After 35 years, the Cahalans lead Logansport Children's Choir for final time

May 19—It's appropriate that the Junior Civic Theater chose "The Sound of Music" as their summer performance.

It comes at a time when Tim and Susan Cahalan, the couple who have brought so much music to Logansport, retire.

They take their final bows on the McHale Performing Arts Center stage Saturday night during the Logansport Children's Choir 35th Spring Concert, which begins at 7 p.m. and is free to the public.

For 35 years the Cahalans have filled Logansport with the sound of music. Longer, really.

The Logansport Children's Choir began in 1988. Tim Cahalan started teaching within the Logansport Community School Corporation in 1981.

When the Cahalans and the Children's Choir take the stage Saturday night they will be joined by 120 choir alumni.

"It's very humbling to know that so many want to come back," said Susan. "And they are coming from San Francisco, Montana, Florida, Virginia."

The event program is so filled with history and alumni info that the Cahalans called it a book.

A lot of memories can be made in 35 years. Many of those memories are documented on the walls of their music room within Logansport High School.

During that time the Logansport Children's Choir has visited 11 countries and 26 states. There have been 1000 members and over 550 songs performed. Even Deputy Mayor Jacob Pomasl and his wife were members of the Children's Choir.

"I believe that the Logansport Children's Choir has been the premier youth organization in the region — if not in the state," Pomasl said. "What the Cahalans have built here and provided for local kids and families for decades is nothing short of remarkable."

Pomasl said some of his best memories was traveling the world with the Cahalans.

"We did so many wonderful things over the years," said Tim. "We started off 'how good can this be' and they got pretty good quickly and they got opportunities around the state and they finally got invited to a festival at Canterbury in London, England."

"He said 'we should go'," said Susan. "I said 'you're nuts! We are not going to take a bunch of kids overseas. You're crazy!' And then we did it."

Always music in the house

Tim Cahalan comes from a musical family. He and his four siblings were started early on piano lessons, though he said they never expected where music would take their children.

"It was like the von Trapp family," he said. "There was always music in the house. Dad would say 'ok, we have company, everyone's going to sing.'"

Susan Cahalan caught the music bug when the Logansport High School choir and swing choir performed at Columbia Elementary School. She was a third grader and can still recall them singing numbers like "Little Brown Jug" and "Comin' through the Rye."

"That was a defining moment for me," she said. "Then I started taking piano lessons and the rest is history."

Tim taught first at Union City and then a year and a half later returned home to Logansport.

He first taught elementary school and loved it. He found he had a talent for teaching music to young people.

""They took the choir program and put life back into it and made it what it is today," said Logansport Community School Corporation Superintendent Michele Starkey. "They are the reason it has grown and become so large."

During a workshop at Butler Tim Cahalan learned about running a children's choir from Henry Leck, the founder of the Indianapolis Children's Choir.

"I thought we could do that here," he said.

And so, in 1988 Tim and Susan Cahalan did just that.

"Which we've done to the point of exhaustion ever since," he said. "It's been a great blessing. It's been our entire world."

A second family

"The more years that have gone by the more fun we have had with the kids," Tim said.

The Cahalans said they tend to shoot from the hip sometimes, which takes some of their choir members by surprise. But they are quick to adapt and turn the tables on their musical mentors.

"It's kind's of another family for our kids and you will see in musical productions the talent that we have is in large part due to the Cahalans and how much they foster it in our kids," said Starkey. "I think for our kids they have become cheerleaders, people that they know they can talk to. And they know that while they will be their cheerleaders they will also get on them when they are maybe not doing things the way they should or maybe not making good choices. They've become huge mentors to our kids."

The Cahalans have worked together for so long—Tim conducting and Susan as an accompanist—that they can read each other's minds when rehearsing. They spend each day together and said when they go out for dinner they often don't have anything more to say because they've discussed everything already.

Maybe retiring will give them something to talk about over dinner, they wonder.

Susan took on duties like booking tours and other minutia that kept the Children's Choir and their groups at Logansport High school going.

"For me, because I freely admit she does a lot of the dirty work—I get the higher percent of the time the joy of making music and working with the kids," Tim said. "There's a tremendous amount of other stuff she's taken on over the years."

One year a student gave Susan a doll as a gift. The doll is called the "Damn It Doll" and is meant to be used so that she could take out her frustrations on the doll and not her husband.

