AI Employee Meets Her Long-Time Country Star Idol


(June 29, 2017 Houston, TX) – Recently, Country singer, Garth Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center and one of our own AI employees got the chance to meet and talk to both stars.

AI Employee, Tracie Finkle, has been a long-time fan of Garth for many years.  After an accident left Tracie with a spinal cord injury, she says Garth’s music helped to save her life and his music continues to inspire her to live every day to the fullest.  Tracie has been to over 60 Garth concerts and at every show she attended, she brought with her a sign saying, ‘Hugs from Houston’. Last week while at work, she got to have her dream become a reality and meet her hero.

Garth Brooks and wife, Trisha Yearwood were at JSC for Garth’s Facebook series, Inside Studio G where he talked to crewmembers on the International Space Station.  As they were approaching one of the buildings, they saw Tracie holding her ‘Hugs from Houston’ sign and recognizing the sign, Garth walked up to her to say hi and visited with her for a bit.  Tracie was beside herself with excitement as this was number one on her life list!

Tracie had this to say about meeting her all-time favorite star, “The timing was perfect this morning! I was holding my Hugs from Houston sign as they got out of the SUV. Garth walked straight to me and said, ‘I know you’. He then said, ‘and I know that sign’. He reached down and gave me a hug. I whispered thank you. We did some pictures with the last one being him taking the selfie of us three.”

Tracie says, “Garth was so humble and genuine.  It’s so surreal to have met him where I work after all of my travels to see him.” Tracie saw her 67th Garth show in Lafayette, Louisiana two days after meeting him. Tracie marked through the from in her sign so that it read Hugs IN Houston and pointed it out to Garth at a show in Lafayette. When Garth saw it, he said, “Amen, sister” and made a heart with his hands for her. She is headed to Oklahoma City on July 14th for four more shows!

Below is the link to the video Tracie posted on KHOU’s news page:

https://www.facebook.com/KHOU11/videos/10156526388094062/?pnref=story