Gretchen Wilson photo courtesy of SonyBMG Nashville.
May 6, 2009 — Gretchen Wilson's first hit, "Redneck Woman," was a statement of personal pride, but the fact is she wasn't entirely proud: Gretchen didn't earn her high school diploma until April 2008; now she realizes she was shortchanging herself for years by not getting it earlier.
"I have carried around a sense of pride in me now that I just didn't have before," she says. "I used to refer to myself as that redneck girl with an eighth grade education, you know, and I lost that little piece of myself. And that was a good thing because now I feel like I'm as deserving as any other American out there, and I feel like I'm whole. I feel like I didn't leave something out, I didn't neglect to do something that I should've done and that was there for me to do for myself. And of course, that makes me feel a lot stronger and a lot more whole. And this is definitely a n overall sense of accomplishment that you can't even hardly convey to another person, it's something you really have to experience."
Gretchen visited Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to address a congressional subcommittee in support of increased funding for adult education programs.
Gretchen earned her G.E.D. against enormous odds. In addition to being a single parent, her career in country music kept her on the road during the months she studied for her diploma. Her career is soon to expand with the release of a new album. According to CNSNews.com, the project will be titled I Got Your Country Right Here.
No comments:
Post a Comment