As Michal Downing cradled her dying boyfriend in her arms 10 years ago, her first impulse was to sing.

She quietly crooned “Amazing Grace” as her childhood love succumbed to injuries from a motorcycle accident.

Downing, 28, has sung her way through life, inspired by watching “Star Search” as a little girl. Her former pastor once declared she has “an anointed voice.”

The voice of an angel, others have agreed.

On Wednesday, Downing will fly to Philadelphia to audition for the wildly popular NBC television talent show, “The Voice.” She will sing “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss),” a 1964 No. 1 hit by Betty Everett.

“I’ve been praying a lot about this,” Downing said about stepping out of her comfort zone to potentially sing her way to fame. “What I’m really hoping to get out of this is that it’s a great witnessing tool. There will be a lot of little girls [watching ‘The Voice.’] My passion to sing and reach people of every nation has been budding with the desire to help people with life — their joy, their pain.”

And Downing knows about personal pain.

She had just graduated from Flathead High School in 2006 when she and her boyfriend, Mikie Kennedy, were traveling through Kalispell that warm late June day. They had been riding his motorcycle to stop off and visit their parents.

On an impulse she told Mikie to turn around so she could retrieve her car. She was following him in her vehicle as he rode his motorcycle along U.S. 2 near the former Walmart building in Evergreen.

“The sun was setting. It was a beautiful moment,” she recalled. “We drove under the railroad tracks; he was right in front of me. Then a guy pulled out and hit him and I swerved over” to the side of the road.

“I got to be with him in the moments when he passed,” she said. “Something amazing came out of that. He’d always say, ‘Sing for me,’ so the Lord put it on my heart to sing for Mikie. I was so consumed with love. It was like something out of a movie. When I finished singing, his heart stopped.”

Downing also sang at Mikie’s funeral, remembering how she was able to sing “with a consuming passion” without breaking down.

After her boyfriend’s tragic death, she traveled to heal her broken heart, working nanny jobs from coast to coast.

Now a worship leader at Canvas Church, Downing went on a mission trip to Colombia a few years ago and once again found herself singing in a rather unusual situation. They were visiting a women’s prison in the South American country, and when it was difficult to communicate with the inmates, a fellow mission volunteer encouraged her to sing to the women.

“I sang and it was such a spiritual moment,” she said.

Downing is now a substitute teacher for Kalispell schools and a part-time nanny for a Whitefish family. As she was singing to 2-year-old Weston Ritter recently, the boy’s father, actor and serial entrepreneur Huntley Ritter heard her singing.

“Sing for me right now,” Ritter encouraged.

Downing said she sang about a dozen songs for Ritter and his wife, Carolyn. Ritter immediately urged her to seek out a career in music.

“He started me an artist account and signed me up for ‘The Voice,’” she said.

“We’ve all wished upon a star in hopes for something to change or for something unreachable,” Downing said as she shared her childhood dream of stardom as she watched “Star Search” so many years ago.

Downing said time has helped heal the wound of losing her beloved, but she’ll never forget him.

“I drive past his cross all the time, and the memories come of being there, holding him; it’s almost a haunting memory.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.