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’s 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 The Sequim Gazette. “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 KING 5. 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’re 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’s one of the hardest working young ladies I ever met.”
Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.
