Third Eye Blind, Timeflies to Rock Wootton Saturday Night

Jennifer Taylor is a guidance counselor at Wootton High School with a tall order: organize a concert for Saturday night that would live up to the wildly successful show at the school in 2008.

Four years ago the Wootton Student Government Association partnered with BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization), a Jewish youth organization, to organize a “Rock-the-Vote”- style concert that featured TYGA, the Pat McGee Band and Gym Class Heroes.   

It drew in close to 2,400 students, according to Taylor, who expects this year’s show, called “TUNED IN: Be the Voice That Rocks the World,” that will feature Third Eye Blind and Timeflies, to be another success.

Tickets for Wootton students are $20 and for non-Wootton students they cost $25 on the website or $30 at the door.

The concert, which will be hosted by CNN’s John King, whose daughter is a sophomore at Wootton, will also feature an array of political speakers, including representatives from the Romney and Obama campaigns, senators and congressmen. 

Taylor struck up a fortunate and timely relationship with BBYO representative Ian Kando, who was a concert promoter in his college days with an extensive list of contacts — not something commonly found in a guidance counselor’s inventory of resources.

It was Kando’s resourcefulness that gave them the opportunity to book the two feature musical groups. 

“They are phenomenal,” said Taylor of Kando and BBYO. “I’m just a guidance counselor. I wouldn’t have known where to start.”

BBYO also contributed grant money to help pay for the concert, which cost “a pretty penny,” bordering on $100,000, Taylor estimated. (She would not say how much BBYO contributed.) No tax dollars fund the concert, she said, just four years of homecoming fundraisers, dozens of local youth-oriented sponsoring groups, ticket sales, and the grant from BBYO. 

“We wanted to make sure this was an event done by the students for the students,” Taylor said.

The concert caps off a week of programming aimed at increasing students’ political awareness and civic engagement. Last week teachers were given lesson plans designed by the Wootton Student Government Association, concentrating on immigration, health care, the economy, education and energy.

“It was designed to be non-partisan so kids could decide which party would fit their beliefs,” Taylor said.

 “With elections coming up teens should know what’s going on in the community at hand and the country as a whole,” Taylor said.