American Idol Finalist, Phil Stacey, to Serve as Grand Marshal for 56th Annual Nashville Christmas Parade Hosted by Piedmont Nat
November 20 2008 - 2:45PM
PR Newswire (US)
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Piedmont
Natural Gas (NYSE:PNY) announced today that Navy veteran and former
American Idol Finalist Phil Stacey will serve as the Grand Marshal
for the 56th annual Nashville Christmas Parade to be held on
Friday, December 5th at 7:00 p.m. Phil Stacey, best remembered for
his performance of Keith Urban's "Where The Blacktop Ends" during
American Idol's Country Week in Season 6, said, "It was my chance
to sing music I could really relate to, that drew on who I am and
what I'd grown up around." His performance impressed even the
normally critical Simon Cowell, who acknowledged that the
Kentucky-born singer had at last displayed his true identity in
convincing style. Phil Stacey's path toward American Idol and his
country music career began in a childhood molded by two equally
strong influences. The first was the ministry, which had shaped
both sides of his family for generations. Both of Phil's
grandfathers were pastors and his father devoted his life to
ministry, pastoring churches in Kentucky, Ohio and Kansas. The
other was music. Growing up in a pastor's home, most of the music
the family listened to at home was Southern and Contemporary
gospel. "The exception," Stacey says, "was when my parents would
bring in a country record and it would usually be a heritage thing,
playing something by artists like Hank Williams Sr." The
combination gave Phil an early, lifelong love of country and gospel
that would be supplemented by the pop and rock influences he picked
up later in life. Then September 11, 2001 happened, galvanizing the
country and changing Phil Stacey's life. "I wanted to support the
effort against terror," he says simply. "I was always proud of my
dad, who was a veteran and fought in Vietnam." Stacey enlisted in
the Navy, a path that ultimately led him to auditioning for
American Idol and becoming a top 6 finalist during Season 6. Phil
participated in that season's 55-city Idol tour, at the end of
which he received an honorable discharge from the Navy -- and
immediately re-enlisted in the Naval Reserves. Talking about his
singing, Phil says, "I feel my job as a singer is part of my job as
a human being. I'm supposed to be touching other people's lives,
doing the best I can to be a positive force in the world." Tim
Greenhouse, Regional Executive for Piedmont Natural Gas in
Nashville, commented on Phil Stacey's role as Grand Marshal for
this year's parade, "We're very excited to have Phil serve as our
Grand Marshal. His story and his passion for family and music make
him the perfect fit for our Parade." Piedmont Natural Gas will be
making a $1,000 donation to the MaryEllen Locher Foundation, an
organization committed to helping families who have been impacted
by breast cancer, in honor of Stacey's participation as Grand
Marshal. About Piedmont Natural Gas Piedmont Natural Gas is an
energy services company primarily engaged in the distribution of
natural gas to more than one million residential, commercial and
industrial utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and
Tennessee, including 62,000 customers served by municipalities who
are wholesale customers. Our subsidiaries are invested in joint
venture, energy-related businesses, including unregulated retail
natural gas marketing, interstate natural gas storage and
intrastate natural gas transportation. Additional information about
Piedmont is available on the Internet at http://www.piedmontng.com/
. DATASOURCE: Piedmont Natural Gas CONTACT: David Trusty of
Piedmont Natural Gas, +1-704-507-6393 (cell), Web site:
http://www.piedmontng.com/
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