"Every once in a while it comes flinging across the room," Tim said.

Like Starkey said, the students love the Cahalans as if they are an additional pair of parents.

"We're kind of second parents for a lot of these kids," said Susan. "They grow up with us. They go on trips with us and everything else. It's always felt like a family. The kids look out for each other and we look out for them."

When it came time for senior Gracie Kitchell to choose someone to honor as an inspiration during Logansport High School's Pillars of the Community event, her choice was obvious. The Cahalans.

"The Cahalans have become my parents," she said. "I go over to their house all the time, show up unannounced. They are such a safe space for me. I'm so incredibly lucky to have worked with them as closely as I have and known them."

"If you look at all of the amazing teachers and coaches Logansport has had through the years, no coach or teacher has done it better," said Courtney Kitchell, Gracie's mother. "Tim and Susan took kids from third through 12th grade—a 10-year age gap—and brought them together. The key is they didn't dumb it down, but through discipline and passion they took that whole group to the highest levels. The Logansport Children's Choir is one of the best things ever to happen to our community."

"Being a part of choir with the Cahalans is magic," said Emily Cole. "As a senior, I was prepared to miss them next year. There's an entirely different hole in my heart knowing that there will never be anyone else who will get to experience that magic."

Principal Matt Jones called the Cahalans a dynamic duo, saying their dedication to music and the students has left a lasting impact on the community.

Tim is quick to pass credit to his wife. Beyond the extra work that she did to help the choir off of the stage, he said Susan is a magnet when it comes to the kids, saying it was important for them to have another female to talk to who isn't a parent.

"The kids know who the boss is," said Tim. "And I don't mind that. She's brilliant."

The touring life

The first European tour took place in July and August of 1997. Sixty students join together with nine other choirs from eight different states as part of the International Children's Choir Festival.

Over the years members of the Logansport Children's Choir have performed in Italy, Austria, Germany, England, the Czech Republic, Switzerland.

They've performed in Hawaii, New Orleans, New York City, Boston, Georgia, Pennsylvania.

During the COVID pandemic, the Children's Choir did a virtual performance of the folksong/ hymn "How Can I Keep from Singing." The video has nearly 4,000 views on YouTube.

In June 2022, the Children's Choir embarked on their last tour. They went to Washington, DC, where they performed at Arlington National Cemetery.

Tim Cahalan said the best parts of touring have always been things that weren't planned. Like Susan playing Mozart's organ. Or the Canadian Brass giving the students an impromptu concert. Or being asked to sing for costumers while eating at a restaurant.

His favorite memory, perhaps, came in 2015 during a performance in 400-year-old church in Quebec.

"It was in the middle of a square and it was a warm summer's day so we had the (church's) doors open," he recalled. "We started our concert and there were 15 or 20 people there. As we went along it started filling in. More and more people would come in. They would hear it in the square. By the end it was completely full. And they gave us a big ovation at the end. That was really fun."

So long, farewell

Friday morning. The walls of the Cahalan's music room at Logansport High School are now bare. The memories of tours and performances stashed away.

Students are helping clear bulletin boards of snapshots. They are the first to see Superintendent Starkey walk into the classroom. They scurry to their seats, the last generation of the Cahalan musical legacy.

Gracie Kitchell is there, taking a seat to the side, away from the other students, a smile on her face. Emily Cole is there, too. Layla Powell. Carissa Dawson. Finley Gay. Jacob Patty. Sam Fultz. Jenna Gross. Casen Lake. Payton Mucker. So many others.

The Cahalan's daughter, Laura enters the room, her fiancé walking alongside of her, streaming the moment so the other Cahalan daughter, Sarah, can witness it from afar.

Principal Jones is there. So is assistant principal Christy Diehl.

Each year, the Logansport School Corporation gives out Crystal Berry awards to staff members who go above and beyond in their profession.

Starkey holds a Crystal Berry award, presents it to Susan. The students fill the room with nearly 30 seconds of applause.

Starkey wishes everyone a great morning and the entourage exits the room.

There's a brief pause. Starkey reenters with a second Crystal Berry award.

"I'm not very theatrical but I wanted to be a little tricky," she says as she presents Tim his award. "On behalf of the Logansport School Corporation I would like to award Mr. Cahalan the Crystal Berry award."

And the clapping begins again.