19-year-old Sequim native to sing national anthem at the World Series … again!
Oct 24, 2024, 7:04 AM
Boys & Girls Clubs Youth Performer Pearle Peterson of Sequim sings the national anthem prior to Game 2 of the 2023 World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers on Oct. 28 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo: Mary DeCicco, Getty Images)
(Photo: Mary DeCicco, Getty Images)
A performance of the national anthem at this year’s World Series will be sung by a Sequim native, and it will be her second time doing so in two years.
Pearle Peterson, a student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, previously sang at last year鈥檚 World Series where the Texas Rangers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks. But with a performance so good, the league made sure she was invited back to perform once more.
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“Getting the news the first time was shocking,” Peterson told . “Nothing can prepare you for hearing it twice.”
She will represent the Boys & Girls Clubs of America for the second consecutive year while singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” for Game 2 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, which will be played Saturday, Oct. 26 in Los Angeles at 5:08 p.m. She sang before the opening pitch of Game 2 in last year’s World Series as well.
When she sang the national anthem last year, Peterson became the first young person from the Boys & Girls Club to achieve such an honor in the organization’s history. This is her 12th year with the Boys & Girls Club of America.
She’s a national youth talent performer with the Boys & Girls Club of America, and travels the country regularly performing in major cities.
“For years, coming from an eight-stoplight town,” Peterson told KING 5. “I always felt that my dreams are just too big for the barriers.”
Peterson landed this opportunity after performing a song at a Boys and Girls Club event in New York just weeks before the World Series was set to start, according to . When she finished performing, she had no idea the vice president of Major League Baseball was sitting in the audience, enamored with her singing.
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“We鈥檙e not just super proud of her; we tell kids they can be the next Pearle,” Mary Budke, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, told The Sequim Gazette. “She鈥檚 one of the hardest working young ladies I ever met.”
Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories聽here聽and you can email him聽here.
