Kelsea Ballerini kicks off 2023 CMT Awards with dedication to Nashville school shooting victims
foxnews.comKelsea Ballerini kicked off the 2023 CMT Music Awards with a dedication to the victims of the Nashville school shooting. The country music star, 29, said, "On March 27, 2023, three nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs along with Dr.
Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, Mike Hill walked into the Covenant school and didn’t walk out." Ballerini became emotional before adding, "The community of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings in the US this year alone stretches from coast to coast.
I wanted to personally stand up here and share this moment because on August 21, 2008 I watched Ryan McDonald, my 15-year-old classmate at Central High School lose his life to a gun in our cafeteria." The CMT host concluded, "Tonight’s broadcast is dedicated to the ever growing list of families, friends, survivors, witnesses and responders whose lives continue to forever be changed by gun violence.
I pray deeply that the closeness in the community that we feel through the next few hours of music can soon turn into action, like real action, that moves us forward together to create change for the safety of our kids and or loved ones." Just before taking the stage at the country music award show, Ballerini and Chase Stokes, 30, made their red carpet debut, five months after her divorce from Morgan Evans.
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