TORRINGTON – As heavy rain once again poured down on the community, a considerable local crown gathered for an evening of peace, rest and music.

While puddles of mud began to form on the grounds of the Goshen Fairgrounds, gentle lights shined from the Frontier Shelter, the central ground of the property.

Several dozen patrons gathered under a safe structure, free from the rain and ready to enjoy a peaceful night of food, music and fellowship.

Melodic chords played, while upbeat and inspiring vocals echoed throughout the fairgrounds.

Ryan Stevenson, a popular and well known Christian recording artist paid Torrington a visit Thursday night. A night brought on as a treat for Valley Christian School (VCS) to celebrate a busy year to teachers, staff, students and families.

As Stevenson took center stage, his band calmly and patiently listened to his words of encouragement to their audience.

“We are all just people,” Stevenson began. “There’s no agenda tonight, we just need rest, peace and some music.”

Stevenson and the band immediately opened appropriately with the song, “Draw Us Closer,” as the crowd began to clap in unison, and sang along with inspiration.

Prior to his career as a musician, Stevenson previously worked as a paramedic. According to Stevenson, the job paid well and provided plenty of security to both he and his family.

Music however, continued to remain what he was passionate about. Eventually Stevenson took a leap, and decided to pursue a recording career full time.

“Music was risky,” Stevenson said. “But it was a risk my wife and I both felt comfortable taking.”

Stevenson since then has found profound success with Christian music, shows, albums and radio. A part of his repertoire include song, Eye of the Storm, that spend a total of 19 weeks on the American Christian charts.

The show became an idea back in November, with Windmill Realty broker and owner, Curtis Birkley, wondering if it would be worth it to just simply contact Stevenson.

“I sent the email out in November in 2022,” Birkley said. “It was cool, and just a simple email. I told him I would like to do something for this school, our kids, parents and teachers. And he was like, ‘Yeah let’s do this.’ That’s just kind of how it started.”

Birkley further added the experience provided an overwhelming feeling of unity, positivity and hope for himself as well as every other patron. He also has anticipations that the evening will provide further opportunity to have more artists in the future.

“My hope is that he had a really good experience and will tell his friends,” Birkley said. There’s a cool community [here], and I think keeping it intimate does help, but I would definitely love to see more people come.”

VCS Principal Crystal Woehlecke, who was in attendance expressed her admiration for Stevenson, and recalls seeing him years ago before his career took off to such an extent.

“He’s come a very long way,” Woehlecke said. “My husband and I first saw him when he started in Casper. Now he has a band and doing intimate shows, I appreciate how he shared his story and his testimony. It helped reiterate some of those things put in my head, especially how he was explaining some of the same things that I sometimes struggle with. I know people there that were probably struggling with some of the same things, and people appreciate that.”

Woehlecke was appreciative of community businesses, who provided the necessary help and support needed to make the show a possibility for Torrington.

“I really think we need to thank our sponsors that made this a free event,” Woehlecke said. “Pinnacle Bank, Windmill Reality, Wagner’s Floral, Mountain States Snowcats, and of course families. We had a whole bunch of families that just wanted to remain anonymous.”

VCS Board Chairman, and Sonrise Church pastor Matt Parker, noted that having a well-known music artist perform in Torrington is important for the community, and sends a positive message to all residents.

“It shows the community that we are not a legalist Christian school,” Parker said. “We do like to have fun.”

Parker further explained that for this event, although Stevenson is well known and popular in Christian music, large crowd size and attendance is not the main goal.

“I’d like to see Sonrise, which is a big supporter of the school, and other churches just partner with this type of stuff. Who knows what we could do. They wanted to keep it small enough where it has that intimate feel. I think that’s awesome and that’s probably how it should be.”

The event would be considered a success for a first-time concert promotion of sorts. Birkley noted that the positive community aspect the evening provided, as well as for VCS would be all the more reason to bring artists in the future.

“In a lot of ways it gives us another avenue to explore different fundraising options,” Birkley said. “How it works, having ideas to move it forward and doing some other things. It’s a good promotion for the school. It just gives us a chance to explore and do fundraising. But it’s just putting feelers out there to find out who we could bring. I think it would be cool to find someone with a solid message, and I think we hit it out of the park with Ryan.”

For more questions or information on Valley Christian School, please call 307-532-3133, or visit www.vcs78.com.