Sunny Side Up

The Sunny Side Up Band current membership has worked together since 2004, and has appeared before enthusiastic audiences at churches, political rallies, and festivals since that time, averaging about thirty performances per year. Members of Sunny Side Up include both seasoned performers and relative newcomers to the field of entertainment.

Dean VonAllmen of West Plains, Missouri, plays fiddle with the group. He is a great fan of Kenny Baker’s style of playing, and in August, 2005, he took second place in Missouri at the fiddling contest at the State Fair in Sedalia. He has been playing the fiddle "most of his life," he says, and brings a drive and fire to his rollicking fiddle that others try to imitate.

Sonya Scheets of Raymondville, Missouri, plays banjo and sings alto and lead with Sunny Side Up. She works as a Medical Technologist at Texas County Memorial Hospital in Houston, and adds a depth of harmony to the group that is without parallel. She has been playing banjo a little over two years, and has been singing gospel songs in church choirs all her life, giving her a rich background in music that touches the hearts of those in her audiences.

Angela Scheets also lives currently at Raymondville with her mother, Sonya, although she and Mr. Chad Lisle are planning marriage in June (sorry, all you single guys out there!). Angela has a lovely high lead and harmony voice that she has cultivated all her life in church choirs and family singings, and has many, many fans across southern Missouri where the band has performed. She has been playing bass fiddle in the band for about two years, and works at First National Bank in Houston MO as a loan processor.

Allison Scheets, younger sister of Angela and daughter of Sonya, plays just about anything with strings. She plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and bass with equal skill and vigor, and distinctively sings both lead and harmony. She has worked in various bands for the past six years, and brings freshness and vitality to the stage that can only come from outstanding talent and experience. She is a student at the University of Missouri at Rolla.

Ed McKinney rounds out the membership of Sunny Side Up. He plays guitar mostly, but occasionally plays mandolin with the group. Like Dean, Ed has played guitar almost all his life, beginning at about age twelve, which he admits was "some time ago." He sings lead, bass, and some tenor, and loves to play guitar in the Carter style as Mother Maybelle did. He also likes "corny" songs! At the State Fair in August 2005, he took third in the state in the back-up guitar (for fiddlers) contest. He is chairman of the history department at Missouri State University, West Plains, and serves as business manager for Sunny Side Up.