§Daniel Johnson (1994-1997) was notorious for doing something crazy (or dumb, or random) during the group introductions at our concerts. One of his favorites, typically saved for super-conservative large all-white Southern Baptist churches, was “Hi, I’m Daniel Johnson, and I’m the black guy.” My personal favorite, though, was when he put on a completely affected southern black accent and introduced himself with “Hi! I’m Tyrone Bootstrap from New Orleans, Louisiana!” Tyrone Bootstrap? The group literally lost it onstage, but nobody in the crowd had a clue as to what was so funny…

§ We were at Calvary Baptist in Winston one looooong weekend singing for some kind of preacher’s conference. We were tired and bored and couldn’t wait to get out of there. Anyway, some Australian fellow was preaching up a storm, and in the crowd of 500-600 preachers, the best response he could get was some semi-insane guy standing in the front row shouting back “Preach, preacher! You a good preacher!” At one point deep into the message, the preacher was going on and on with “You’ve got to starve the flesh and feed the spirit! Staaaaarrrrve the flesh and feeeeeeeed the spirit!” So naturally, Charles Turner (1992-1996) leans over and whispers to the rest of the group, “Does the spirit like bacon?”

§ One other pork-product story: We were singing at somebody’s wedding (Jamie Rorrer’s, maybe?), and they had set out a really nice catered spread for us in the choir room before the ceremony. We made our way upstairs, sang “The Lord’s Prayer,” and filed into our seats in the first and second rows. In the middle of the ceremony, Judd Hollifield (1993-1997), our distinguished music director, turns around with his mouth full and offers us ham biscuits…He had stuffed a dozen or so into his freakin’ pants pockets while we were downstairs and brought them up to snack on during the wedding!

§ Finally, this is probably the ultimate Chi Rho legend, and one that you’ll hear many times. During our first of what would become annual trips to First Baptist High Point, we took the whole weekend in the fall of 1994 and made it our retreat. They had a nice set-up with a gym, pool tables, Foosball, etc. along with locker rooms and sleeping quarters. We were up late on Friday night playing ball and rehearsing, until all but one of us crashed in the back room that had been designated for just that. Daniel fell asleep on a couch in the lobby of the family life center (in full view of the church’s driveway). Early the next morning, the other 10 of us were awakened by a flashlight shining into the room where we were sleeping, and an unfamiliar voice saying “Is this guy with you all?” I opened my eyes to see an older gentleman and a police officer standing behind a handcuffed, shirtless Daniel! Turns out, this older fellow was one of the deacons whose job it was to unlock the church on Saturday mornings. He didn’t know we were supposed to be there, and all he could see when he got to the door was this half-dressed black guy sleeping on a couch! So he called the cops, they came down to handcuff and frisk Daniel…luckily he was able to convince the cops that he really was with a group of guys who were all in a different room or we would’ve had to take the love offering and use it for bail money!

The above stories were submitted by Aaron Mercer, who was in Chi Rho from 1993 - 1997 is now working in Nashville, TN as the Associate Director of General Licensing for BMI.

#1
When: Chi Rho's first performance-ever! circa Oct. 1991
Where: Open Mike Night, Benson
Song: Heaven
Setting:Pitch is given, basses start with a 'walking' bass line, tenors come in singin ''ooh yeah". Soloist Martin Allen sings "oh yeah", then stops. Turn around and says something like,"Hold on fella's, let's try that again". See, the basses had missed the note. It was supposed to be like an 'f', and they had started on about a 'b', which was way too high. The pitch is given again, and the basses get it this time. It was really pretty cool because it made the 'f' seem lower than it was. Somewhere I had the og&b pic which appeared the next week, its in the archives. Look for guys with white shirts, blue jeans and ties.

#2
When: Began one week before first Big Concert
Where: All over Campus
Posters appeared all over campus, about 100 of them. Printed on bright gold paper, they simply said "XP". Almost every time you walked by those, someone would say: "What does that mean?" A day or two later,these signs were replaced with ones that said "XP-Chi Rho" A few days later, those were replaced with "XP-Chi Rho Men's Accapella Chorus". A few days later, those
were replaced with ones that said "XP-Chi Rho Men's Accapella Chorus, Big Concert, Benson Auditorium" and then gave the date. What was funny was nobody, including the members of Chi Rho, knew who was doing the signs until the day of the concert, except me and Jon Branham, because I was making them and we were putting them up.

The above stories were submitted by David Edwards who was in Chi Rho its first year ('91-'92) and graduated in 1992. He currently works as the Minister of Education and Youth (mostly youth) in Chester, SC.