Sophomore Brooke Searcy could not help but blanket her face with her hands when she heard her name announced as a winner of the Humble Voice competition.

“I was just shocked,” said Searcy. “‘I didn’t really believe it was happening until the next morning when I walked downstairs and my mom was like ‘good morning rodeo star!”’

Searcy was one out of 25 students who auditioned for the Humble Voice competition, in hopes of being one of the three winners selected to perform at the Humble Rodeo.

“Brooke is a very talented singer, but what stood her apart from the competition was her showmanship. She chose a song (Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”) that the crowd really got into and she was engaged with the audience,” said Jerri Monbaron, Executive Director of Humble ISD Education Foundation. “In other words, she showed the marks of a true performer, someone who could sing and put on a show.”

Searcy has been working on her performing skills since the age of 3, when she first started doing beauty pageants. She and her two older sisters also took part in acting classes over the summers throughout their childhood.

“Brooke definitely got the singing genes,” said senior Katey Searcy, Brooke’s sister. “I’m more sporty and she’s more artsy.”

Katey Searcy was on the state champion volleyball team this year, and is a starter on the basketball team as well.
Their older sister, Kendall, also was a standout two-sport athlete with softball and volleyball. Brooke said she was always afraid of being different from her siblings, because she grew up wanting to be the same as them.

“At the beginning, I always thought it was weird and different and I didn’t really know how my parents could support me, because they also didn’t grow up singing,” Brooke Searcy said.

However, Brooke’s parents turned out to be her biggest supporters.

‘“My mom is always the person who gives me a really good pep talk before I sing, and my dad is always the one who says, ‘You should get yourself out there,”’ Brooke Searcy said.

Searcy said that she often puts herself down, telling herself that she’s not good enough. She was going to audition for Kingwood Park’s pop show last year, but she let her negative thoughts get the best of her and didn’t audition.

“I think, ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘They’re not going to like me’ and I try to back out,”’ Searcy said. “Sometimes I do back out, and I regret it so much because you’re not going to lose anything from trying.”

However, Searcy saw the posters around school and decided to audition for the Humble Voice competition. She almost let her nerves get the best of her, but her friends and choir teacher, Ben Fahnders, encouraged her to do it.

“If it wasn’t for him and my friends, I wouldn’t have done it and I wouldn’t have experienced this,” Brooke Searcy said.

Searcy said she looks forward to singing at the Humble Rodeo and hopes to keep singing wherever she goes.

“It doesn’t matter if I go into Broadway musical theater or if I just sing gigs at restaurants,” Brooke Searcy said. “I just want to keep on singing and never really give up on it.”