“The Horatio Alger Award is bestowed upon exceptional leaders who have triumphed over adversity to achieve greatness. Recipients personify the American Dream and their life experiences are proof that, with perseverance and unwavering belief, anything is possible in our country through the free-enterprise system.

Each year, the Association presents the Horatio Alger Award and offers lifetime membership to individuals of outstanding character, whose lives and actions demonstrate the power of the human spirit. This prestigious accolade acknowledges their unwavering commitment to their goals, their prodigious accomplishments, and their enduring impact on their respective fields. Recipients exemplify the Association’s values – perseverance, personal initiative, integrity, leadership, commitment to excellence – along with its belief in the free-enterprise system and the importance of philanthropy. By celebrating their lifetime achievements, the Award underscores their lasting legacy and serves as a testament to their remarkable journey of success, inspiring others to follow in their footsteps and overcome their adversities.”

Always a very moving event hearing the incredible stories of the year’s recipients, this was the second year I had the honor of performing at the awards ceremony and so grateful to join such a stellar lineup.

The team was seeking unique songs of unity and patriotism. Songs that have not been over-performed, but immediately feel accessible and lyrically supportive of our theme. They asked me to do some digging and I found this gem.  From a movie that Frank Sinatra did, this is a song called The House I Live In (That’s America To Me). The music team arranged it for me, the orchestra and I rehearsed the day before, and below is the 90 second rendition of the song recorded backstage from our tv monitor.

The following morning, I performed my own arrangement of I Still Have Faith In You. This is a song written and released by ABBA. I rewrote some of the lyrics to support their theme, framed it in a gospel feel and tried to make the song as inspiring and accessible as possible. To my understanding, this is a song they have had different performers do for a few years and I needed them to experience it for the first time…again. Really enjoyed this task, and it appeared they did too.

Thank you Dennis for having me aboard.