Peggy Revell
Local teen Harley Labbe is out to prove she’s the “Ultimate Fan” of country star Taylor Swift—and is looking for a little help.
Labbe has been named one of 25 finalists by Country Music Television in a contest where enough votes for her home-made video will win the chance to meet her singing hero face-to-face.
“It’s been my dream now for three years,” Labbe said of meeting Swift.
“And I can’t believe that I’ve got this far.”
With online voting wrapping up next Wednesday (Aug. 5), the video that comes out on top will be announced Aug. 7.
The winner will be flown to Chicago in October, where they’ll attend a Taylor Swift concert, meet her face-to-face, have $500 in spending money, and also be followed around by a camera crew so the experience will be made into an episode to run on CMT.
With Labbe’s sister noticing the contest online just two days before the deadline, it actually was a last-minute entry that ended up helping Labbe place in the top 25, she explained.
“We were trying to be different,” Labbe said of the video they were able to put together, noting that with so many fans, it’s sometimes hard to stand out.
“There were so many rules,” she noted. “We had to try to convince Canada, and whoever else, that I’m the ultimate fan.”
Labbe’s video—available online at http://www.cmt.ca/ultimatefanaccess/Gallery.aspx—includes her own rap song, singing, a sparkly guitar, Taylor trivia, and plenty of reasons why she’s the “ultimate fan.”
This transformation into the “ultimate fan” first began a few years ago when Labbe was attending WE Fest in Minnesota and heard Swift’s first single, “Tim McGraw.”
“I’ve always loved music,” she said. “Music was a big part of my life, I connected to it, but it wasn’t until she [rose to fame] that it made a difference in my life,” Labbe explained.
“It helped me through hard times, and she has made just a huge impact on my life and so many other lives. And I think that’s worth looking up to.
“As a musician, it’s because she’s different,” Labbe stressed. “She writes all her songs.
“The lyrics, the way that they tell stories, just seems different from other artists,” she added. “And I guess because they’re relatable—I’ve gone through every one of the things that she has sang about.”
Labbe noted Swift became big when she was 16, which is how old she is.
“So that keeps me believing in my dreams,” she remarked.
“I know that there’s big fans out there, but it’s hard to imagine anybody feeling this strongly. I want to meet her so bad that I almost don’t want to,” Labbe laughed.
“Because it’s like, ‘What do you say to someone like that, who is basically your role model?’”
Labbe is hoping persistence will pay off, though, since she’s been voting every single day at every chance she can get‚—and plans to keep on voting right up until the very end.
While the two dozen other contestants may hail from areas larger than Fort Frances, Labbe is not worried about that playing a role in who wins the contest.
“Using ‘YouTube’ and ‘Facebook,’ I’ve been able to reach out to a lot of people,” she noted.
“And the fact that it [Fort Frances] is so small, I know everybody so then they actually are looking out for me and voting, and they care, as opposed to a big city where they might not even know the person.”
Along with her close friends taking the time to vote, Labbe also has found strangers reaching out to help her win.
“All this has meant so much to me,” she enthused. “And winning would just be so awesome.”
