Singing is no chore for 10-year-old

By JANET MARSHALL

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 25, 1998

EMINOLE -- She's only 10, but singer Kaci Lyn Battaglia has a fan club, two compact discs and several agents.

She has sung the national anthem at a Yankees game, entertained Gov. Lawton Chiles at a luncheon and performed with Belinda Womack in concert.

It's heady stuff for a fifth-grader, and her mom sometimes worries it's too intense for her only child. Donna Stanmore wants her daughter to have a childhood, not a job.

"When she was about 8, I kind of tried to talk her out of it," Stanmore said. "She said, "Please don't ever try to take this away from me, mom.' "

So the shows go on. Kaci Lyn will sing pop and country songs Friday at City Hall Park during the first in a series of free summer children's shows. Her performance starts at 8 p.m. Harden & Jones, a country group, will do a sing-along at 7 p.m.

Series organizer Tracy Jones booked Kaci Lyn after listening to a demo tape with her 6-year-old daughter.

"I rewound that tape so many times because my daughter was like, "I want to hear it again, I want to hear it again,' " Jones said.

If Kaci Lyn is awake, she's singing. She sings in the shower, in the swimming pool and throughout the home she shares with her mom and stepfather. She sings for her parents, her friends and even her dogs.

"Sometimes," she said with a laugh, "I sing so much I annoy myself."

Her family jokes that she was born crying to a beat. Singing and performing come naturally to Kaci Lyn, an outgoing, straight-A student at Northside Christian School.

"She is truly one of the best I've ever had," voice coach Ron Thompson said. "Kaci, I think, is as good as or better than (country star) LeAnn Rimes."

At least once a week, Kaci Lyn and her mom pack up a cooler of drinks and snacks and drive the 110 miles to Thompson's studio in Orlando for voice lessons.

Some days, she stays late for acting lessons. She is starting to do commercials and recently was pictured in an advertisement for Wisk and Snuggle.

The show-business world scares Stanmore, a nurse who stopped working and put graduate school on hold to shuttle Kaci Lyn to auditions, lessons and performances.

She worries about the toll the traveling takes on her daughter. She worries about the classes Kaci Lyn occasionally misses to attend auditions. And she wonders how her daughter has the courage to stand in front of hundreds of strangers and sing.

"I wouldn't want to get in front of a crowd and speak, let alone sing," Stanmore said. "She has no fear."

The family has an agreement: If performing ever stops being fun, or if Kaci Lyn's grades drop because of it, her entertaining days are over.

"I just hope to keep doing what I'm doing," Kaci Lyn said. "It's not a job for me. I do it because I want to. It's fun."