Elizabeth Jernigan is a 15-year old performer from rural Northeast Ohio. While she has been singing since she could talk, she started performing at age 3, singing the Star-Spangled Banner at a local volleyball game, and has never looked back, even being asked to sing for John Oliver’s unveiling of the Erie Moon Mammoths in July 2025.
In the years since, she has become a familiar voice at ballparks and civic events across Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania. She sang God Bless America at UPMC Park in Erie during the clinching game of the 2023 Eastern League Championship Series, a 10-0 win that delivered the first title in SeaWolves franchise history. She has performed for record-setting crowds twice: 7,869 fans at Eastwood Field in Niles in July 2024, then a ballpark-record 7,070 in Erie when she was asked to sing for John Oliver’s unveiling of the Erie Moon Mammoths in July 2025. Each December she appears as a featured vocalist with the W.D. Packard Band’s Christmas Spectacular.
In August 2026 she opened the 2026 Patriot Games at SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio, singing the National Anthem for athletes and families representing all 50 states, the U.S. territories and tribal nations. The performance was informal — no stage, no microphone stand, just a room full of competitors — and the athletes answered it with chants of “USA!” That September she was invited to perform at The Spirit of America: 9-11 remembrance service in Ashtabula.
Singing live outdoors is its own discipline. There is echo, there is wind, there are several thousand people going quiet all at once, and there is no second take. Elizabeth has done it often enough that organizations invite her back — she has now performed at UPMC Park in six consecutive seasons.
Music is only part of what she does. Elizabeth plays volleyball, basketball and softball for Pymatuning Valley High School, where she is also a majorette and participates in band, choir, show choir, jazz band and student council. She carries a 4.0 GPA and earned the Joanne Schaefer Award for maintaining a perfect grade point in every nine-week period of middle school. On the diamond she plays high-level travel softball for Thunder Elite Fastpitch in the Youngstown area, and was named All-NAC First Team as a high school freshman.