Lincoln County teacher will compete on CMT's "The Singing Bee"

STANFORD — If Lisa Johnson brings home $10,000 for winning CMT’s “The Singing Bee,” it won’t be the first time she has been paid to sing.

“I was 3 years old,” Johnson says. “An older man at church, Highland Methodist, gave me a silver dollar to stand up in the front of the church and sing ‘I’ve Been Redeemed!’ I’ve been singing ever since.”

Johnson surely has told this story a thousand times to explain why she loves singing in front of a crowd, but she likely will tell it again as the beginning of the story about her trip to appear on Country Music Television’s game show.

There are a whole bunch of folks excited to see how the story turns out.

Johnson, 43, married her high school sweetheart, Bobby, 25 years ago and still lives in Lincoln County where she was born and raised. The couple have three children, “Little” Bobby, who at 20 is not so little anymore; Jarred, 18, and Dusty, 9. But besides her own children, Johnson has hundreds of other children interested in the outcome of her TV appearance. She has taught five years at Lincoln County Middle School and at Highland Elementary School before that. Not only the kids but also parents, faculty, friends and neighbors will be keeping tabs on her adventure from her flight to Los Angeles on Feb. 29 until the show airs at a yet unknown time.

All of this interest may take the already popular show into mega-ratings due to a Lisa Johnson bump.

LCMS music teacher Carlee Cornett may have said it best: “We are all so proud of her! Everybody is. The kids at school are so excited because Mrs. Johnson is going to be famous!”

The show, which combines karaoke singing with a spelling bee-style competition, features contestants trying to remember the lyrics to popular songs. Johnson says she had never really watched the show before the night right after Christmas when she was awake at 2:30 a.m. and flipped on the TV.

“I watched four different contestants who didn’t know the words to ‘Sweet Home Alabama!’ Can you even imagine? Well, I couldn’t either. I sent an email to the show, and they called me two days later,” she says.

The rest, as they say, is history.

She was asked to come to Nashville for an audition. She politely declined because she had other obligations. They figured out a way to come to her.

“I had a Skype audition!” she says. “It lasted 50 minutes. Out of 40 songs, I didn’t know the next lyrics only three times.”

No one who knows her, she says, is surprised the producers picked her. “Singing Bee” might describe her as much as the show.

“My kids are all like, ‘That’s just Mom being Mom,’” she says. “My Aunt Debbie said, ‘This is way cool but don’t forget to tell them about me,’ and I am sure I will.”

“I wasn’t a very good student, early on,” she says. She did love going over to her Aunt Debbie’s house where her aunt would play the piano for her and they would sing and sing.

“When a couple of my teachers noticed I like to sing, that was it. I had found my niche and I even had to keep my grades up if I wanted to be in the plays — which I did,” she says. School plays and music programs and the church choir have all prepared her for what she is about to do.

She’s “not one bit” nervous, either, she says — hasn’t been since that silver-dollar got her onstage at 3.

Johnson looks to be the perfect contestant for the show both as a natural performer and with a musical repertoire from, she says, the Bee Gees to Southern Rock with a liberal sprinkling of show tunes and gospel and country. She also will have the well-wishes of her community to add energy to her efforts.

The only real question left is what will she wear?

“I’d love to find some blue and white cowboy boots,” she says. “I intend to represent UK all the way, and my school, of course. And my family ... my church ...”

“I hope I win. I really do. I go back and forth between thinking the whole thing is silly and then thinking it’s kind of cool,” she says. “I want to take my husband on a trip, if I win. To Hawaii maybe. We’ve never really been able to do anything just for us.”

Johnson has promised to keep everyone updated on her adventure, including when to watch her on “The Singing Bee.”