Talent wins titles. But for the four Natchez High School choirs who recently swept the Chicago Festival of Music, it was more than talent at work.

Thirty-seven students traveled to Chicago in early May to take part in the national Music in the Parks Festival of Music. They swept the awards, getting superior ratings, first-place wins and “Best in Class.”

The singers, made up of students in ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grades, have a core leadership that has given the group a special cohesiveness, said their teacher, Joyce Arceneaux Mathis.

“The leadership of the group is the Class of ’08,” Mathis said. “There is a core group of very close friends. All of them have been in the band, in choir and they sing at churches. And some of them have followed Alvin Shelby (in music classes).”

Junior Caleb Johnson said the sweetest thing about the win was the small school competing well with all the large ones.

“We came back with Best in Class. We represented little Natchez, Mississippi, and we showed people that might think we’re country that we can rank with and beat some of the largest cities,” Johnson said.

Cheleen Sugar, a senior member of the choir, will go on to Tougaloo College to pursue music as her major following graduation. The national win was sweet for her.

“It was great to finish the year with sweeps,” she said. “It was good to finish strong as a senior.”

Students not only prepared their musical parts and their showmanship. They went out into the community and raised enough money to pay for their trip, which included for many, the first time to travel on a train and the first time to visit a city such as Chicago.

“The trip cost $34,000, but with fundraisers, the children had to pay about $60 each,” Mathis said.

Her own competitive spirit as a teacher plays into the success of the choirs. Mathis said she has been around long enough that she is on her second generation of students.

“I am a very competitive person. I don’t want to have a program that isn’t on a peak with all the schools across the state,” she said.

“I’ve been here so long, since 1975. I’m teaching children of children, and the parents are telling them, ‘this is a good thing to do,’” she said.

Musical talents run in families, she said. She has seen it in the students she teaches at Natchez High. “The problem is to get them to hone their talents.”

The national competitions are useful in giving students exposure to new places and new kinds of contests, she said.

“This is such good exposure for them. A lot of them have never flown and have never been on a train,” she said.

For her, seeing the joy on their faces throughout the trip was reward enough for her.

A bonus for the students was the support they received from Chicago residents with Natchez connections, who entertained them, invited them to sing at a church and attended their events.

“We took four groups that had gotten superior at state. I thought they were qualified to sing at a national festival,” Mathis said.

The students took sightseeing trips, visiting museums and Chicago landmarks such as the Sears Tower.

Crystal Litt, a ninth-grade choir member, said the sightseeing was a highlight. “I liked the museums,” she said. “While we were there, we all felt we were a family. It was grand. Everyone got along.”

For Tremaine Ford, a highlight was singing at Liberty Baptist Church, an event initiated by Renza Grennell. Former Natchez residents are members of the church.

“They applauded us. They were so happy to see us,” Ford said. “I didn’t know so many people cared about us.”