Junior Nathan Thorley may seem like just another high school student, quiet and unassuming, but beneath the surface he’s anything but ordinary.
After moving here halfway through his sophomore year, Thorley quickly made himself at home.
“It was hard to move away from Saint Louis, Missouri, to here, but I’ve made lots of new friends,” Thorley said. “I found a group where I fit in and they accepted me almost immediately. The people here are so nice and supportive.”
Among Thorley’s friends is senior Will McInerney, who knows Thorley from choir.
“He’s a really cool guy to be around,” McInerney said. “He’s funny, he’s talented, and he can beat box like a champ.”
Thorley was in choir at his old school, and he immediately joined choir here, where he put his talents to use.
Something else Thorley brought with him to school was his impressive beat boxing abilities.
“I had taken band for four years in middle school and high school and played percussion,” Thorley said. “Then I joined choir and realized that I could combine what I had learned in band with what I was doing in choir and it just started happening. Eventually I found that I was pretty good at beat boxing.”
As soon as people in choir realized that Thorley was a great beat boxer, they volunteered him to beat box under many of the choir’s pop show songs. Soon he was a staple of the pop groups, A Cappella and Spotlight, providing beats for their a cappella performances.
“Back at my old school I did the same thing,” Thorley said. “Depending on the needs of the song, I either beat boxed or sang, so I got to do a lot of both. I sing bass, which really helps with my beat boxing skills since I can make lower bass sounds.”
At his old school, Thorley was part of an a cappella group that met every morning, instead of the once-a-week rehearsal here.
“Even though the a cappella class I was a part of in St. Louis was a class period every day, A Cappella here is honestly way better,” Thorley said.
Despite his love for his old home, he’s found many things to be happy with here.
“I love being at Lovejoy because it’s a smaller school and you get to know people a lot better,” Thorley said. “It’s really a great atmosphere.”
