Updated October 24, 2025 at 2:57 PM EDT
This story is part of the My Unsung Hero series, from the Hidden Brain team. It features stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else.
Sometimes, just a few words offered at the right moment can alter the direction of someone's life. For Elizabeth Vaughan, that moment happened after a painful experience in high school.
As a sophomore, Vaughan enrolled in a choir class. The first concert of the school year was to be a performance of songs from the musical Oliver! and Vaughan landed a solo. She wasn't nervous until the week before, when she discovered that the entire school would be in attendance.
The day of the show, Vaughan was backstage, peering through the curtains as the auditorium filled with people.
"We saw everyone file in: All the classes, upperclassmen, younger [students.] Also janitors, and lunch ladies and parents," Vaughan recalled. "It was just packed."
The curtain opened and the choir began to sing. Vaughan looked out at the faces in the crowd and noticed that some of their eyes were glazed with disinterest.
Then she noticed something else: a single microphone standing at the front of the stage, lit by a bright spotlight, ready for her solo. It was a problem she hadn't anticipated: their choir teacher had never taught them how to sing into a microphone.
"And yet it was my turn to sing," Vaughan said. "My teacher motioned for me to go up in front of the stage and so I walked right up in front of that microphone."
Despite her uncertainty, her solo began smoothly. She felt exhilarated, singing so confidently in front of everyone. Then she got to the big finale — the last high note. With her lips nearly touching the microphone, the note came exploding out of the speakers, ear-piercing and deafeningly loud.
"I looked out at the audience and every single person — involuntarily, their heads snapped back in their chairs. Some of them had their jaws dropped wide open," Vaughan recalled.
"I was totally humiliated. I wanted the stage to open up and swallow me whole."
The school day was only half over by the time the concert ended, so Vaughan had to go back to class. Shuffling along the hallway, her eyes downcast, she spotted a pair of large athletic shoes.
"I stopped and I looked up into the face of the new guy," Vaughan said. "He was a senior. And I'd never met him, but I was just bracing myself for the embarrassment of what he was about to say."
Instead of making fun of her, the student smiled — and said something she still remembers more than 40 years later.
"He said, 'You have a very powerful voice,'" she said. "And it probably was several years before I realized exactly what that moment meant for me. I went from deciding I would never sing in front of people again as long as I lived, to considering that maybe I could sing and yeah, I had a powerful voice."
Inspired by the student's confidence in her, Vaughan went on to study music at the University of Kansas. She's now a professional singer-songwriter, performing almost every weekend in three bands throughout Arizona.
Over the past few years, as she's begun teaching voice students, she has found herself thinking more and more about her unsung hero.
Her hero, it turns out, is quite well-known: he's Rodney Peete, a former football quarterback who played 16 seasons in the NFL.
His small act of grace is a reminder that a few kind words can change the course of a life.
"If he were standing right in front of me today, I would say, Rodney Peete, thank you so much," Vaughan said. "Thank you for giving me the passion of music and making it OK for me to pursue it. You really made a difference at a critical moment."
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
Copyright 2025 NPR
