The most important words Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Communications Specialist Laura Perkins wrote on a Wednesday evening in May were not for a press release. They were reminders of the lyrics to the “Star-Spangled Banner” she scribbled on the back of her hand. 

Perkins stood in a locker room at Minnesota United’s Allianz Field before the beloved hometown Loons took the soccer field. She revved her vocal cords and prepped to sing the national anthem for a crowd of more than 18,000, taking precautions to avoid becoming a social media meme by forgetting the words. 

“It’s my comfort blanket,” Perkins said of the mostly illegible scrawling, her slightly nervous laughter allowing the only peek at any butterflies. “I’ve done the song more than a hundred times in all sorts of places, but I am very aware of how important this song is. I know exactly what it means to so many people. 

“I never want to mess it up,” she said. 

That same desire to build connection is part of what draws her to singing the national anthem whenever the opportunity presents itself. 

She says her mother sometimes tells the story of the first time anyone recognized Perkins could carry a tune. She was about 7 years old, singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at home to a karaoke machine, when her mother said, “I think she can really sing.” 

After that came years of choir, which the strong-spirited Perkins recalls being a bit too structured for her liking, and then a quick rejection from American Idol judges at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Coincidentally, she chose to audition with the same song that made her mother first take note. 

“I got about two bars into it and that was it,” she now says with a smile. 

On this Wednesday evening, however, as Perkins powerfully wrapped up “O’er the land of the free and the home of the BRAVE,” more than 18,000 judges roared their approval of the song and the singer.