South Dakota contestant on ‘The Voice’ has ‘big dream’ in sight

As she logged into Zoom for our interview this morning, Rowan Grace Hibbard had about an hour before classes started at Rapid City Central High School.

It’s her seventh interview in the past two days — yesterday brought five in one hour as she spoke with radio stations from coast to coast about her journey so far on NBC’s “The Voice,” where the 17-year-old who goes by Rowan Grace as an artist is becoming a fan favorite with a contemporary tone that caused three out of the show’s four coaches to turn their chairs during her audition.

“It’s been super great. It’s been super crazy,” she said. “I knew that attention was going to come from this — I expected that, obviously — but it’s been kind of crazy … that that’s happening to me.”

She’s still getting used to being recognized in Rapid City coffee shops, for instance, or having fans ask for pictures with her.

“I still can’t believe this, in general, is my life,” she said.

Life for Rowan Grace has seemingly always included music. Growing up in Rapid City, she began performing in musicals while in elementary school, progressed to singing the national anthem at sporting events and wrote her first song at age 12.

“When I started singing, it was always a big dream,” she said. “I’ve always been a big dreamer, for sure, ever since I was little. I always wanted the biggest thing for myself.”

Her parents, Cory and Jill Hibbard, have supported the big dream. Cory took his daughter to California at age 13 as soon as she was eligible to audition for “The Voice.”

“It was something I watched all the time,” she said, adding that her dad was the one to tell her she could have the chance to be on the show.

It didn’t happen right away, though. Not at 13. Not during the early days of the pandemic, when she could audition online. Not even after she once got a callback to “The Voice.”

By the most recent season, when her dad told her auditions were coming up, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to try again.

“I was down on myself a little,” she said. “Kind of nervous.” And, admittedly, not wanting to hear “no” again.

But, ultimately, she decided “it doesn’t hurt. I’m just going to try it and go for it.”

It now feels like “the perfect time” for her big shot on the show, she said.

“I have a grasp on my voice now, and I know what I want my sound to sound like.”

Her in-studio audition to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Traitor” was followed days later by her victory in the Battle Rounds as a member of “Team Gwen,” coached by Gwen Stefani.

Photo by: Dave Bjerke/NBC

In retrospect, though, the two performances “took up two months of my life,” she said, adding there are “a lot of layers and meetings” before having the opportunity to sing before a national television audience. She got the final word Feb. 28 that she would be going to California to sing in front of the celebrity coaches.

Until the show aired, she couldn’t tell anyone in Rapid City about the journey she’d begun.

“That was actually one of the hardest things,” she said. “I was gone all summer, and people are like, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m just singing,’ is what I told them. ‘I’m just doing some cool singing stuff.'”

Photo by: Dave Bjerke/NBC

While she hasn’t spent a lot of time in the eastern half of the state, she has a brother, Parker, who grew up in Sioux Falls and now attends SDSU. She also sang with her band in 2021 in Sioux Falls as part of a Battle of the Bands put on by the South Dakota Rock and Roll Music Association.

She said she hopes to perform here again soon.

“I just started performing last year, and we played around Rapid City, Spearfish, Sturgis,” she said. “This summer, I really want to branch out even more.”

First, though, there’s one more piece of her singing that has not yet aired — the Knockout Round, which will be shown later this month and determines which contestants move on to the live competition rounds beginning in mid-November.

No matter how she ultimately fares on the show, though, “I had no idea the impact this would have on my life in terms of how much I’d really learn,” she said. “Throughout the process, I knew it was going to be hard mentally. You’re in your bubble, your space — my space being Rapid City — and you go to this place where there are so many amazing talented singers surrounding you, just right next to you all the time. I knew going into it it was something I needed to focus on to make sure I’m still trusting myself and knowing I deserve to be there.”

She credits her parents and close friends for creating a “safe space” for her and said they’ve “really helped me stay proud of the voice that I have and not feel insecure because of other people’s voices,” she said. “I knew if I made it on the show I’d learn from the coaches, but I didn’t realize all the learning that happens behind the cameras.”