On March 22, Lantern Road Elementary School music teacher Connie LaRocco will direct her last choir concert after 24 years at LRE.
Thirty of LaRocco’s former students — including one from California — will return to sing with the elementary choir, and 20 more will join as musicians. The concert will feature 174 elementary students. The handbell choir also will perform.
“My choir kiddos, when they leave me, they love to come back and play their instruments and perform and accompany the choir,” said LaRocco, who will retire at the end of the school year.
Limited space and has prevented former students from participating in previous choir concerts. LaRocco said LRE’s principal made arrangements in April 2018 to conduct her final concert at Fishers High School so there would be adequate room. The free concert begins at 8 p.m.
LaRocco started the choir as an extracurricular activity in 1995 when LRE opened. Since then, LaRocco said more than 2,300 students have sang in her choir.
LaRocco knows she plans to garden, travel with her husband and be a “crazy, old, bird lady” in retirement. But she will miss her students greatly.
“I’m going to miss my kids,” she said. “I know I will get bored, so I will have to do something. I can’t come back to Lantern Road (for choir) because that wouldn’t be fair to the new music teacher, but I will find ways to volunteer at the elementary schools around (Indianapolis).”
LaRocco also is considering starting a community children’s choir in Fishers.
