MONMOUTH, Ill. — Whoever said, "You can’t go home again" didn’t consider Monmouth College choral director Sarah Graham, who will, indeed, return to her home in the Pacific Northwest, where the proverbial red carpet will be rolled out for her.

Graham recently learned she has been selected for the prestigious honor of conducting the women’s Treble Honor Choir of the northwest division of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) in Tacoma, Wash. Scheduled for February 2009, the conference is held every other year and includes the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska.

The honor is no coincidence, as Graham taught music for five years at Sumner High School near Tacoma. There, she conducted the Sumner High School Concert Choir that toured regionally and even internationally during her tenure. Under her direction, the choir placed second at the International Youth and Music Festival in Vienna, Austria, in 1999.

In addition, Graham served on the board of the American Choral Directors Association and remains a much sought after music adjudicator and clinician throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Graham’s return to Washington represents to her a full circle in her career as a choral director and music educator. In 1990, when she was a senior at Curtis High School in the Tacoma suburb, University Place, Wash., she was named to the All State Treble Choir under the direction of Weston Noble, who she considers to be one of the legends of choral music in the country.

"That experience is what led me to decide to be a music major and to pursue music and directing the rest of my life," said Graham. "I know that by conducting this choir, I can have a big influence on students. Not to mention the fact that it is an incredible opportunity for recruiting students to Monmouth College."

An assistant professor of music at MC, where she directs the Praise Band and conducts the Women’s Glee Club, Chapel Choir and the acclaimed Monmouth College Chorale, Graham attributes her appointment to the work she did at the high school level.

"Over the years I have maintained a strong relationship with colleagues in the schools. When they were looking for a strong female to conduct the women’s choir, my name surfaced."

Obviously humbled by the honor of conducting the choir, Graham said that to a music faculty member the assignment is equivalent to a colleague in a different discipline publishing a book. The magnitude of the honor becomes even more apparent, she said, when one considers that at the last MENC conference, Sigrid Olson from St. Olaf University, a choir director of international reputation, was the holder of the baton.

Other ensembles performing at the MENC conference will include a men’s honor choir, a mixed choir, a jazz choir and honors orchestra and jazz band. Those groups will also be directed by guest conductors with regional and national reputations.

The opportunity in 2009 will hold a special sentimental meaning for Graham, who dedicated her doctoral dissertation to her late high school choral director Robert Northrop, a victim of cancer.

"I truly wish he could be there to share what is happening for me," she said. "He was a very special man who had a tremendous impact on me as a music student in high school. I owe him a lot, and perhaps my accepting this honor is a way I can, in part, return what he did for me,"

Graham received a B.A. degree in choral music education and church music from Whitworth College in 1994 and an M.A. degree in classroom teaching and English literature from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma in 1998. She went on to earn an M.M. degree in conducting in 2003 and a D.M.A. degree in conducting in 2005, both from Michigan State University.

The members of the women’s Treble Honor Choir will be selected via taped auditions this fall. Graham said there may be as many at 800 to 1,000 auditions from high school women, but only 200 will be selected. After working individually with their choral teachers at their high schools, the selected students will then spend two days of rehearsal with Graham. Because the students are already fairly well prepared, "this allows me to spend more time with the artistry aspect…that is, the expressive elements and text painting, instead of notes and rhythm," she said. "With some of these things out of the way, we can make things more musical."

Although she does not know exactly what she will select for the choir’s repertoire, Graham is confident the music will be "women composers and music that lends a strong voice to women." What the conductor does know is that the culmination of the experience will be a 30-minute concert at the Spokane Opera House.

And that, too, is a coming home for Graham, who performed there when she was an undergraduate student at Whitworth.