FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - As Fairbanks prepares to host the Arctic Winter Games this March and volunteers sign up by the hundreds, two local men and a sixth-grade class at Denali Elementary School are volunteering their time to give the games a voice.
John Kohler, a longtime Fairbanks resident, and his friend Heath Robertson, a sixth-grade teacher at Denali, crafted the song that will play this spring as the theme for one of the world’ biggest amateur athletic events.
Held every two years since 1970, the Arctic Winter Games bring athletes from arctic nations around the globe, from Russia and Norway to Canada and Greenland. The games are set to be held this year in Fairbanks.
To determine the theme song, games organizers put out a call for songs. Entrants had to compose both the music and lyrics to the song, which would be reviewed by a panel of judges who would narrow the list down to finalists for the public to vote online.
The song that won, “Light the Torch,” was written by Kohler and Robertson, but it wasn’t their first attempt. Kohler said he wrote a number of songs in varying genres before creating the eventual winner.
The idea came after Kohler had already written a country theme song and a heavy metal theme song among others, when Robertson told him he was working on a rap song and Kohler responded he was working on a reggae version.
The two teamed up, combining the ideas and writing the song that would eventually become “Light the Torch.”
“They did the contest and there was a bunch of voting and this one took like 80 percent of the vote,” Kohler said.
Once the song was officially chosen, Kohler and Robertson recorded their parts, and all that was left was for Robertson’s sixth-grade class to record their verses. On Wednesday, the class made the trip to McCafferty’s coffee house and recording studio in downtown Fairbanks.
The two dozen students filled the entire ground floor of the shop, where McCafferty’s owner had set up two microphones to record the students.
“This is my town,” Kohler said. “I care about what happens here. I want it to be cool if I can help make a cool thing.”
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, https://www.newsminer.com
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