SPANISH FORT, Ala. — The Senior Bowl has been played since 1950, and from the first game on, the national anthem has been played or sung before the game.

The song’s octave-and-a-half range and complicated lyrics has led to some memorable performances. Recently, 8-year old-Elizabeth Hughes was performing the anthem before a hockey game in Norfolk, Va. Her microphone cut out.

That’s a disaster for anyone singing any song, but the young performer, rattled but determined, kept singing and the crowd helped her finish.

Because it’s a song with so much meaning and history, a soloist performing it is the focus of all eyes, not only at the stadium, but wherever the song is broadcast.

So, winning the spot to sing the Star-Spangled Banner for the Senior Bowl on Jan. 29 is a challenge and an opportunity. Rebecca Womack, a junior at Spanish Fort High School, beat out 80 other people to win that gig.

“We were at the Mobile Civic Center,” said Womack. “I was number 38.”

According to her mother, Lisa Womack, Rebecca, “got up at 3:30 (the morning of the competition) to warm up.”

That woke her father, but the work paid off. She was picked for the top eight, and then the top three.

The winner was picked by a public vote. The performances were broadcast on WKRG-TV, and then the public was invited to vote online.

“We sent an e-mail to the whole family,” said Lisa Womack. “Her aunt, Tanya Fratto, was in Asia at the time on business, and told her contacts to vote. Votes came in from Belgium, Germany, Asia and Dubai.”

“My school voted all day long,” said Rebecca. “If there was an empty computer, people sat down to vote.”

According to the Womacks, Rebecca received about 85,000 votes.

Womack says she has been singing “all my life.” Her first public performance was singing “The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow” from “Annie” at her preschool graduation.

She went on to the choir at Rockwell Elementary School, and will be returning to Rockwell for a special performance later this year. She also sings with the choir at her church, Spanish Fort United Methodist. She is a mezzo-soprano.

Rebecca won the talent show at her high school, and competed in a statewide talent search. She’s a member of the All-State Choir.

In addition to music, she’s the junior class vice president and a member of Project Outreach, a group seeking more knowledge about autism. She’s also a member of the National Honor Society.

Rebecca also takes weekly voice lessons in Fairhope. She says the tune of the anthem is down, but the “words stress me out.”

That’s a lot of stress for someone who says she is “singing all the time.”

One of her most memorable performances to date, she said, was “This One’s for the Girls” at the SFHS “Boy’s Beauty Pageant” last semester.

She’s also a Dogwood Trail Maid, and will participate with the other maids in the Cherry Blossom Parade, set for April 9 in Washington, D.C.

The maids went to Memphis, Tenn., and Rebecca says that visiting a children’s hospital and being part of the Peabody Hotel “Duck Walk” were high points.

“The ducks were scared of us,” she laughed.

Rebecca is unsure of her college plans, including her major, but noted, “Music will be at least a minor.”