True to the music
By Johna Strickland - Argus Observer
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 11:45 AM PDT
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| Malheur County Fair talent contest winner Bo Arvidson, Parma, sings ‘I’m all right’ to patient Arlene Debban, Payette. Arvidson said she often sings to her patients during her night shifts as a nurse at Holy Rosary Medical Center |
Parma - Smiling people make Bo Arvidson happy.
Bringing those smiles to their faces is her passion, and she does it with her voice through music.
“I just love to sing,” Arvidson, 36, Parma, said. “I really don’t do it for the money. I just do it because I love people. I love to entertain. That’s where my heart lies, in making people smile.”
Arvidson’s most recent venue was a performance of “There’s Gotta Be Something More” by Sugarland in the Malheur County Fair’s talent contest.
Her performance earned first-place accolades in the contest and $200.
The money went to school clothes for her three sons and the experience into her singing past. Arvidson win made her eligible for the state-wide talent show at the Oregon State Fair Aug. 26, but she’s staying home for family reasons and second place winner Randy Wade will go in her stead.
Singing “Here comes Suzy Snowflake,” Arvidson made her singing debut at age 4 in church or kindergarten — she doesn’t remember exactly which — and has been singing ever since.
“It’s my bag,” she said. “I was always a ham. I love to perform for people.”
Through a stint in a Mexican-American dance group where she sang in Spanish — though she can’t speak the language — and a singing trip to Japan and Carnegie Hall with Treasure Valley Community College, Arvidson has maintained her musical talent and reached her childhood goal of helping people. Today she is a licensed practical nurse at Holy Rosary Medical Center in Ontario.
“I always wanted to be a helper,” she said. “I received joy from helping other people, and I knew I either wanted to sing or work in the health care profession. And I guess I thought the health care profession was going to be more lucrative. I probably drive some of the patients crazy and part of the staff.”
Working two nights a week on the medical, surgical and pediatrics floor, Arvidson said she randomly bursts into song sometimes.
Usually people seek out the sound and ask for the radio to be turned down. She tells them she isn’t a radio, but she’ll keep it down.
“I get lots of opportunities to sing to a sick child, calm them down,” Arvidson said. “Their little face just lights up when I come in the room ‘cause they know they’re going to get a little entertainment and excellent health care.”
Although Arvidson said she loves to sing, and will do anything from “ZZ Top to gospel,” she’s not ready to give up nursing.
“I like nursing, I do. My career aspiration with music is not to be famous necessarily,” she said. “I just want to entertain. It’s like watching a flower bloom ‘cause people start to smile.” But if she had a gig like the Malheur fair where “they gave me $200 for five minutes of work” each night, she’d quit nursing, Arvidson said.
In the future, she said, she’s thinking of working for a recording company in Boise, joining a band in the Treasure Valley and holding onto the hope her 2-year-old daughter, Molly, “inherits my pipe.”
“She can be my country-western superstar. I never wanted to be a superstar,” Arvidson said. “I just like singing in the shower, and my good, sweet husband usually doesn’t tell me to shut up.”
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