You have to see this! Microphone dies while local woman sings national anthem, crowd helps finish the song

RIGBY — A touching moment was caught on camera while the national anthem was being performed at a local rodeo over the weekend.

Loretta Meyers, of Lewisville, sang the national anthem on June 20 — the first night of a two-night rodeo for the Rigby Stampede Days. She told EastIdahoNews.com she has sung the national anthem at events before but has never had an experience like she did Friday evening.

Meyers was performing with the Americanas Equestrian Group. Video captured by the group and shared on their Facebook page shows horses in the arena with their riders carrying American flags in their hands. Meyers is seen in the middle window of the announcer’s booth getting ready to sing.

She begins to sing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” but partway through, her microphone suddenly dies.

“I looked at the announcer cause it was his microphone and he’s like, ‘What happened?'” she recalled. “They were looking all around thinking the sound system went off.”

Meyers continued to sing although her microphone was no longer working, and that’s when the crowd stepped in to help.

“I started to hear the audience sing, and I was like, ‘Oh my word. They picked up right where I am,’ which shocked me because I for sure did not think they could hear me,” Meyers explained. “I stuck my head out the window and started singing louder, and so did they.”

She said it’s crucial to time the national anthem “just right” especially for the sake of the Roman rider, which is the rider who stands on top of a pair of horses with one foot on each horse.

“Even if the horses are slow or the horses are fast, whatever happens, my national anthem cannot finish before that Roman rider leaves the arena,” she said. “The minute you finish, the crowd will holler, scream and clap and it scares the horses, which could knock that Roman rider off because he’s standing. You have to pace that national anthem to those horses.”

Meyers said that’s why she stuck her head out the window was to help pace the crowd.

“I really appreciated that they took it on,” Meyers stated. “The patriotism, the pride they have in the American flag and the national anthem, to them, they were just like, ‘We’ll finish it.’ I thought that was amazing because that’s what you would hope somebody would do rather than laugh and boo, they finished it and took it over.”

At the end of the song, video shows Meyers thanking the crowd for their help.

“I stuck my hands out and clapped for them and sign-languaged ‘thank you’ and waved to them because they finished it and it was neat,” she said. “That moment was not for me. It was for the crowd that night. Someone needed the feelings felt in that moment.”

This experience was heart-warming to Meyers because her dad was a Marine who served three tours in Vietnam. She said on all the holidays where one “would respect the flag,” such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, he goes to the flag in his front yard and says a silent pledge of allegiance.

“It’s almost like he says a prayer underneath that flag. We’ve always watched him have so much love and respect for our country and our flag, and it means a lot to me because of that,” Meyers said tearing up. “I think that’s where my love and respect for the flag and the national anthem of the United States comes from, is my dad, who’s a veteran.”