She also remembers eating breakfast in the same dining car as then-LDS Church President Heber J. Grant during the choir's train ride to Chicago to perform at the 1933 World's Fair. A choir trip to San Diego in the late 1930s included a visit to the beach in La Jolla before a scheduled concert that evening. "Everyone got kind of sunburned and tired, and by the time we started to perform, I don't think it was a very good concert."

She stayed with the choir for "eight or nine years" before she married and gave up her seat, but she always tunes in each Sunday to hear her beloved choir, she said. "I think they are wonderful and so professional, and the Orchestra (at Temple Square) just enhances that. Lloyd Newell's sermons are always very nice and very timely." She especially enjoys performances of oratorio selections, particularly "Elijah," because she used to sing many of them.

In preparation for her role in Saturday night's celebration at the Conference Center, Hicken met current choir director Craig Jessop. She marvels at his ability to conduct both orchestra and choir in a way that produces "such beautiful music."

In an interview earlier this week, she told a reporter what she repeated for the audience Saturday night: "I told him (Jessop) it was nice to see him from the front, since I usually only see him from behind."

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com