The Hey Joe Show group poses with items from the Philippines. From left to right: Sumner Mahaffey, Connor Peck, Tylan Glines, Davis Blount and Jake Mingus. (Connor Peck)
The Hey Joe Show has received a resounding encore and will start its second tour to the Philippines on Aug. 2.
The Hey Joe Show is a multi-platform social media group composed of five BYU students: Sumner Mahaffey, Connor Peck, Jake Mingus, Tylan Glines and Davis Blount. They sing and make videos on YouTube that demonstrate their love for the Filipino culture while educating their viewership about the culture.
This quintet all served from 2012-2014 as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines Cebu Mission. Four of the five were in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) together and all five of them became friends throughout their time serving in the Philippines.
The guys first made a video personifying their love for the Filipino culture upon returning home to the states, which soon went viral. The video started as a simple idea to put smiles on the faces of the people of the Philippines.
The show has now developed into a passion. The team has continued to make videos and were able to return to the country they love to perform in during April and May of 2015. They now will return once again to the Philippines for the next Hey Joe Show tour, all in the Cebuano language, a language in which they are all bilingually proficient. They hope to continue to inspire happiness and bring the Filipinos unto Christ during this tour.
'We are actually doing 13 shows this time: four in Luzon, two in Cebu, two in Negros and five in Mindanao. We are also doing two firesides, a church media event and a couple cool tourist videos,' Peck said. 'It is going to be really fun; we are excited.'
The Hey Joe Show guys plan, manage and execute all their events by themselves because they do not have a manager. The Hey Joe Show works to spread love and happiness back to the Filipino people through skits as well as music, according to the group members.
BYU student and half-Filipino Natasha Adorablé is a Hey Joe Show fan.
'I think they're so popular amongst Filipinos because the Hey Joe Show embraces the Filipino culture and you can tell they're really passionate about it,' Adorablé said.