The Gisborne singer was up against 42 contestants from all over the North Island but she says she was happy just to get into the finals.
The competition is designed so that a contestant auditions for a particular award category and then two entries are selected from each category to play in the public competition final.
“I was very happy to get into the finals and I knew that I was going to come either first or second, so that was cool,” she said.
Lesley hadn’t entered a singing competition for four years when she decided to take part in the Rotorua event.
“I knew we would get to Rotorua at the end of the holidays and this competition would be going on,” she said.
“My daughter’s getting married in May and I thought the competition would be a good way to win some money for her wedding.”
The driving force behind Lesley’s goal gained even more momentum leading into the competition as the singer and her husband encountered some misfortune on the road to Rotorua.
“Between Gisborne and Rotorua we lost our wallet. We only had $100 to pay for hotels, food and all that stuff so then it really became about winning because we really needed the money,” she said laughing.
Nonetheless, the pair managed to survive the weekend, win all of the categories they entered and take home a substantial amount of prize money for the wedding.
Lesley said this will take some of the stress off on the big day. But don’t count on hearing the country singer serenading the happy couple down the aisle.
“I’ll probably be too much of a cry baby to sing,” she said.
Both Lesley and Wiremu are members of Gisborne Country Music Club, which meets on the first and third Sunday of every month at the Blind Foundation headquarters at the river end of Bright Street.
