By Nicole Thomas
SHS Choral Director Regina Weeks is the 2015 recipient of the Ernestine Ferrell Award for Excellence in Choral Music. Weeks was honored at the 2015 ACDA/MMEA conference in Hattiesburg. The prestigious award is considered the highest honor for a music educator.
Weeks, a veteran music teacher with more than 20 years of experience, has directed the award-winning SHS Singers for 14 years. The SHS Singers consistently earn highest marks and superior ratings at regional and state contests for their outstanding performances. In recent years, Weeks’ choirs were awarded invitations to perform at Walt Disney World, National Youth Chorale at Carnegie Hall, and the University of Southern Mississippi Invitation Choral Conference and Concert. In 2008, the Mississippi High School Activities Association highlighted the SHS choral department as one of the finest programs in the state in its “Year in Review.”
Weeks was also named Mississippi Music Educator of the Year in 2010, and she was Starkville School District’s Teacher of the Year in 2009.
Weeks earned a bachelor’s degree in music education with an emphasis in voice and piano from Mississippi State University in 1994. Weeks is also a National Board Certified Teacher in music in early adolescence through young adulthood.