As we all know last Wednesday, March 19th, marked the one year anniversary of Donae Johnicans death and Lincolns’ very own dance group, LHD, put together a choreographed dance in honor of him. The dance consisted of actual recordings of Donae’s voice in the song.

I  interviewed two members of LHD to find out how they felt about being a part of this tribute to Donae. I asked Senior, Teresa Grant how long LHD has been preparing this dance, she said, “We’ve been planning it for months because we wanted to make it special and we started practicing it about a month ago.”

The two songs put together for the dance had recordings of Donae’s voice in them. It was not only emotional for the onlookers to hear but for the dancers as well, I asked Teresa if it was hard for her or maybe some of the other dancers to dance to the sound of his voice and she said, “It was hard for some of us who knew him because it brought back memories of him but it also affected some of the people who didn’t really know him but when we heard his voice it felt like he was there with us in our presence.” His voice recordings did indeed give the feel that he was there with us, I myself was overcome with a bit of emotion when I first heard his voice.

I asked Teresa how she felt, personally, about being a part of this tribute to him, “I felt honored and special to get a chance to show people the impact he had on my life and how important he was to everyone”

I also interviewed Freshman, Joshua Michaelberg about his take on the dance his group prepared for Donae. I asked Joshua if it was a group decision to do this dance and he said that it was the team captain and co captains idea to do the dance. Yhizel Torres, Rachel Le, and Dominic Mendez were the ones who came up with the idea and altumetly made the decision and choreographed this dance and prepare it.

Being a Freshman this year, Joshua didn’t get to know Donae personally, but I asked him what he did know about him prior to the dance he partook in for him. He said, “I didn’t know him personally, but I knew that a lot of people loved him and that he was smart and talented.”

I  asked Joshua how he felt personally about being part of this tribute to Donae. He said, “I definitely feel happy. He seems like the kind of person who would deserve it and other people strongly feel the same way, so this is a way I can pay respects.”

It was indeed a beautiful and creative way to pay respects to our dear friend on the anniversary of his death. One of the songs that was used for the dance was called “I’ll be Missing You” and just like the song says, last Wednesday we were all thinking of the day when you went away, what a life to take, what a bond to break, we’ll be missing you.