My story’s a pretty simple one. I grew up ten miles from a gas station and a river running through my backyard in a small community known as Cedar Lake, AL. I was a pretty outdoorsy kid and loved to hike, camp, and swim, but my favorite thing for the longest time was singing with my dad while he played the guitar. My parents thought it would be a good idea to learn how to play an instrument, so when I was nine years old, they signed me up for piano lessons with my elementary school guidance counselor. I quickly became pretty passionate about it and learned how to play my first classical piece when I was eleven. I kept playing for years and then my piano teacher said that she taught me all that she knew how to and that I should go learn from someone else. Then at 12, I became a music student at Samford University’s Academy of the Arts.