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Student shares stage with Shania in Vegas

By Len Gillis | Timmins Press | October 16, 2014 1:47:29 EDT PM 

Owen Meunier of Timmins, left, joined Shania Twain on stage at Caesars Palace during her Las Vegas show during the Thanksgiving weekend.

TIMMINS - What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas — not always. Especially now with Facebook, smart phones and other social media devices.

Owen Meunier of Timmins is still living the excitement of what happened to him in Vegas last weekend. The Grade 8 student at Anicet Morin was with his mom and dad for the long weekend during a Thanksgiving getaway to Las Vegas.

As part of the fun, the family decided to take in the Shania Twain performance at Caesars Palace.

The concert was a must-see for Owen's mom, Lori Meunier, who describes herself as a die-hard Shania Fan.

The fun began around the halfway point in the concert, when Shania was inviting people from the audience to join her for the campfire scene. Lori remembered the moment.

“Owen stood up and started yelling “Timmins, Timmins,” Lori laughed.

She said it took a moment, but then Shania looked over and saw him

“So she said to Owen, 'where are you from?' He said Timmins. She said 'Timmins, that's so weird, but weird in a good way.' She said 'I don't know if anybody here knows it, but Timmins is my home town.' So then everyone started clapping,” Lori recalled.

Owen also remembered that moment.

“I was in the crowd and yelling as loud as I could, 'Timmins! Timmins!' So I yelled it a million times as loud as I could. So then she heard me and said are you from Timmins? I said 'Yyyyyessss!' Then she said come up on stage. It was amazing. It was the best,” said Owen.

Lori said she was in for a bigger surprise when she discovered her son knew the words to the songs.

“She said to Owen, what's your name. He said Owen. She said who are you here with Owen, and he said, my parents. So she yelled over, 'Hi Timmins!' We said, 'Hi Shania,'” said Lori.

“She asked do you know my songs? He said Yeah. I know them all,” she said.

Lori said she was so surprised when Owen began singing along to Twain's latest song, Today Is Your Day.

“She started singing. She handed Owen the mic and I didn't know he knew the song and he was singing away, so it was really, really nice,” said Lori.

“I am the die-hard fan, so he grew up listening to her music.”

Owen agreed.

“I did know the words for some reason,” he said. “It was very cool. My mom plays Shania songs in the car.”

Owen said he was pleased to meet Shania, but was nervous for the first few moments.

“When I was first going on stage and walking up I was nervous. But then she was so nice and so welcoming that it was really fun to be on stage,” he said. “I think she was very surprised that I was from Timmins.”

Owen also said he felt proud when Twain spoke about her hometown in front of the large American audience of more than four thousand.

“She told them it's a really nice town,” said Owen, who added that he enjoyed the whole experience.

“They had a campfire around the stage. And there were singers and she invited me to sing with her. She gave me the mic and I was sitting next to her too. We were both singing and it was really fun, it was really cool,” he said.

To make the evening nicer, Owen's dad, Jay Meunier of Timmins, knew Shania's sister Carrie, who was also in Las Vegas. They met up later in the evening and the family and Carrie went to dinner.

Getting back to Timmins, Owen said he was called by many of his school friends this week because a photo was posted on the Shania Kids Can Facebook page, showing him on the Las Vegas stage with Shania Twain.

http://www.timminspress.com/2014/10/16/student-shares-stage-with-shania-in-vegas