Anchored in Creativity
This past weekend I was reminded of the importance of creativity.
This past weekend, I went back to my hometown to record some behind-the-scenes footage for Pop Go the Sailors: Home Again, a “Salute to the Lawtons.” Shawn Lawton has been the choir director at Mona Shores High School—my alma mater—for over 30 years. Molly Lawton has been the director and choreographer of musicals there for 27 years.
My experience with the choir was brief but profound nonetheless. I was a junior in high school, involved with student government (surprised?) and the newspaper. I ran into Shawn in the hallway, and he looked at my badge (which I had for either student government or the newspaper—I can’t remember) and we had the following exchange:
Lawton: Why aren’t you in choir?
Me: I don’t know how to sing well.
Lawton: Are you in Spanish?
Me: Yes.
Lawton: Did you know how to speak it before you took it?
I was impressed with the—let’s call it moxie—that this adult showed in speaking so directly to a teenager. That alone sold me. Plus, the choir program at our school was huge. It truly seemed like a waste not to spend at least one year in it.
So I took him up on it. Although my singing ability shouldn’t be the metric used to measure the value of the experience. That being said, it was incredible. I got to be part of The Singing Christmas Tree, which was amazing. I performed in the annual Pop Goes the Sailors show. To my surprise, not only was I in the big group number, but I also got to do a few additional ones as well. I had the full choir experience in one year.
Best of all, I got to know Shawn and Molly Lawton. They are deeply passionate and creative people—and that alone was worth the price of admission.
Over the course of 24 years, I had seen other student productions. Listen, this is an observation, not a judgment—but they usually aren’t the most polished productions, right? I started to wonder how good the program at Shores really was, given those others. Well, this weekend, I got my answer.
It was good. Whether the alumni who came to sing in this show were from the class of 1994 or 2024, the level of talent that has been on that stage is unbelievable. And many of those alumni have gone on to have day jobs far removed from the arts—but when they came to rehearse, they came to rehearse.
It was, and is, a very good program.
As I walked through the old halls, I noticed that both creativity and art are foundational in that wing of the school. I was surrounded by signs with sayings about the importance of art. More than that, I could see that establishing a strong work ethic around creativity was a clear priority. I watched the final rehearsal that Shawn Lawton ever conducted and was reminded: this came from the top. He never once had a “eh, it’s just high school choir” mentality. He treated that program like it was something special. As a result, the students were eager to meet him there. They worked hard. And yet—it wasn’t a drag. It was a joy to pour your whole self into creativity.
Now, again, I was just a tourist in the choir program. My craft has always been in film and video. But having a sort of lighthouse (sailor theme!) that drew me toward it was important. My entry into the creative powerhouse that was the choir program happened in the same year I got to study film and video production. It took twelve years of school before a teacher named Dave Droski started that class. Both of them gave me what I had been waiting my entire time in school to get from school.
Over the last few years, we as a culture have prioritized STEM education—which is, of course, good and important. But I wonder if the pendulum hasn’t swung a bit too far in that direction. That is our way, isn’t it? Have we left behind the importance of the humanities? Of creativity? Of remembering that art is something that binds us together?
The tech overlords have prioritized algorithms, social media platforms, and AI—tools that, perhaps unintentionally, encourage inhumanity. Not in an apocalyptic sense, but certainly in a way that isolates us. They’ve stripped the messiness out of human connection. They’ve turned the people we know into binary categories: “good” or “bad.” We end real-life relationships over a Facebook post?
To foster creativity and make art is to celebrate humanity. In 2025, there may be nothing more transgressive to the powers that be than to revel in the joy of being human. There is no greater anthem than the anthem of making art. Write. Sing. Draw. Film. Watch. Listen. Observe. Appreciate it all.
Because this weekend—amid everything else happening in the world—I was reminded: to make art is to be human, and to be human is to be alive.
Thank you for seeing this Jake! Yes, the arts provide an avenue for expression, camaraderie, acceptance, and the list goes on! We need the arts more than we realize! It was wonderful catching up with you and thanks for this story!
Similar experience for me. I pushed off taking choir in high school due to other electives. One advantage of being raised in a holy roller evangelical church was that we sang, a lot. And singing your heart out was encouraged, a lot. It filtered into our home, we sang, and we learned as children that our family could, “carry a tune” as our musical minds developed. Senior year, I enrolled in the men’s choir. I learned there was more to singing than I thought as I needed to match pitch and sing my section’s part. We had something like 60 males in 2nd hour at the start. I remember Mr. Lawton giving a couple early warnings that some of the students in class might have taken Choir thinking it was a way to just get out of working for an hour or that it was an easy A. I cleaned up my act quickly as I loved the environment and didn’t want to be shown the door. Tuesday, September 11, 2001 happened and we learned of our generation’s Pearl or JFK moment in choir. We sang in the tree, and performed at festival, followed by Pops. A striking memory, which I shared with Shawn a few years ago, occurred. I was called on to sing a part, solo that our section was struggling with during a rehearsal. I did my best and I’ll never forget his response that I should have been in choir all four years. What a statement, as I learned at 18 the sting regret can incur. Sure, I made more mistakes along the way but I knew from then why Hughes described dreams deferred. We all get one go at this, and it’s best to sing along.
Happy Retirement to the Lawtons!