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Gary Reed is an 11th-grade East Jessamine High School (EJHS) student who has been singing since he was five. On Monday, Feb. 10, he performed for the WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour at the Lyric Theatre in Lexington.

Gary started out singing at different churches throughout Fayette and Jessamine County. He’s involved with the EJHS chorus and has had training and countless concert performances with the choral music educator at EJHS, Kellie Sherwood. “Once he got into chorale in his high school, it just gave him a different output when it comes to music; even the way he sings is different. The training was perfect for him with his deep, melodramatic voice,” said his mother, Tonya Reed. 

He has also performed the national anthem at his school and the Mercantile Coffee shop on Main Street in Nicholasville. 

Thanks to encouragement from his mother, Tonya Reed, Kellie Sherwood, and a connected family friend, Shiretha Chantal Dunn, this week, Gary performed at Kentucky’s WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour, filmed at the Lyric Theater. Dunn often works with artists as a project manager and said it’s important for young adults to get started in music early; she has been working hard alongside Tonya to get Gary into recording studios and opportunities like this one. 

The Lyric opened in 1948 as a cultural hub for Lexington’s segregated Black community. The theater closed in 1963 for 50 years and reopened in 2010, returning as an iconic beacon of culture in the city. 

“Oh, what an awesome, organized, and orderly day! Everyone was so welcoming in a world where few are trying to create a divide,” Tonya said. After the show, his high school choir clapped to support Gary’s performance.  

Tonya excitedly took pictures of the legendary Black artists, both local and renowned, who had performed at the Lyric before her son took the stage. 

As a single mother, Tonya has six children, each with their own creative talents and separate careers. Her eldest kids have carved out places for themselves in the world, and Gary and her youngest, Aaidenn, are also beginning to find themselves. 

“I give God all his glory in everything I do. This opportunity for Gary [was] his prayer manifesting. It’s been just awesome seeing my children’s lives take off and blossom cause all I’ve wanted for them is to be the best they can be for themselves. And as their mother, I was their first teacher,” Tonya said

But things have been far from easy for Tonya and her family. They’ve lived in Jessamine County since 2015 when Tonya said she wanted a different education for her kids. 

December 15, 2024, marked three years since Tonya and her children left the homeless shelter and into their permanent residence. Illness, including COVID and bacterial pneumonia, as well as other issues, had kept Tonya out of work and led her and four of her children to an open room at the Salvation Army. But while Tonya was sick, families, teachers, and fellow students sent the family money and warm meat-and-potato dinners to keep them fed. “Jessamine County showed up for my babies when I was in the hospital.”

“My friends and some of my family reached out saying, ‘You can come to stay with us, you know!’ and I did know, but at that moment, I had to stand up on my own two feet and heal. I didn’t want to go to [anybody’s] house to help pay bills. I knew what it took,” Tonya said. 

With some help from food stamps, Tonya could feed her children. Her daughter once mentioned turning their meals into fun family barbecues at a local park. When it was time to shower, the family got together, scrubbed the Salvation Army bathroom clean, and took their showers before leaving the freshly cleaned bathroom to other guests. 

While trying to get housing through Section 8 assistance, Tonya ran into hurdles. First, she couldn’t find a three-bedroom apartment that accepted Section 8 program assistance. When Tonya finally did find an apartment, she was told they had a waitlist. 

So, at the time, the family was still staying at the Salvation Army. One night, a fellow resident used Vicks VapoRub in the common area. However, Reed said it was Salvation Army policy that no non-prescription medicine was allowed in the living quarters. “My eyes started burning,” Tonya said. “I didn’t recognize [the allergic reaction] at first, but when my daughter came down to the room and opened the door, the smell hit me, and within five minutes, my eyes were swelling, and I had to get my inhaler.” 

Even though keeping non-prescription medicine is against its policy, Salvation Army staff were not allowed to go into residents’ rooms to take their things, so Tonya said the only solution staff could provide her was to sleep in her car for the night. It was the middle of the night, and Tonya and her children had to leave unless she wanted her allergic reaction to worsen. 

“We drove to the Wal-Mart parking lot in Lexington on Russell Cave Road, and my friend, Theresa, just happened to call me,” Tonya vented to her friend. As she was finishing up, her friend gave her the information and the confirmation number for a hotel room she had just purchased for Tonya and her children. As soon as she thanked her friend, feeling “blessed within [her] heart,” another friend called Tonya and asked if her family had eaten. Tonya said they had earlier. As soon as the Reeds arrive at their hotel room, they hear a knock on the door. It’s Reed’s friend with food and drinks. The hotel even had free breakfast the next day. 

Although Tonya said she felt so blessed by her friends and God, she still had to look for a permanent place to live. When her children ate breakfast that next morning, Tonya got a call from the apartment with a waitlist. The woman working at the apartment told Tonya, “I’m not gonna let you wait till January 1; your kids can come in and get ready and settled in before Christmas; you can get the key from the office!” Tonya said she “just about fell back off that table.”

Within the hour, Tonya had gotten the U-Haul and got their things from a storage unit. The family brought anointing oil that Tonya’s pastor had prayed over, and they anointed the windows, doors, light switches, and doorknobs. They dropped oil outside the premises for “blessings from God,” and they held hands and prayed. “We read scripture, opened the bible, opened the windows, and let the holy spirit fill this place because we were just so grateful. Whenever we get a new apartment, we pray first. We don’t just come in. We ask for anything negative [from the space] to be let go cause we’re not taking on anybody else’s stuff. Our plate is full. We ask God to send a legion of angels to guard us, and that’s how we moved to [the apartment], and we’ve been here ever since,” Tonya said. 

A month after moving in, Tonya said a local friend with a pastor’s husband brought the family donations, since moving to a new home requires so many essentials like cooking oil, bedsheets, and furniture. “It really helped us,” Tonya said. 

Tonya often tells her kids that she needs them to “stand tall, knowing that God has a plan, and that’s what I need you to believe in, so this mess down here [doesn’t] drive you crazy. And that’s the light we walk in.”

Tonya, Gary, and his accompanying pianist, William Fitzgerald, walked in the light on Monday, Feb. 10, in the footsteps of Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Redd Foxx, and B.B. King. 

To watch Gary’s WoodSongs performance, head to https://fb.watch/xHisfd5cya/.