Junior High was an interesting time.When I moved from Harrodsburg to the Beatttyville area, I went to a school called    Owsley Country Middle School...I was involved in the football team,chorus--and I had played basketball in elementary.I didn't play basketball in junior high because in elementary I was always big and tall, but in junior high I stopped growing and got a little chubby.I mean just a little chubby.But it was just a stage I went through, it took care of itself.I didn't have to diet or anything.It was good for football!Junior High was great.Things were good there.I was playing sports,singing in the chorus,doing musicals and stuff like that.The summer of my 8th grade year I shot back up, and then like between nineth and tenth grade, I really changed.I guess you could say I was a late bloomer.

 Ever since I can remember, we always had the radio in my room, lip-syncing and singing in front of the mirror...having a tennis racket and strumming it like a guitar...Singing into a flashlight like it was a microphone.Me,Brian and Brian's brother[Harold] all did that!Every time they would come over...What really used to be a hooby of mine was drawing.Me and Brian's older brother, he's really talented at drawing. So was my oldest brother Jerald.But I was pretty talented too and I can still draw really good, but I never really pursued it that much. It was something we would all do and we'd also play around with the tape recorder and sing and record stuff.[We] would pretend we were broadcasters or pretend we were singers and this was our album, etc... We'd pretend we were DJs and we were always doing crazy stuff like that...I guess it's been a dream of mine for a long time.

 When Brian and I were growing up(his brother is the same age as me), his older brother and I would hang out together and we would like torture Brian, the poor kid! I would always love for them to come to bring their toys and play. Up until I was nine, they lived about 45 minutes away. We'd get to see each other at least once or twice a month, we'd spend the night or spend a weekend. My mother and Brian's father are brother and sister.

 In high school, I was playing football I was in the drama club and the chorus.When we moved from Harrodsburg, at the summer camp[my father ran] they had a lodge, and it had a piano in it. I went down there to mess around. I heard my dad telling a story a couple of years back, where he heard some music and said, ' Wow that's great! Where is that coming from?' He went in and it was me playing. I [can] play by ear. If I hear something either on the radio or on tape and I sit down, in thirty minutes I can usually pick out pretty much any song. At the age of ten I started clunking around the piano and keyboard, stuff like that. In high school I really got into it. My mom and dad got me a keyboard, it was a synthesizer, for Christmas. I think in my sophomore year...
 
 When I was really little, we would go to my grandfather's house, my mom's father, who we would call 'Papaw'--he loved to dance when he was young! He would put on records and we'd get up and dance all over the place. The summer camp had dancers all the time...I would go to the senior dancers[at the camp] where the kids were 16 to 18, I [was] only 12 or 13, and I just learned you know. It didn't bother me. A lot of guys at that age would be embarrassed and wouldn't get out there and dance, but I loved it. I guess I've always been a very good dancer, it's just in my blood. My parents were good dancers-- they've won contests! At class reunions my dad taught me how to jitterbug and that's what got me into ballroom dancing. When I was 19, in Florida, I taught ballroom dancing and Latin dancing.

 [But getting back to the camp days]. I'd meet girls and it hurt me that they had to leave. Not only did I get my heart broken, but I would meet someone and then two weeks later, they would leave. When I was 13, I met this guy, Keith and we would write music together...We wrote our first song together, he played the keyboard also. Mostly [I] used to help my dad out and he would pay a little bit, [I'd] mow all the grass, rake the leaves, clean the pool, clear trails, chop down branches, cut firewood and all that good stuff.

 In high school, I did alot of talent shows. I would play my keyboard and sing. In church I did the same thing. My friend's dad owned a restaurant and i would play there at night with him on piano; then I went by myself and played during dinner. It was two or three times a week. I also [sang] at weddings. I would sing "Endless Love," "Always and Forever," ...stuff like that.

 I moved from Kentucky to Orlando, Florida in 1991...with one of my friends...Jimmy. We were working the same job and would talk about moving to Florida. [At that time] I didn't know if I was going to go to school or not. I was just working and was in band at that time. things [didn't work out] with my band, and my parents told me about cruise ship entertainers. Then I heard about Disney. My father kept telling us to go off, so we went! We packed up his car and left for Orlando...We had $800 between us when we left.

 When we got to Orlando, we filled out all the applications for stores in the mall. We then turned to Disney and got hired, then found an apartment...When [my job at] Disney started, I was a tour guide for a year, then character entertainers like Ninja Turtles and Aladdin.[Around that time] I went into a community theater in Orlando--I auditioned and got a job at a dinner [theater]. I was also doing some modelling in Orlando and I was getting serious with that until I got into the group. I [also] did some extra parts in movies. [Kevin appeared as an extra in Anna Chlumsky's & Macaulay Culkin's My Girl-Ed note]... [At that point] it was me A.J., Nick, Howie, and another guy who was my age, but he didn't work out...that's when I gave my cousin a call.

 I called him at school, and he was shocked! I told him I was in this singing group and he said,'I know'. I said,'I was wondering if you would be interested in auditioning for the group?' And he said, "What?!" I said, "[We need another member and] I told them about you." The next day, he was on a plane down to Orlando and bam--he was in the group!You know the rest of the story...

{If anyone reading this has the first part of this story, please e-mail me at [email protected].And if you are wondering where I got it from, well it came in the December 1998 issue of Super Teen}

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