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Calves bring home the money

Student duet, Daniel and Connor, wins Punk N’ Pie 2017.
Thecla LI/THECHIMES
Thecla LI/THECHIMES

After hearing nine performances, judges awarded sophomore elementary education major Daniel Monroe and sophomore biblical studies major Connor Pfaff the $500 first place prize for their acoustic duet. Junior music in worship major Chloe Rogers and junior music education major Bryan Botka claimed second place, winning $300, while junior kinesiology major David Dionson received $100 for placing third.

TOP THREE

Monroe and Pfaff’s act has been a long time in the making. It started as an improvised song created spontaneously with a few of the duo’s friends, but it slowly evolved into a more intricate and detailed musical masterpiece. The song references their friend Noah Chow’s calves.

“I’m kinda surprised, also just very happy. We’re gonna [celebrate by] spending some quality time with Noah Chow. We couldn’t have done it without Noah,” Pfaff said.

The second place team, Chopsticks, wowed the audience with a piano duet that involved the use of physical chopsticks. The team put a peppy spin on the popular song “Chopsticks,” and used it as a tool to jump in and out of other melodies. After the act was over, they felt confident about their performance, but emphasized the importance of having fun.

“It’s a very different venue from our normal performances,” Botka said. “I really liked this performance because in the practice room, it’s just us and the music, so we can be critical, but when we’re here, we hear people responding and that’s really fun.”

Dionson featured magic tricks in his performance, winning third place after producing a card from his mouth and revealing the name of a major which a volunteer had chosen randomly. Despite forgetting one magic trick in his act and feeling somewhat nervous before arriving to the stage, he enjoyed the performance.

“It was honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. You’re always super nervous leading up to this, because you know you’ve put in so much work and effort into it. You’re always thinking ‘I don’t want things to go wrong.’ But you get out there, you do your first trick and normally things go well. At the end of the day, I had fun. I think I forgot one trick, but it is what it is,” Dionson said.

CHANGES

The location of the event moved from McNally Field to Metzger Lawn this year to make it easier to find and more central on campus, according to Student Programming and Activities event coordinator and junior nursing major Ijah Lockett.

The number of performances the audience could choose to vote for also decreased from five to three, though last year’s Punk N’ Pie elected six performances for the audience vote. While coordinators originally planned to have the judges select their top five choices, they wanted to avoid overworking event services and changed the number of performances the judges selected.

“Normally we would have the top five―this time that was our plan―but for the sake of it being easier on event services… we dropped it to three,” Lockett said.

In the end, all nine acts put up a good fight for first place. The competitors, however, were adamant about the importance of having fun while competing.

“We’re really here just to bring joy to people and glorify God through music,” Rogers said. “When people were excited or laughing or cheering that’s not for our glory, but for God’s glory.”

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About the Contributor
Christian Leonard
Christian Leonard, Editor-in-Chief
Christian Leonard is a junior journalism major whose affinity for chickens is really getting out of hand. He can often be found singing in the office, wrapped around a book, or arguing for the classification of cereal as a soup. [email protected] I came to Biola a nervous freshman, not really sure what I wanted to do during my time at university. Years of prayer and waiting seemed fruitless, until an academic counselor recommended I contact the Chimes, since I had shown a modest interest in journalism. I figured it was worth a shot, so I got in touch with the news editors. After a brief chat, I left, figuring I would write for them the following semester. I was assigned my first story a few days later. The following semester, I became a news apprentice, stepping into a full editorship my sophomore year. Through the experience, I gained a greater appreciation for the bustling community that is Biola—its students, its administration, and its culture—and a deeper desire to serve it through storytelling. As my time as news editor drew to a close, I was encouraged to apply for the editor-in-chief position, a prospect which both intimidated and thrilled me. Yet I ultimately saw it as a way to better support the publication through which God showed me His desire for my life. Now, as I oversee the Chimes, I am committed to upholding myself and the newspaper to standard of excellence, and to helping train the next generation of student journalists.
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