Corpus Christi native Jake Hoot was announced as the winner of NBC's "The Voice" on Tuesday night.
The Team Kelly contestant, who still has family in the area, including in Orange Grove, beat out the three other finalists in the competition on Tuesday night's live finale.
Tears streamed down the 31-year-old's face as he was announced the winner.
Earlier in the week, our Catherine McGinty some of Hoot's relatives, including his grandmother, who was bursting with pride at his accomplishments.
“I am just so proud of him,” said Katy O’Neal. “I've always known he was gonna do something big.”
Earlier in the show's run he performed a song dedicated to his cousin, Colton Rusk, an Orange Grove native who died during the war in Afghanistan in 2009.
NBC flew Colton's mother, Kathy, and her husband to Los Angeles to watch the live performance of the show in which Hoot honored his late cousin.
Rusk said Orange Grove has banded around Hoot.
“You know, our community is small,” she said. “And so they're very supportive of anything we do, and so it's like one big family.”
Hoot is scheduled to sing the national anthem when the the New Orleans Saints take on the Carolina Panthers, Hoot's favorite team, on Dec. 29.
