Gretchen Wilson stepped into an unfamiliar kind of spotlight on Tuesday — the "Redneck Woman" singer hand-delivered about 10,000 letters to Tennessee congressmen and senators on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., encouraging them to increase funding for adult education programs.

"I used to think I got nervous before I walked out on stage until I was sitting in that room in there," says Gretchen, who got her General Educational Development diploma last year. "Wow, my heart was thumping pretty hard."

Gretchen also testified in a hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education about her experience earning her GED. The singer told the room of about 150 politicians why she dropped out of school, detailed her early struggles to support herself without an education and explained the impact that getting the diploma has had on her life, her family and her fans.

"I'm definitely walking around with a little more sense of pride than I've ever had because I'm not a part of that statistic anymore," Gretchen says. "I'm able and educated now to hold jobs out there that I couldn't have before, and I'm able to help my daughter with her homework. It's made huge differences, and mostly out there with my fans. What I've noticed most is when they come backstage and they shake my hand. … They tell me I've inspired them or their brother or their mother who have gone back and gotten their education."

The subcommittee had convened to discuss the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act, which establishes the structure, services and size of federally funded adult education and literacy programs.

Gretchen had the financial resources to go back to school and get her diploma, but she says many of those in need of an education can't afford the program. And because current federal education funding provides services to just 2.5 percent of prospective students in need, 80,000 adults were put on a waiting list for the program last year.

"When I became a celebrity I didn't really, nobody really thinks, about the role model thing that comes along with it," Gretchen says. "When you have the opportunity to help people, and you start to see what kind of good your celebrity can do, you start to focus on the things that matter to you. My trip up here today was simply to help people and help people get this good feeling I've got about myself. It is a wonderful feeling, so if all I got to do is get on a bus and come up here to tell my story, of course I'm going to do it."
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