SIUSLAW NEWS | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018 | 11A MUSIC VIDEO from page 1A She and her parents are social media savvy, encouraging “likes” on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where she goes by the handle “Nyah the Unicorn.” She is currently enrolled in online classes for her freshman year of high school. Scott told the council, “We want to get as many people, as many Florence faces, as possible. Our main objective is really to showcase our home town. We want you to be in it.” “Everybody here is invited,” Nyah said. The Vollmars have lived in Florence for the past seven years — “the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere,” Nyah said. In that time, they have been active in extracurricular activities for their four children. “I do a lot of stuff with CROW (Children’s Repertory of Oregon Workshops) and I like to sing for a lot of the different events in town,” Nyah said. “I also sing the National Anthem for the Ducks and the Trailblazers.” Her work on stage began before the family moved to Florence, but CROW and Last Resort Players (LRP) gave the young performer her first real moments in the spotlight. “The whole reason I got into acting and singing in the first place is I’m a big Disney fan,” Nyah said. “When I was little, I wanted to be a Disney prin- cess, and they sing and stuff. So I started singing and acting. When I heard CROW was doing ‘Beauty and the Beast’ as a play, I got really excited.” She was in the ensemble for Florence productions by CROW and LRP, such as “Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat” and “The Music Man.” Then she started to get speaking parts, as Flounder in “The Little Mer- maid” and as Gavroche in “Les Misérables.” But she didn’t get cast in “Sound of Music” — which led to her placing as a semifinalist in Southern Oregon’s Got Talent that year. “Nyah was really bummed that she didn’t get cast in that, since a bunch of her friends did,” said her mother Marijo. “It was one of those ‘make lemonade out of lemons’ moments, be- cause she got told ‘no.’ … Being told ‘no,’ she could have taken that personally, but it was a turn- ing point for Nyah in a sense, because she changed her game a lot. Now, she’s like, ‘People are going to tell me no, but I’m go- ing to do something about it.’” That eventually led to Nyah singing the National Anthem for Viking games and, later that year, the University of Oregon Ducks. She has since continued to sing for games and be part of various other productions, even singing the anthem in front of 20,000 people at Portland’s Moda Center for a Trail Blazers game. “Florence is an interesting community because I feel like you don’t get told ‘no’ here,” Marijo continued. “If there is something you want to do as a young person, or even a person my age, like, ‘Oh, I want to take hula lessons,’ Boom! There’s a place to do it here. ‘I want to re- cord something.’ Well, she’s been in two recording studios here in this town. “If you have a dream, or you have a goal, there is a way to re- alize it in this community, which is not typical for a lot of small communities.” Scott and Marijo can trace Nyah’s interest in singing back to when she was very young. They worried that moving away from the larger metropolitan areas of Portland would limit the choices that their children might have for the arts. Marijo said they were already committed to driving her to either Eugene or Portland for more opportunities — and then people told them about CROW. Still, she was skeptical all the way up until “Beauty and the Beast” opened. “I saw it on the main stage, and I think everybody was sur- prised,” Marijo said. “I don’t think people understand how 0LUDFOH(DU+HDULQJ&HQWHUV DUHORRNLQJ IRUTXDOLILHGSHRSOHWRWHVWWKHLUODWHVWSURGXFW * 7KH0LUDFOH(DU Š 0LUDJH5,6.)5((! +HUH¶VWKHFDWFK