Hart County girl hits Opryland stage

HARDYVILLE, Ky. – She started taking it seriously at 13 years old, and now at 17, she’s accepting awards.

High school student Cara Bishop just accepted an award last week for country music artist of the year from the Josie Music Awards. The JMAs established in 2015 are dedicated to independent artists around the world, and this year they gave the award to Cara for the “under age 18” category. With almost 60,000 submissions for 2023, Cara was one of the 2% awarded for her young talent.

News 40 spoke to Cara’s dad who said she wasn’t always super interested in music as he said he bought her a guitar when she was 8 that barely got played. According to Mr. Bishop, one day he and his wife came home and heard her playing the second guitar he bought her at 13 years old and he said  “I thought she sounded pretty good for teaching herself.”

Jason Sexton, her former principal at Memorial School, the K-8 school she attended said she’s “always been creative in her school work, with her writing and drawing, so it was no surprise when I heard she was writing her own songs…” and he told News 40 he’s “super proud” of where Cara is now.

You can find Cara Bishop’s music on all streaming platforms.