leaders were looking for a fun way to introduce parents, students, faculty and the Oak Forest community to the athletics department.
Enter: and his staff. Turner thought a lip dub featuring the schoool's athletes might be the perfect way to start the year. As it turns out, he may just be right.
The Oak Forest Athletic Department's Lip Dub 2012, which features administration, coaches and student athletes, first started out as the brainchild of , who approached Towner about the idea after he was hired in January.
Towner loved the idea and hopped right onboard.
Towner said Sikora got the idea from two former students, Carly Norton and Amanda Sheppard—who both now play softball for Northern Illinois University—who were in the Huskies own lip dub video last year to celebrate their conference championship.
“Theirs is really, really on point, it was awesome,” Towner said. “I watched that and got a little bit inspired by it.”
With the seeds planted in his head, Towner set about reaching out to coaches at Oak Forest to organize the event. He said he wanted to keep it as short as possible, but include as many students as possible. With help from several faculty members, the plan came together in early August and after just one meeting and a rehearsal, it was time to shoot the video.
Towner said the entire filming took a few hours and several takes in some parts, although it went smoother than he thought.
“The more we ran through, the more ideas kids had, and put it all together, it ended up going really, really smooth,” Towner said. “There were very few bumps in the road you could say.”
He added that all the acting done by the students in the video was their own, except for the flash mob at the end, which was choreographed by Bengals Poms squad. He said that entire effort was a “really collaborative effort,” and that he “couldn't be prouder of it.”
With the final product in the can, with help from AC Variety, and posted on the school's website, Towner said ideas are flooding in for next year, when he hopes to get more of the school involved.
“I would like, I would think some other groups could pick up on this,” he said. “We've got so many great activities and clubs. … So, maybe we can come up with some other stuff and make it an annual thing.”
