Golden Texas is no stranger to the national spotlight, like that time Oprah Winfrey mentioned the famed sweet potatoes on her show and gave some away to her audience.

The celebrity who brought the unplanned attention this time was local native and country music superstar Kacey Musgraves.

The community’s reaction to a perceived slight jab at the community has led to a positive outcome for the Golden Sweet Potato Festival’s scholarship fund for Alba-Golden High School seniors.

It all started soon after the Nov. 5 election when Musgraves was performing in Toronto, Canada.

She told the audience she had called her hotel and asked to extend her stay – for four years.

Then she mentioned being from a “tiny ass” town in Texas called Golden, and some audience members began to cheer, to which she replied that’s it’s not really something to cheer about.

That got the wheels to turning in Golden, spearheaded by the festival’s board of directors and member Kamie Bishop.

She posted on Facebook that they respectfully disagreed with Kacey’s assessment of her former hometown and came up with a t-shirt to broadcast that there is indeed something to cheer about.

The t-shirts are in an orange shade closely resembling the famed potatoes, with the message:

Golden, Texas

Something to cheer for

– everyone

They quickly sold out, raising more than $8,000 for the scholarship fund and spurring an apology from Musgraves along with a $10,000 donation to the fund.

She called her remarks about Golden a “sarcastic, completely unserious joke,” adding “…maybe every joke or viewpoint doesn’t always land.”

She continued, ”In so many ways I really love my Texas roots. Nothing but love and I truly never meant to offend.”

The story was picked up by TMZ, which posted the concert video as well as her entire statement from her Instagram.

That lead to the following statement from the festival board:

A Heartfelt Thank You from Golden

Now that the dust has settled, we want to take a moment to share a few things about our community, Golden, Texas. The kids you see here (group photo of the Alba-Golden seniors in their shirts) were the motivation behind the “Something to Cheer For” shirts. Golden is a great community filled with even better people. We turned a negative situation into a positive, showing what truly makes Golden so special.

While sometimes things can hurt our feelings or get under our skin, we’ve found a way to rise above it – just like Golden always does. This community supports each other, has each other’s backs, and that’s why Golden is truly something to cheer for. We love our little slice of Heaven, and we stand by the saying: “Once from Golden, always from Golden.”

We also want to acknowledge Kacey Musgraves, who reached out publicly as well as privately and sincerely apologized for the comment made about our town. She expressed how much she still appreciates and loves Golden, and we are grateful for her kind words. We will not let that go unnoticed. We take great pride in our community and the kindness we show to one another. It’s a reminder to always remember where our roots are.

In a wonderful act of generosity, Kacey graciously donated $10,000 to support our scholarship fund. With her donation, plus the proceeds from the sale of our shirts, we raised a total of $18,062 for the GSPF Alba-Golden Seniors Scholarship Fund.

A huge thank you to everyone who made this possible. Your support means the world to our community!