Future State Trooper: will of a warrior – heart of a poet

ELIZABETHTOWN – A country girl with a roundball in one hand and a guitar slung over her shoulder ambled into Bladen County and performed at the Barefoot Sandwich Shoppe Friday concert series.

Brittany Blackburn who hails from Clinton, North Carolina and is known above the Bladen/Sampson line as a 5’8 shooting guard that can shoot the lights out and has a reputation for being very quick on defense.

Under the lights in Elizabethtown and through adverse straight-line winds, a location change and an equipment move, she warmed the hearts of the crowd inside as the outside temperatures dipped over 30 degrees in a matter of moments.

With a whiskey-smooth low voice, she mesmerized the crowd with her gentle and unassuming country style. This one-time American Idol contestant showed her range and her guitar prowess, mixing songs with quiet moments of strum and reflection.

She first picked up a guitar when she was 12 years old and fell in love with a friend that will most likely stay with her throughout her life. She says that it has been there with her through the good times and the bad and it was not hard to hear a stanza from an old John Denver song as she spoke.

“This old guitar taught me to sing a love song. It showed me how to laugh and how to cry. It introduced me to some friends of mine and brightened up some days, and helped me make it through some lonely nights, oh what a friend to have on a cold and lonely night.” – This Old Guitar by John Denver

In her seven-years of making music she has written, sung, performed and traveled the road to share her craft.

“In 2019 a friend who was like a brother to me passed away,” she said. “He taught me how to play guitar and so ever since then, I’ve been playin’.”

She never forgets who and what got her to where she needs to be at this point in her life.

“I do mostly country music,” she said. “I also take some other songs and twist ‘em up to be country, and usually ends up to be country spot on.”

She owns the covers she sings and they become personal. The originals are straight from the heart with a storyteller’s lyrics, full of wisdom and a message from an old soul. An old soul feels experiences that she has yet to live and nails it onstage.

Chris Stapleton is her favorite country artist and she did a rendition of a Stapleton song that appears on the Bladen Journal Facebook page – posted April 18. You can hear things and emotions in that song that makes her believe that she is the one he is singing about it that song.

“Whenever I’m broken, honey, you heal me. When I’m in the dark, you are the light. When I get lost,

you know right where to find me. When I have my doubts, you make me believe” – It takes a woman by Chris Stapleton.

Blackburn graduated from Clinton High School in 2023 and was offered a scholarship play basketball at NCAA DIV. III, William Peace University in Raleigh. In her freshman year she logged over 350 minutes of playing time and made a great impact on coaches and teammates. She is currently majoring in pre-law and minoring in criminal justice, playing guitar in her spare time and working hard to crack the starting lineup for the Pacers next season.

After college she plans on going to Basic Law Enforcement Training School where she eventually wants to be a North Carolina State Trooper.

It kind of runs parallel with the song that she wrote, “What She Could Have Been.” For an extended bio about Blackburn, William Peace University posted an article, “From American Idol Contestant to Basketball Star: The Inspiring Journey of a WPU Student.”

You can view that article by visiting: https://www.peace.edu/news/from-american-idol-contestant-to-basketball-star-the-inspiring-journey-of-a-wpu-student/

Mark DeLap is a journalist, photographer and the editor and general manager of the Bladen Journal. To email him, send a message to: mdelap@bladenjournal.com