Dan Bounds picked up a disc from the snow and wiped off the slush with his towel. He needed a good grip. He drew the disc toward his chest, lurched forward and sent it flying. It was 30 degrees at the Kaposia Disc Golf Course in St. Paul, and his fingers numbed at the edges. Bounds recovered the disc and readied himself to throw again. This time he could make it to the basket. Breathing in and out, hot vapor mixing with cool air.

Something wasn’t right, his back hurt. Maybe he pulled something.

Paw Ku snatched a T-shirt and stuffed it in her backpack without her mother noticing. She zipped it closed. Ku’s mother always dressed her in traditional Karen clothing — vibrant stitching, tassels and ankle-length material — immediately labeling her as an outsider in St. Paul Minnesota.

The minute the 9-year-old exited the bus, she booked it to the school bathroom where she hoisted her dress over her head, unzipped her backpack, slipped the t-shirt on and crammed the dress into her backpack.

Cadie Logston peered through the crack in the stage door. From the other side, a flute trilled and floated through Mozart’s Flute Concerto No.1 in G. Logston will be up next. She had been pacing and humming scales backstage in anticipation of her turn. Seven vocalists and instrumentalists came before her in the performance order. The seventh, now playing, was almost done.

Student musicians gathered in Benson Great Hall March 7 to compete for both a cash prize and a chance to perform with Bethel