A High Note In Students' Lives: Choir Gives Them A Sense Of Belonging

A group of Kenosha students and their mentors have taken the power of music to new heights.

Just one year after organizing the Voices of Colors Gospel Choir, the group has grown from about a dozen participants at Bradford High School to more than 30 from Bradford and Tremper High Schools and Bullen Junior High.

Jena Cooksey Ptorsha Cozart Wilma Johnson

And it has created a family of friends who share their talents and give each other support.

“A lot of kids in this choir do not sing in school choir, and they were looking for something to belong to,” said Wilma Johnson, the choir’s co-advisor who is a security officer at Bradford.

The choir was organized for last year’s Black History Month activities by Bradford junior Jena Cooksey and 1996 Bradford graduate Artisha Harvey.

“We did so well at the Black History Month program that we wanted to stay together,” Cooksey said. “It was created almost by accident and it blossomed into this great program.”

Cooksey — whose mother Esta is a counselor at Bradford and co-adviser to the choir — sought out her minister to direct the choir.

“When she came to me I was glad to do it,” said Minister Shawnelle Gross of the Outreach Ministry Church, who is a Bradford alumus.

The choir, which is not associated with any school, now performs at events throughout the area.

Ptorsha Cozart, a senior at Bradford, said she enjoys the choir because she loves “new gospel” music, which the school choir does not sing.

“It’s a lot of fun singing — you move to it,” she said. “You can be comfortable singing what you’re singing.”

In addition, said Johnson, the choir is a positive activity.

“For some, their grades are not that good and they don’t belong to organizations at school,” she said. “This is something they can belong to and feel comfortable in.”

Jena Cooksey glows when talking about how the choir has grown and fulfilled a need for a lot of kids.

She knows in talking with Gross that a large number of students have wanted to organize such a choir in Kenosha for many years.

“We made history,” she said. “We did something no one else has done before.”

Posted April 28, 1997