Forty years ago this fall, Kimberly Bramlett stood before the Habersham Central faithful wearing a crown.
The 17-year-old senior had been chosen as the school’s 1986 homecoming queen, but those who knew her understood that her greatest ambition extended far beyond a football field. She loved to sing, and by then, audiences across Habersham County had already been listening for years.
She entered and won local talent contests. She sang at weddings, birthday parties and civic-club meetings. Her father hauled a small speaker, mixing board, microphone and cassette tapes from one appearance to the next, helping his daughter gain experience wherever someone would give her an opportunity.
Four decades later, the former homecoming queen is known around the world as Kimberly Schlapman, a founding member of the Grammy-winning country group Little Big Town.
Her journey has taken her from Cornelia to Nashville, from singing with accompaniment tapes to sharing stages with Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie and some of country music’s biggest stars. She has performed on national television, recorded chart-topping songs and become a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Yet when Schlapman returned to Habersham County in May to receive Habersham Central High School’s 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, she spoke less about fame than about the people and community that helped her believe her childhood dream was possible.
“I’m so proud to be from here, and I claim it every day,” she said. “I try to make this community proud because so much good was instilled in me.”
A Childhood Filled With Music
Music surrounded Schlapman while she was growing up in Cornelia.
Her father, Tolbert Bramlett, loved bluegrass and played stringed instruments. Her mother, Barbara, played piano and organ at Demorest Baptist Church.
Kimberly began playing alongside her mother when she was only 11 years old. When the church pianist left, the congregation suddenly needed someone who could take her place.
“I was 11, and I started playing piano in church—and I was not very good,” Schlapman recalled with a laugh. “She was a great piano player. I was not very good, but I got a little bit better.”
She soon discovered that her greater gift was her voice.
“I got in choir, and I realized, ‘Hey, I can sing on pitch,’” she said. “I kind of enjoyed it.”
Choir helped turn that ability into a passion. It also surrounded her with teachers and fellow students who nurtured her talent.
At Habersham Central, Bramlett participated in the school chorus and concert choir and was selected for the Georgia All-State Chorus for five consecutive years. Between her junior and senior years, she was chosen as one of six sopranos to attend the Governor’s Honors Program for vocal music.
She also served as senior class vice president and participated in numerous school and community organizations, including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Beta Club and the Community Bank and Trust Student Advisory Board.
Despite her growing experience as a performer, Schlapman remembers being shy and uncertain of herself.
She recalled that Virginia Foster offered her an opportunity to work as a disc jockey at WCON while she was in high school. Kimberly was too frightened to accept.
“That’s one of my biggest regrets,” she said. “Back then, I was just really shy. I didn’t really believe in myself.”
Her advice to today’s students is the advice she wishes she could have given her younger self.
“Don’t worry about what everybody else around you thinks,” she said. “Be kind to everyone around you. You don’t know what people right beside you are going through behind closed doors. Always be kind—and believe in yourself. Don’t give up.”
A Community Gave Her a Stage
As her voice developed, members of the community found opportunities for her to perform.
Schlapman remembers singing for the Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club while her father handled the equipment.
“My daddy and I would tote—well, my daddy would tote—this little Peavey speaker, and we had this tiny little mixing board,” she recalled. “We probably used two channels. All we used was my cassette tape that I would sing along with and my microphone.”
Those appearances may have seemed modest at the time, but Schlapman now recognizes their importance. Every wedding, talent show and civic meeting gave her another chance to become comfortable holding a microphone and singing before an audience.
“That was such a big deal for me,” she said. “It was like I was getting an opportunity to figure out what it was to hold a microphone and sing for people.”
She specifically thanked local educator Donnie Foster for opening doors that would have seemed almost unimaginable to a high-school student. Through those opportunities, she performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and sang at Atlanta Braves games.
“Mr. Foster, you hold a very, very special place in my heart,” she told him during her visit home.
Those experiences helped prepare her for much larger stages, but success was still years away.
Six Years to the First Hit
Kimberly received a vocal-music scholarship to Samford University in Birmingham. There she met another young Georgia singer named Karen Fairchild.
The two sang in college groups and remained friends as each pursued a career in Nashville. Eventually, over lunch, one of them suggested that they stop chasing the same dream separately.
“One of us—and we don’t remember who—said, ‘Why don’t we just do something together?’” Schlapman recalled.
They loved vocal harmony and envisioned a group composed of two women and two men. Fairchild knew Jimi Westbrook, an Alabama singer preparing to move to Nashville. When the three sang together, they discovered a natural blend that reminded them of family harmony.
They still wanted one more voice—something low, rough and distinctive. They found it in Phillip Sweet.
Little Big Town came together in 1998. The band received its first record contract in May 1999, but the road ahead was far more difficult than any of them anticipated.
