Student Raechel Brunson ’19 connects her award-winning experience in a cappella to her experience building community on campus.
At the recent South Quarterfinal of the Varsity Vocals Intercollegiate Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), Raechel Brunson ’19 won the Outstanding Soloist award across nine universities in her division. Elon’s a capella group Shirley Tempos competed in the recent Athens, GA competition where Brunson won this special award for her solo of “Love on the Brain” by Rihanna.
“My a cappella group had never competed before. We’d been working hard all of Winter Term,” Brunson says regarding the concert held February 9 and 10 where Shirley Tempos closed out their three-song set with “Greedy” by Ariana Grande and “The Last of the Real Ones” by Fall Out Boy.
Brunson is majoring in creative writing and drama & theatre studies and is originally from Fayetteville, N.C. In addition to singing, she educates the Elon community as an events & planning manager for the Gender & LGBTQIA Center, a diversity center on campus. Singing and educating are near and dear to Raechel’s heart, as she has achieved leadership and a sense of community through these organizations while at Elon.
Using her golden voice for good, Brunson gives this advice to fellow Elon students, “I try my best to be kind to everybody. You never know the impact you can have on someone else’s day. I would never want someone to feel like I said a harsh word against them or did something that caused them to have a bad day. That’s easily preventable when you can use your voice to do good.”
You can catch Brunson singing at the upcoming Shirley Tempos spring concert in April 2018.