My name is Latoya Dodson and I'm from Clarksville, TN. I am married to the wonderful Alex Dodson (seen in the pic taken October 2003) and we've been married for 3.5 years and together for 4. I was raised in a single parent home with 5 younger siblings. Ever since I can remember, I loved singing. When I began Middle School, that was my first chance to become involved in Music as a musician. I stayed with music until I finished school. I began taking piano lessons when I was 12 and did it for 3 years. I would take the city bus to the corner store and my teacher/mentor/friend, Regina Hoosier, would pick me up and take me to the church to do my lesson. I didn't have a keyboard to practice on during the week so it was especially difficult to try and practice. I didn't need lessons like your average student would. I knew how to read both the treble clef and bass clef sheet music and I knew what the notes were on the piano keys. My problem was that I wasn't able to put my hands together and make them do something different. Three years and 156 lessons later, I was on my way. Not to mention the fact that my teacher offered to give me lessons for free because she knew that we couldn't afford it. Even when I began my first job when I was 14, she didn't want anything. So, I kept at it and that's really all I do now. I am the Praise and Worship Leader at the Walnut Grove Missionary Baptist Church here in Clarksville, where our pastor is Rev. Carl Livingston. (I also do graphic design--samples of my work will become available later.)
As I stated, I got my first job when I was 14 years old. Since then, I've always been a hard worker. However, in March 2005, that all came to a screeching halt. I went to work for this company entitled Necessary Music Group, Inc. in Nashville. To make a long story short, I worked for one month--from March 7, 2005 to April 7, 2007--just long enough to say I tried. It turned out that the job was bogus, there was no money, and none of the employees ever got paid, even after going to work EVERY SINGLE DAY. The first week, they told us that the reason we couldn't get our pay checks because someone had sinned and needed to repent. (and no, this wasn't a church that we were working for!) So, the next week, the lie was that the investors had just deposited the checks and we couldn't get ours for another 7 days because the banks wouldn't release the funds because they had to hold the checks. The next week, they were telling us that the checks were in and that we could pick them up. So, I went all the way to Nashville to get my check only to find the president of the company hiding out in his studio. I called him on several occasions while in the parking lot and he didn't answer his phone. His assistant gets ready to go in the building and I ask if she knows if he's up there, she tells me that she doesn't think so, but she was going to check and she would come back down to let us know whether he was or wasn't. I haven't seen her YET. So, of course, that didn't go through on that day. So on the following Sunday, I had a gospel concert to do and the president played for one of the guest choirs. He was supposed to have brought all the employees that were there their paychecks. He instead brought everybody bonus checks for $5000.00 written on the account of the parent company, Inertia Enterprises, Inc. (Riley Baxter, III, CEO and ConArtist) They told us to wait until Thursday or Friday of the following week to cash them because they wanted to make sure that the money was going to be available. As we waited on Thursday, and waited....and waited....I finally said I'm calling them. So, of course, our phone calls weren't answered. So we decided to call from an unknown number and what do you know: THEY ANSWERED!!!! So, he said that they were standing in line at the bank right then and that he would call us back to give us the go ahead. Of course, we didn't hear from them again that day. Friday, armed with my letter of resignation and attorney information, I arrived to find out that we had a morning staff meeting via telephone conference. The new lie was that the CEO(and ConArtist), Riley Baxter, III had an asthma attack at the bank. THIS GUY DOESN'T EVEN HAVE ASTHMA!!!!!!! So anyway, after all that, my husband and I lost pretty much everything because it was also a bad month for him working as well. He does construction and if it rains, they don't work. So there wasn't enough income coming in to keep us afloat. I never recovered from that. I haven't worked a real full time (or part time) job since then, with the exception of a temporary position that I held for 6 weeks while an employee was out for surgery. Our Pastor made it possible in January of 2006 for us to get an apartment. My husband made enough money to pay monthly rent, but the problem was that we couldn't get over the hump of having to pay for the security deposit combined with the first month's rent. After we'd lost everything, we lived with my mom, then with his biological dad and his girlfriend who was a handicapped crackhead (yeah, believe it.) then back with my mom. After stress nearly took me out, Pastor Livingston gave us our lives back. Ever since then, we'd been skating by. We had to sacrifice a lot, but it didn't matter. We were willing to lose out on anything rather that lose our apartment. Anything that wasn't a necessity, we didn't get. A phone and cable to us were not necessities at the time. Then, once we got settled, we were able to slowly afford things. Then, our car (1992 Buick Lesabre) started going crazy. Well, because my husband is also a mechanic, we saved a lot of money when it came to vehicle repairs. However, when the engine started going bad beyond affordable repair, it was time to try to get something else. We kept on with what he had because we couldn't afford anything else. So, just this past Saturday, our car was no longer. It nearly killed my husband. He was out running an errand and the brake system went out. He was going down a steep hill, when all of a sudden, when he went to press the brakes to slow down, the pedal went all the way to the floor and didn't come back up. So he's not only going downhill at a pretty good speed, he's accelerating toward traffic. So he swerves into a parking lot, nearly tipping on two wheels, and puts the car in park--which was the only way it would stop. Now, we're really stuck up a creek without a paddle. We can't afford a down payment for a car. Then, on top of all that, I am supposed to be going to American Idol Auditions on August 11-15, 2007 in Atlanta, GA. I am trying to go so bad because #1, the age cap is 28 and I'll be 29 in December so this is my last chance, and #2, this could prove to be the answer to all our problems. I wanted to go last season, but I had to have mouth surgery and I couldn't go. So, this is my final chance. It is my dream and my destiny to go to this audition and make it to Hollywood. I'm not even worried about becoming the next American Idol (although it would be nice) I just want to make it to at least the top 12 finalists. To take the bus is going to be $176.00 round trip. To rent a car would be $160 plus gas for those days. Flying isn't an option. If I had the money to fly, we could afford to make a down payment for another car and we could DRIVE THERE!! I know that there are people that need so much more that I do and I wouldn't ever want to take anything from that. I just know that without a car, I can't even go to interviews even if the people DID call me to come to one. And while American Idol may seem like just another pipe dream or an attempt to gain your 15 minutes of fame to some, to me, it's everything.
