Spc. Elise Baldwin began taking private voice lessons at age 12 and was a choir member throughout middle school, high school and college. She was a member of the 2010 Texas Women’s All-State Choir. Baldwin opened for the musical group Little Big Town by singing the national anthem before a crowd of 30,000 at a Fourth of July Festival on the parade grounds at Fort Polk, Louisiana. She also sang the anthem at Houston Rockets basketball and Houston Astros baseball games with the Spring High School Chamber Choir, which was selected as the 2010 honor choir at the Madrigal Festival in San Antonio. As a recipient of the Pavilion Partner’s Fine Arts Scholarship, Baldwin, 22, attended the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music, in Nacogdoches, Texas. There she became a trained opera singer and toured Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic with SFASU’s Acapella Choir. “Music has been my life forever,” she said. “Music is my calling.”