For a group of students from Slaton, one October night in Lubbock turned into the kind of school memory that will probably be told for decades.

The Slaton High School choir joined Foreigner on stage at Buddy Holly Hall, performing with one of rock music’s most recognizable bands in front of a full concert crowd.

For the students, the moment was big enough on its own.

But the story became more interesting once you understood why Foreigner invited them there.

The band regularly brings local school choirs on stage during its tours as part of a long-running effort to call attention to the importance of public-school music programs.

During the Lubbock stop, the Slaton students joined the band for “I Want to Know What Love Is,” one of Foreigner’s signature songs.

Want to see the performance? KCBD captured the Slaton High School choir onstage with Foreigner at Buddy Holly Hall. Watch the KCBD report →

Foreigner also donated $500 to the Slaton choir program.

Then a familiar Lubbock business stepped in.

One Guy from Italy matched the donation with another $500, turning a memorable performance into direct support for the students who made it happen.

That combination of music, local generosity and student opportunity is what makes the night more than a celebrity cameo.

Slaton Choir Director Paul Vasquez said the program has grown from just 14 students to 63 in only a few years.

That kind of growth is meaningful for any school program.

For a smaller district like Slaton, it represents something larger: students choosing to participate, families supporting them and a program gaining enough momentum to create opportunities that once might have seemed out of reach.

The choir has already been building a stronger record of achievement.

Slaton ISD says the high school choir earned straight Division I ratings in concert competition in 2024, the first UIL award in the program’s history.

That makes the Foreigner performance feel less like a random invitation and more like another chapter in a program that has been steadily expanding its confidence and visibility.

Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson explained that the band’s support for school music is personal.

He has credited encouragement from his own public-school music teacher with helping him pursue music professionally, and he noted that the members of Foreigner benefited from school music education themselves.

The band’s concern is familiar to teachers and parents almost everywhere.

When school budgets tighten, music and arts programs can be among the first areas placed under pressure.

The irony is that those programs often become the places where students discover confidence, discipline, teamwork and a reason to feel connected to school.

The Slaton students on stage at Buddy Holly Hall offered a fairly persuasive example.

They were not simply watching professional musicians from the audience.

They were expected to walk onto the same stage, hit their cues and become part of the show.

For one family, the evening also closed an unusual generational circle.

Freshman Krista Thompson attended her first concert that night by performing in it.

Her grandmother, Lela Reagor, was in the audience.

Foreigner had also been Reagor’s first concert — back in 1979.

Forty-seven years later, she watched her granddaughter share a stage with the same band.

That is the kind of detail no tour promoter can manufacture.

It also says something about the staying power of music across generations.

Foreigner has built a catalog familiar to parents and grandparents.

Yet for one night in Lubbock, those songs became part of a group of West Texas teenagers’ own story.

The students returned home with more than photographs and a good answer to “What did you do this week?”

They returned with evidence that work done in a school choir room in Slaton can lead somewhere much larger.

And the community came away with another reminder that some of the most memorable local stories happen when a major stage opens up just enough to let a smaller program step into the spotlight.

For the Slaton High School choir, that spotlight happened to come with a legendary rock band standing beside them.