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  "description": "Flores joins Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, and The All-American Rejects among past Rising Star honorees.",
  "path": "/stillwater-native-wyatt-flores-honored-with-oklahoma-music-hall-of-fame-rising-star-award/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-13T05:21:22.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.thestillwegian.news",
  "tags": [
    "View this post on Instagram",
    "A post shared by Wyatt Flores (@officialwyattflores)",
    "Payton Little",
    "See How Local Stacks Up"
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  "textContent": "Stillwater singer-songwriter Wyatt Flores received the 2026 Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Rising Star Award on Saturday night at Boone Pickens Stadium, honored in his own hometown before a crowd that had just watched him perform.\n\nThe Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, based in Muskogee, presented the award during The Boys from Oklahoma concert April 11 at Oklahoma State University's Boone Pickens Stadium. Flores performed as a special guest on a bill headlined by Cross Canadian Ragweed and the Turnpike Troubadours, with Shane Smith & The Saints and The Great Divide also on the lineup. The Rising Star Award recognizes young musicians the organization identifies as showing exceptional promise and ability.\n\n\"This young man has surpassed one billion career streams. He's been on national television. He's been on national radio. He's toured the world,\" Dr. High Foley Jr., founding board member of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, said from the stage before presenting the award. \"We are proud to give the 2026 Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Rising Star Award to Stillwater native, Wyatt Flores.\"\n\n>        View this post on Instagram            \n>\n> A post shared by Wyatt Flores (@officialwyattflores)\n\nFlores, 24, was born in Stillwater and grew up on a family ranch surrounded by musicians. His father, Noe Flores, played drums in a local band. Family friends Scotte Lester and Kelley Green, members of Red Dirt group The Great Divide, taught him guitar and served as musical mentors while he was growing up. Both were inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame at the first Boys of Oklahoma concert in April 2025 — and on Saturday night, they shared the same stage as Flores received his own recognition from the same organization.\n\n__Wyatt Flores and his band perform at The Boys from Oklahoma concert Saturday, April 11, 2026, at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater. Flores received the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Rising Star Award following the set. – Photos by__ Payton Little\n\nThe Turnpike Troubadours, who headlined the concert, have also loomed large in Flores's musical development. He has cited the band's frontman, Evan Felker, as one of his primary songwriting influences, drawn to Felker's character-driven, emotionally direct style of storytelling.\n\nFlores attended Morrison High School before briefly enrolling at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology in Okmulgee. He dropped out to pursue music full time, ranching while building a catalog of original songs and making extended trips to Nashville, Tennessee, to develop his craft.\n\nHis breakthrough came with \"Please Don't Go,\" a sparse acoustic song about a loved one's mental health struggles. After Flores posted a video of himself performing it to TikTok, the song amassed more than 50 million streams across platforms and entered Spotify's Top 50 Viral Songs in the United States. It debuted at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart on Dec. 2, 2023, marking his first appearance on a national chart.\n\nPAID ADVERTISEMENT\n\n****Stillwater Building Center**** carries multiple Andersen window lines — and you can see them in person before you buy. Free estimates, local installers, and prices that may surprise you.\n\n\n                            See How Local Stacks Up\n                        \n\nThe attention led to a recording contract with Island Records. Flores released his debut studio album, _Welcome to the Plains_ , on Oct. 18, 2024. On the album's release date, Flores performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He recorded an episode of Austin City Limits in September 2025 as part of the show's 51st season.\n\nThe album includes a track titled \"Stillwater,\" written from the perspective of a Stillwater local watching each wave of college students pass through — and move on. The song is unsentimental, capturing the friction between transient student life and the people who stay behind. \"It's the best four years of her life until they're gone / But to me she wrecked the one place that, well, I call home,\" Flores sings in the chorus.\n\n__Other performers at The Boys from Oklahoma concert Saturday, April 11, 2026, at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater included Cross Canadian Ragweed, the Turnpike Troubadours, The Great Divide, and Shane Smith & The Saints. – Photos by __Payton Little\n\nPast recipients of the Rising Star Award include John Fullbright in 2014; Thompson Square and The Swon Brothers in 2013; Kings of Leon in 2011; The All-American Rejects — who formed in Stillwater — in 2008; Hinder in 2007; Keith Anderson in 2006; Carrie Underwood in 2005; and Blake Shelton in 2003.\n\nThe 2025 inductee class underscored Stillwater's outsized role in Oklahoma music history. Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland and the Stragglers, The Great Divide, Stoney LaRue, and Steve Ripley — all with deep roots in the Stillwater Red Dirt scene — were inducted alongside Joe Don Rooney, lead guitarist and harmony singer of Rascal Flatts, who grew up in Picher, Oklahoma.\n\nThe Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame was established in response to a 1996 Oklahoma House Concurrent Resolution and has inducted more than 130 artists since 1997. The full induction category is distinct from the Rising Star Award and requires nominees to be eligible 20 years after their first musical release or national prominence.",
  "title": "Stillwater native Wyatt Flores honored with Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Rising Star Award",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-25T15:12:16.851Z"
}