“We made a record,” Schlapman said. “The label didn’t like it, so they dropped us.”
They signed with another company and recorded another album.
“They put it out. Nobody bought it, except for our family members,” she joked.
That label dropped them, too.
After two failed deals, the group found itself carrying a stigma in Nashville. Record executives had already passed on Little Big Town, and few appeared interested in giving the quartet another chance.
“There were a lot of times that we wanted to stop,” Schlapman said.
Instead, the four singers joined songwriter and producer Wayne Kirkpatrick and began creating music that better reflected who they were.
“The music that we had made before wasn’t really us,” she said. “It was just kind of dictated by the producers and the record label.”
One day, Kirkpatrick brought them a title: “Boondocks.”
The four band members began talking about their small hometowns and the experiences that shaped them. Schlapman contributed a direct piece of Habersham County to the song: Old Camp Creek Road.
“We wrote ‘Boondocks’ because we were trying to prove to the record industry in Nashville that we’re for real,” she said. “We really come from the boondocks, and we really have something to say.”
When they finished the song, Schlapman sensed that something had changed.
“I just knew it was special,” she said. “I knew it would speak to people.”
It did.
Released in 2005, “Boondocks” became Little Big Town’s breakthrough hit and remains an anthem for listeners who recognize their own hometowns in its lyrics.
“When we do it at a show, people know every word,” Schlapman said. “They’re singing it because of their own story.”
Persevering Through Tragedy
The band’s long-awaited breakthrough came during the most painful period of Schlapman’s life.
Shortly before “Boondocks” was released, her first husband, Steven Roads, died unexpectedly. At the time, Little Big Town was still traveling in a van and trying to earn enough money to move from one performance to the next.
“We didn’t really have a career, so to speak,” she said. “We were driving ourselves around in a van. We were just trying to make enough money to have enough gas money to get from show to show.”
After her husband’s death, Schlapman wanted to walk away.
“I wanted to quit,” she said. “I really, really wanted to quit.”
Her family and bandmates carried her through the darkness. She also felt a responsibility to the three people who had spent years building the group beside her.
“When somebody’s down, we lift them back up,” she said.
Schlapman believes the determination to continue was rooted partly in the values she learned growing up in Habersham County.
“I think I’m a testimony of never giving up,” she said. “There have just been a lot of downs that have happened over the many, many years, and you just have to keep going.”
“Because I was raised here, I was raised by people who don’t quit. You keep going because you work hard, and it’s in your bones.”
From the Boondocks to the Opry
Little Big Town eventually achieved the success its members spent years pursuing.
The group built its reputation around four-part harmony and recorded hits including “Pontoon,” “Girl Crush,” “Better Man,” “Little White Church,” “Day Drinking” and “Wine, Beer, Whiskey.”
Schlapman has received 13 Grammy nominations and shares in three Grammy victories with Little Big Town. The group has also collected numerous Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music awards.
In 2014, Reba McEntire surprised the group with an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. Vince Gill formally inducted Little Big Town on Oct. 17 of that year.
Schlapman has since performed with many of the artists she admired while growing up, including Dolly Parton, Barry Gibb and Lionel Richie.
She once sang imaginary duets with Richie while standing in front of her bedroom mirror. Years later, when she finally met him, she told him they had been singing together for years.
Despite thousands of performances, awards ceremonies and television appearances, the former shy student from Cornelia still gets nervous.
“I get nervous every show,” she said. “I was nervous today.”
Coming Home
On May 22, 2026, Schlapman returned to Habersham Central to receive the school’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The honor came nearly 40 years after students selected Kimberly Bramlett as their homecoming queen and almost four decades after she left Habersham County carrying a dream that even she did not always feel confident enough to pursue.
She described herself as humbled and even unworthy of receiving the award because so many others helped make her accomplishments possible.
“I feel like it’s their award,” she said.
During the ceremony, Schlapman thanked her family, teachers, friends and the community members who listened when she was still performing with a cassette tape and a small speaker.
“This community believed in me when I had the tiniest little dream,” she said. “Everybody was so encouraging.”
The plaque bearing her name will remain in the Habersham Central lobby, where it is intended to inspire other students to pursue their talents with courage, hard work and perseverance.
For Schlapman, the recognition also provided an opportunity to consider the distance between where she started and where that little dream ultimately carried her.
She may now be a Grammy winner, television personality, author and member of one of country music’s most successful groups. But returning to Habersham made her feel like the same young woman who left years ago.
“I think the reason I feel like that same girl is because the roots that I grew here were so strong,” she said.
Forty years after Habersham Central placed a homecoming crown on Kimberly Bramlett’s head, the community that first gave her a stage welcomed her home—and honored the remarkable life she built upon it.
