'''Carrie Marie Underwood''' (born March 10 1983 in Muskogee, Oklahoma) is an American country music singer who won the title of the fourth season of ''
American Idol''. She has since become a multi-platinum award winning recording artist. She debuted at triple platinum with her album ''Some Hearts'', the fastest selling female country album since the introduction of the Nielsen SoundScan in 1991. Underwood has won a Dove Award, two Country Music Association Awards, and two Academy of Country Music Awards.
Biography
Early Years
thumb|left|150px|Underwood in a 1999 photo.
Underwood was born at Muskogee Regional Medical Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma on March 10 1983, and grew up on her parents' farm in rural Checotah. She is the third and youngest daughter of Stephen (retired from an industrial plant) and Carole Underwood (retired schoolteacher of Checotah Public Schools). She has two older sisters, Shanna Underwood Means and Stephanie Underwood Shelton, born in 1973 and 1970, both elementary school teachers in Oklahoma.
Underwood had performed at Robbins Memorial Talent Show in her childhood. She is a member of Free Will Baptist Church
[Schmitt, Brad. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060604/ENTERTAINMENT0107/606040317/-1/ENTERTAINMENT50 Carrie Underwood makes leap from 'American Idol' to country's 'it' girl June 4th 2006. Accessed on July 8th 2006.]. As a young child, she sang in church, and for Old Settler's Day and Lion's Club, local events in Checotah. At the age of 13 in 1996, her manager at the time tried to get her a recording contract at Capitol Records. However, due to management changes at Capitol, it never materialized.
Underwood graduated from Checotah High School in 2001 as salutatorian and moved on to Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in mass communication and an emphasis in journalism. Underwood is a member of the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority. For two years during the summer, she performed in Northeastern's Downtown Country Show in Tahlequah. She also competed in numerous beauty pageants at the university and was selected as Miss NSU runner-up in 2004. Underwood finished with a smile on her face as she ended the pageant by falling down the stairs...
''On Volunteering'': "I was also a hospice volunteer and I got that through the sorority. You go and take care of people that are really sick. They don’t want to be in the hospital anymore. It’s just kind of about making them comfortable. So, I’d go and sit with them. I had one couple that I was a volunteer for and we’d just, you know, watch soap operas for a couple hours!"
''On Vegetarism'': "I quit eating beef when I was about thirteen. I
