BAY MINETTE, Alabama — Seven students at Baldwin County High School are now recording artists after spending time aboard the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

The specialized bus – loaded with a state-of-the-art mobile audio and HD video recording and production facility – recently spent the day at BCHS and gave students the chance to work inside a world-class recording studio.

Assisted by three on-board engineers, the band and chorus students collaborated to write an original song, record the soundtrack and lay down vocals. They also worked together to shoot a video around the campus featuring the original composition.

Once edited, the video which will be posted on You Tube.

Participating students included Evan White, Jessica Hilliker, Destiny Miskel, Loren Robinson, Traise Leonard, Trevor Wallace and Madelyn Lyons.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for these students,” Jeff Lepa, director of Bands, said. “This gives them a different view of music and it goes beyond the performance. It shows them how you make your performance ready for the public” from recording to fine-tuning to production.

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus travels the country visiting schools, music and technology conferences and events, and partners with communities and media outlets to call attention to the importance of arts and digital media education. All projects created on board are available for viewing on YouTube.

The Lennon Bus has been visited campuses for nearly two decades and has visited Baldwin County schools for the past 10 years. The on-site visit opens up a whole new world of opportunities for students.

“Taking the latest technology directly to campuses provides access to young people that may not have ever strummed a guitar, heard themselves on a microphone or gotten behind a camera to shoot a video about an issue important to them,” Brian Rothschild, co-founder and executive director, said.

“In addition, the Lennon Bus studios introduce young people to potential career paths within the fields of audio, video, photo and broadcast technologies.”

The Lennon Bus also donated more than $2,500 in music equipment to the school including two keyboards, guitar, studio head phones and portal hard drives for recording.

Vicky Nix Cook, who helped bring the program to Baldwin County schools, said it has been a wonderful resource for students.

“It gives them a chance to showcase their school and it gives the student an insight into a world class recording studio on wheels,” Cook said.

It did just that for student Loren Robinson who called it a “great experience” and very eye-opening.

“It taught me a lot about the whole process a musician goes through when creating a new song,” Robinson said. “All the way from writing lyrics, playing instruments, and singing your heart out it taught me that it takes dedication and patience.”

It also reinforced that the creative process is often a collaborative effort.

“(It) taught me a great amount of teamwork and how you can work with people to produce a product,” she said. “I thoroughly enjoyed participating and would do it again in a heartbeat. It allowed me to feel how life would be if I were famous and a musician.”

That’s exactly the point of the experiment: exposing students to the possibilities and the resources to make it happen.

“There’s nothing really like the experience of collaborating to create something original in the space of a couple of days,” Rothschild said. “Lennon Bus students are very enthusiastic and changed by the immersive experience in which they both learn new skills and apply existing skills to new mediums.”

For more information about the Lennon Tour Bus visit lennonbus.org.