouri, and performed a verse of the Air Force anthem for him. He was very pleased,” Surzyn said.

During a Dec. 7 opening ceremony for the Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade, Armada High School students sang an arrangement of “America the Beautiful” with other choirs from around the country.

“We sang the national anthem with these choirs at the start of the parade as well,” Surzyn said. “We then marched in the parade. We were number 60.”

Students additionally visited the Polynesian Cultural Center to learn about Samoa, Tonga, Aotearoa, Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii.