Ginger Martin has a box of cassette tapes all of recordings of herself singing.

Jackie Leatherman/News-Herald Photo Daytona Middle School seventh grader Elise Cunning sang during a recent choir class. Cunning is the youngest Daytona student to take the top soloist spot in the state choir.

“I record every song myself. I do it the old fashioned way on tapes. Amazing Grace, All Through the Night,” said the Daytona Middle School choir and band teacher as she rifled through the box. “That’s a lot of singing. I sing on Saturdays until I’m sick of singing.”

Martin started recording individual songs on the tapes a year after she started teaching at Daytona. She credits those tapes for helping her achieve the state choir awards. Students take the tapes home giving them a “private teacher,” she said.

“I just couldn’t get to (the students) often enough,” she said.

It looks like those tapes have paid off.

Each year, Daytona’s choir has performed better and better at state competitions – and this year the students shattered school records in the February competition by placing 17 students in the state honor choir. Daytona alone holds about one-third of the choir places. And this year a seventh-grader made the soprano soloist — the first time a younger student from Dayton has taken that top honor.

“I love singing,” said Elise Cunning, the soloist. “My parents say I’m good at it. It just comes naturally, I guess.”

Martin said she wasn’t surprised by Cunning’s placement.

“That girl can sing,” she said. “You just know when they can really nail something.”

Daytona will continue to top their lists of “first-evers” on March 29 when they perform for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. during a presentation of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall here.

Martin said McCain will be the highest official the group has performed for.

And Lake Havasu City will be hosting a state choir performance here May 1, the second time the performance has come here since 2007.

Martin recently sat in her large classroom one afternoon, with the door wide open, talking about how this choir’s teamwork stands out from previous choirs.

Martin was surrounded by a row of drums, scattered chairs, piles of sheet music and performance props, awards and trophies and instrument cases — resembling a musical garage. Interruptions came frequently as students darted in and out to grab a forgotten water bottle, a book, or worksheets to track practices over spring break.

It’s like Martin’s classroom is that neighbor’s house where everyone is welcome to come and go as they please.

“In this room of a mess, I do know where everything is,” she said. “I’m so proud of myself.”

Her white board — which she calls “her life” — is scattered with messages, after-school lesson schedules, notes of who has what instruments and the song list for the upcoming spring performance.

Which will be Daytona’s last choir show — the thought instantly brought tears to Martin’s eyes.

“It’s hurting,” she said, choking up. “I have to see the last curtain close on the last show.”

Daytona will officially close its doors July 1 after the school district governing board voted in February to shut down the school to save money because of a dwindling budget.

Martin has been teaching there for six years and said she expects to transfer to the district’s second middle school, Thunderbolt.

“Thunderbolt has bent over backward to accommodate the type of program that I have here,” she said. “(They have) made major changes. I was so thankful they saw the value of making such a huge change in the program at their school.”

But until then, Martin will be showing up at her classroom almost every Saturday to continue working on upcoming shows.

“I feel like we are really at the top of our game,” she said.

You may contact the reporter at jleatherman@havasunews.com