{"id":17100,"date":"2019-07-29T18:48:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T00:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1809630"},"modified":"2019-07-29T18:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T00:48:37","slug":"before-60000-people-saw-these-kids-carrie-underwood-saw-them-on-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/music-news\/before-60000-people-saw-these-kids-carrie-underwood-saw-them-on-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Before 60,000 People Saw These Kids, Carrie Underwood Saw Them on Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:ao:image:cmt.com:676742?width=1200&amp;height=675&amp;.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/bonaguroa\/\" title=\"Posts by Alison Bonaguro\" rel=\"author\">Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">28m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Everything about Carrie Underwood\u2019s Instagram post on Monday (July 29) is adorable:<\/p>\n<p>The third and fourth graders absolutely belting out \u201cThe Champion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their reaction to seeing Underwood walk into their rehearsal.<\/p>\n<p>The choir director trying to contain his enthusiasm for the big reveal.<\/p>\n<p>And Underwood telling them all to crush it during their CMA Fest performance at Nissan Stadium.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B0hAbW9FfOx\/\" data-instgrm-version=\"12\"><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis makes my heart so happy! I am so proud of the Andrew Jackson Elementary School Eagle Choir! You are all true champions!! @CMA @CMAFoundation @Ludacris #MusicEducation,\u201d Underwood said in her post with the video.<\/p>\n<p>But what I cannot get over is that these kids didn\u2019t come to Underwood. She went to them after seeing their original social media post in May. \u201cI originally saw this incredible group on Facebook doing my song \u2019The Champion.\u2019 You could see how much love and thought and hard work was put into this,\u201d she says, adding that as long as she was in Nashville, she want to drop by to give them her love and encouragement.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s right that moments like this do take hard work, but they also take an inspiring leader. Which is exactly what the kids have in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Fwillismusic\/?ref=py_c\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Franklin Willis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Jackson Elementary School, in Old Hickory, Tennessee, is home to the Eagle Honors Choir that Willis started as an after-school program for all the talented kids who showed an interest in music. Willis shared his story of his own path from a young man singing \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d to audition for the Nashville School of the Arts to his position as the choral director in a story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cmaworld.com\/the-power-of-music\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on the Country Music Association website<\/a>. His story ends with Willis saying, \u201cI am proof of the transformative power of music education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After graduating from NSA, Willis went to the University of Memphis and then started his professional educating career at Memphis\u2019 Vollentine Elementary School. And for the last ten years, Willis has been part of theMetro Nashville Public Schools family.<\/p>\n<p>Underwood wrote \u201cThe Champion\u201d with Christopher Bridges (Ludacris), Chris DeStefano and Brett James.<\/p>\n<div class=\"deferred_content\">Embedded from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HgknAaKNaMM?feature=oembed\">www.youtube.com<\/a>. <noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;iframe&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HgknAaKNaMM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Alison makes her living loving country music. She&#8217;s based in Chicago, but she&#8217;s always leaving her heart in Nashville.<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/alisonbonaguro\" target=\"_BLANK\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@alisonbonaguro<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1809630\/before-60000-people-saw-these-kids-carrie-underwood-saw-them-on-facebook\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Alison Bonaguro 28m ago Everything about Carrie Underwood\u2019s Instagram post on Monday (July 29) is adorable: The third and fourth graders absolutely belting out \u201cThe Champion.\u201d Their reaction to seeing Underwood walk into their rehearsal. The choir director trying to contain his enthusiasm for the big reveal. And Underwood telling them all to crush [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 18:09:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}