Abrianna Schmidt is the winner of the Country Music Hall of Fame’s “Journey of a Song” contest. She’s gearing up for all-expenses-paid trip to Nashville, where she will be able to participate in the Hall of Fame’s weeklong songwriting camp working with music producers and other artists.

Her application was a total shot in the dark that turned out for the best. “I decided to give it a shot, I didn’t know if anything was going to come out of it or not,” says Abrianna. A month after she submitted her song Small Town Girl, came the once in a lifetime surprise.

Abrianna says, “I was doing schoolwork and all the sudden I got an email in, and it was from the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is a wild name to see in your email inbox. And I called my mom and we were both so excited.”

Her song focuses on what it’s like to grow up in a small town like Carlton. “So I traveled to all these different places in the last year and year and a half, whether it’s Nashville, Los Angeles or Dallas, just all over the country. And as much as I love these cool bustling big cities that have a lot to offer, I always found myself yearning for and appreciating where I grew up and how it made me who I am,” she says.

Abrianna tells us that she’s been involved with music all her life, whether it be dance, musical theatre, or choir. She got her first guitar when she was 9 and would play around with melodies. It was when she turned 13 that she started to add lyrics to songs that she would write.

And now on her trip to Nashville she’s looking forward to collaborating with people in the music industry. She tells us, “I’m looking forward to being able to work with other artists and to write collaboratively and like I said, I’ve worked a lot by myself in the last 5-6 years. I’m also really excited to work in a studio. Because I record all my songs in my bedroom.”