Richard Goodall, the winner of last week’s national talent television competition, promised to give back to those who helped him realize his dream. He is the winner of America’s Got Talent.
Local comedian Andy Imlay, along with musician Rodney Watts and his daughters Mackenzie and Trinity, served as opening acts for Goodall. Jeremy Bigham organized the event and tried to get as many people to see Goodall as he could.
After winning AGT’s 19th season, Goodall, who had just returned from California, was woken up by his alarm at 4 a.m. on Friday for his first day of work at West Vigo Middle School in Terre Haute. Seeing the kids again was his top priority, but he also knew that the fundraiser in Princeton that evening would make the day busy.
He declared, “Children are the things that Angie (his wife) and I are passionate about—especially those who have been mistreated.”
Having been a janitor for 23 years, he has seen a lot of kids. On Friday, he dedicated the first song of the evening to the kids, “Let Them Be Little.”
Goodall typically receives a request to sing to or with the students at her school once a year. He claimed that although he usually sang “God Bless the USA,” his teachers had given him free reign to select any song he desired in 2022. He decided to perform the hit song “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, a rock band. He was unaware that one of his teaching assistants had recorded his performance and posted it to Tik Tok. After a span of two days, the video had garnered one million views.
He laughed, “Steve Perry of Journey put it on all their social media by the time it reached three million views.” “Ang’s over there cashing checks without writing them.”
Strangely enough, Goodall began receiving requests to appear on overseas-filmed game shows.
“You get what you see,” he declared, gesturing to himself. “I don’t travel the world. Now fast-forward to when I was meant to be in season 18 (of AGT). It didn’t happen for whatever reason.
However, Goodall received a call from AGT executives offering to cast him in the 19th season, and before he knew it, he was flying to California for the first time.
Pointing to his wife in the audience, Goodall remarked, “There was one person, aside from the kids, who said ‘If you get on that plane, you are going to get a golden buzzer.” He introduced his wife to the next song, saying, “She is that lady right over there.”
Goodall says he works Monday through Friday and is just an ordinary guy. According to him, a lot of people are disturbed by what is going on in the world.
“You get used to it, and then there’s a janitor on stage,” he remarked. “You walk out onto that enormous stage after meeting Terry Crews, the host of AGT, and he hands you the microphone. I’m incredibly afraid. When Simon (Cowell, an ATG judge) began questioning me, I thought, “Dude, just let me sing!”
The audience went crazy after his first song, and judge He never looked back after Heidi Klum hit the golden buzzer.
According to Goodall, music transforms people’s lives. People remember happy times and places when they hear a special song. He expressed his desire to share with others the joy and contentment he has felt during his time with AGT.
The event’s admission fee on Friday will go toward funding more Cops Connecting with Kids trips to Disney World. For the first trips that students from Princeton Community Middle School took part in, Toyota Indiana assisted in the program’s launch in collaboration with the Princeton Police Department.
Along with other local students, the Princeton students visit Vanderburgh County and Kentucky as part of the Cops Connecting with Kids program.