Cripps wins regional Voice of McDonalds

Kaylin Cripps (next to Ronald McDonald), a senior at Gentry High School and an employee of the new McDonalds Restaurant in Gentry, won the McDonalds Greater Southwest Region Voice of McDonalds Singing Contest and was told she had won in a special surprise ceremony at her school on Wednesday (Sept. 21, 2011). Pictured with Kaylin are her father, Eldon Cripps; her mother, Kaye Cripps; her younger brother, Cole Cripps; and her sister, Tahmara Coones.
Kaylin Cripps (next to Ronald McDonald), a senior at Gentry High School and an employee of the new McDonalds Restaurant in Gentry, won the McDonalds Greater Southwest Region Voice of McDonalds Singing Contest and was told she had won in a special surprise ceremony at her school on Wednesday (Sept. 21, 2011). Pictured with Kaylin are her father, Eldon Cripps; her mother, Kaye Cripps; her younger brother, Cole Cripps; and her sister, Tahmara Coones.

— She didn’t think she had a chance and almost didn’t bother to enter, but her father persuaded her and she won.

Kaylin Cripps, a senior at Gentry High School and an employee of the new McDonalds Restaurant in Gentry, won the McDonalds Greater Southwest Region Voice of Mc-Donalds Singing Contest with a submitted video recording of “Mercy,” written by Aimée Ann Duffy. She was one of 20,000 employee-contestants in the United States.

Kaylin is a regular singer at area events and has done well in numerous contests, but this was an international contest and she needed a little encouragement to enter. That encouragement was given her by her parents, Eldon and Kaye Cripps. Her cheerleading coach, Joni Wilson, also helped out with the technology to prepare the video.

As regional winner, Cripps is one of 22 contest semi-finalistsin the U.S. and will compete to be one of the top three U.S. finalists to be announced Nov. 15. The three U.S. finalists will be determined by public online voting on the Voice of McDonalds website, www.voiceofmcdonalds.com, between Oct. 7 and Nov. 1. They will advance to compete with 13 other global finalists at Orlando, Fla., in April of 2012 to become the2011 Voice of McDonalds and win a grand prize of $25,000.

Bill Mathews, owner of the Gentry restaurant and numerous other McDonalds franchises in the area, said this was a first for him to have an employee win in a regional competition.

“This is big,” Mathews said. “I have a star working at my McDonalds.”

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Kaylin Cripps, a senior at Gentry High School and an employee of the new McDonalds Restaurant in Gentry, won the McDonalds Greater Southwest Region Voice of McDonalds Singing Contest and was introduced as the winner by Doris Autry of McDonalds in a special surprise ceremony at her school on Sept. 21.

Doris Autry, director of operations for Mathews’ restaurants, announced Kaylin as the regional winner at a special surprise ceremony at Gentry High School Wednesday afternoon.

Kaylin had been told she would be singing the National Anthem for an event and came out of class to be greeted by a crowd of classmates, family, coworkers and friends - including McDonalds characters - waiting to see her announced as the winner.

McDonalds will now provide Kaylin with a voice coach to help her at the next level of competition. She will pick a song from a list of songs on the McDonalds site and make anothervideo that will go online in early October.

Beginning Oct. 7 people will be able to go to voiceofmcdonalds.com and begin voting. Votingwill run through Nov. 1. At the close of the ceremonies, Autry urged everyone to go online next month and send Kaylin on to the finals in Orlando.

Kaylin’s winning video of her performing “Mercy” is available for online viewing on YouTube by simply searching under her name.

News, Pages 1 on 09/28/2011