It may have been a decade since Rootstown first grade teacher Sam Kropp performed in front of a big crowd, but she has not lost her touch. The 2013 Rootstown grad was crowned the first Voice of Ravenna winner on Saturday at the West Main Street Winery.
“Other than just karaoke nights, it has been a really long time since I performed for other people, so it really meant the world to me,” Kropp told The Weekly Villager on Aug. 11. “Everybody did such an amazing job, everyone was so talented. It is all thanks to the people that came out and it just made me feel the community love. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Kropp performed two songs at Ravenna’s inaugural singing competition, Carrie Underwood’s “Last Name” and “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus.
She won an audience vote in a competitive final three against Ravenna High School Student Kaleb Angle and Veronica Provenzale.
“Veronica is incredible, and she actually had a lot of family come out in matching shirts,” she said. “Kaleb is actually only 16-years-old and I believe he did original music. He played his guitar and sang his own songs up there. Both Veronica and Caleb, they killed it out there and it was an honor to be in the top three with them.”
By winning the competition, Kropp will have the opportunity to become a member of the Ravenna Rocks Board next year to help with the planning of the second annual competition and will present her successor with the trophy.
“If they want me, they can probably have me because it was a great event and I love helping out,” Kropp noted. “All of the people that were a part of it were amazing. I ended up volunteering in the morning to help set up.”
For Kropp, music has been her passion as she was a member of Rootstown’s middle and high school choirs and performed in several talent shows and musicals. Even after graduating, she said that there was never really a day that went by where she was not singing or humming a song to herself.
“There were days that I would try to put myself on vocal rest because as a teacher I am talking all of the time so sometimes I would lose my voice and I would get sick,” she said. “When I try to put myself on that vocal rest, I become aware of the fact that even though I am not aware of it, I am humming, or I am singing. I can’t imagine driving alone and not having music on and not singing.”
Her performing days were long behind her, especially after she became a teacher, but she would occasionally participate in karaoke nights at the Winery in her spare time. When she heard about the competition, she acknowledged that she needed no convincing to sign up.
“I saw that they were doing a contest and I was like, ‘Okay let’s do it, why not?” she noted. “I probably made that decision while I was there and had people saying, ‘Yeah you should’ but I don’t think that they had to talk me into it.”
According to Kropp, her first audition did not go well as she did not advance to the first round of callbacks but made the most of her second audition to make it through.
Although it had been a long time since she performed in front of a large crowd, she said there is nothing like singing in a venue filled with friendly and familiar faces.
Whatever nerves Kropp may have initially felt getting back on the stage for a performance were erased by the fond memories she had from all of the times she sang in the talent shows, musicals or in the choir in front of her hometown crowd.
“Performing for other people, it was validating,” she said. “I saw that other people were actually enjoying it and having a lot of fun, I saw a few people dancing; it just made me enjoy it more. It almost became a shared experience. I am doing what I love, I am singing for people and they are giving me the energy back, which makes me want to give them more energy.”
As much as Kropp deemed it an honor to win the first Voice of Ravenna singing competition, she said nothing compared to having the pleasure of performing in front of a hometown crowd.
