After 15 years of weddings, baby showers and award winning performances, Marvilla Davis, the director of the Alaska Chamber Chorale, is retiring.

There are no plans to replace her so the chorale, which consists of 32 UAF students, librarians, teachers, soldiers, nurses and other members of the Fairbanks community, will disband after their final concert in the spring.

Donna Dinsmore, like many members of the choir, was worried about finding something to replace the hole in her life left by the end of the Chorale.

"I just don't know what I could do; anything else I'm aware of is a step downhill," she said. "I don't know any other group that can give me this feeling."

The consensus of the group is that the 130 past and present members are more of a family than a class. They meet for three hours on Thursdays and every other Saturday but over the years they have become much closer than classmates. They celebrate important events together, like birthdays and christenings and support each other in times of stress or crisis.

Most people don't leave the group willingly but instead are forced by circumstance to abandon the group because they have to relocate or can no longer fit it into their schedule. Quite a few are planning to return to sing with the chorale in the final performance.

The Chorale, which went by the name UAF Chamber Singers until spring 1998, is an a cappella group whose focus is the beauty and wonder of the human voice, which Davis calls the original instrument.

The group's unique sound and insistence on performing songs from the last 500 years in their original language has lead to a large local fan-base and numerous accolades, both local and national.

They perform in the Davis Concert Hall, named for Marvilla's father-in-law, once before Christmas and once to herald in the spring second semester.

They also travel and have a trip planned to Portland, Ore., in March 2006.

The Choir also has a Christmas CD, "Northern Noel."

On several occasions people have married as a result of getting to know each other through the Chorale. One such couple is Jim and Barb Hameister who have been married for four years and have been with the choir almost since it was founded.

"It's hard to imagine life without it," said Barb Hameister, who works at the Center for Global Change on campus.

Jim Hameister was impressed with the skill of Davis and reiterated what many group members were saying about working under her.

"Her particular gift is knowing how to get the absolute best from the singers she has," he said. "I haven't worked with any conductors with anywhere near her ability."

"I'm going to miss this so much," Dinsmore said. "It's a warm kind of group and we all love each other very much. To sing for anyone else would be a let down."

Davis' plans for retirement consist of eventually moving to Whitefish, Mt. with her husband Charles W. Davis II to be near old friends and family members, like the grand daughter whom she would like to see grow up.

She also wants to be near her horses, to get some chickens and maybe a goat. She swears that though she wasn't raised on a farm that she's a farm girl at heart.

She doesn't know if she will be able to retire from teaching all together because she has been teaching steadily since 1969 when she got her degree from the University of Montana, Northern. In 1987, she earned her master's in music from UAF.

"The group has given a lot of joy to a lot of people and I'm hoping that everyone is left with nothing but good thoughts," said Davis. "I think we've enriched the community and put Fairbanks on the map in terms of choruses."