Six contestants gave it their all at this year’s Operation Rising Star finals and when it was all over Jessica Ruggiero was Baumholder’s new Rising Star. Ruggiero received $500 for her performance of "Lost" by Celine Dion and earned the chance to compete at the Department of Defense level.

For her encore, Ruggiero performed "Lost" a second time, this time singing to her nine-month-old daughter Michaela while holding her in her arms.

Second place went to Rebecca Taylor whose performance of "On My Knees" by Jaci Velasquez earned her $250. Last year’s Rising Star winner Sally Jean Moser finished third this year and was awarded $100 for her rendition of "Black Velvet," by Alannah Myles.

Other finalists were Jessica Groeneveld, Shelly Morales and Jason Elliott.

Event coordinator Rebekah Ankrombaker was very pleased with the whole event, from auditions to finals.

"I thought the Operation Rising Star 2010 was a success. Baumholder surprised me this year with such a talented group of singers," said Ankrombaker.

She was also impressed with the amount of talent that turned out for this year’s Operation Rising Star.

"I think this was the most talented group yet. Any of the final contestants could have walked away being the winner, they were all that good. Also, seeing so many people from the community out there supporting their singers and the event was amazing," said Ankrombaker.

For Ruggiero, a 27-year-old native of Long Island, N.Y., it was a bit of a shock to have won.

"If anyone else would have won I would have said yup, that’s good, that’s right. It was shocking."

Like most gifted individuals, her talent was realized early on. "I’ve been singing as long as I can remember. I was always running around singing songs or making up a song for something. When I was in the fourth grade our school had this singing group called Magic Melodies and fourth, fifth and sixth graders could try out. Out of everybody from my music class only two of us as fourth graders made it into Magic Melodies,"

Ruggiero enjoys singing pop and pop country but she’s all over the board when it comes to the type of music she enjoys listening too. "I like everything. I can go from Celine Dion to wanting to sing Rob Zombie. I’m all over the place but my type would be pop or pop country," said Ruggiero.

Some of the songs she sings have meaning to Ruggiero and some she’s just known for a long time. "The song I sang tonight I sang at my best friend’s wedding. That was her wedding song and she asked me to pick it out so that has really significant meaning and I wanted to dedicate it to my husband because he deploys in a couple of days," said Ruggiero.

Her husband, Staff Sgt. Brian Ruggiero is a kennel master with the 92nd Military Police Company. She is happy to have won but is more pleased that her husband was here to see her perform.

She is now setting her sights for the next level but admits she has not given much thought to what she would like to perform.

"It’s one of those things that I think is just going to come to me and as soon as I realize the song I’m gonna say yes, that’s it. That’s gotta be the song," she said. As an afterthought she said with a laugh, "I guess I could start thing about it. It’s probably a good idea."

Capt. Andrew Chovencek, who works for the U.S. Army Garrison Baumholder Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the talent and says it was tough deciding on a winner.

"I am extremely lucky to be able to be involved with this amazing competition for the third year in a row and I am so proud of our Baumholder community talent. All of our singers were fantastic and it was a very difficult choice for the judges to make.

"I hope that our winner, Jessica Ruggerio, will continue to do well in the Operation Rising Star 2010 competition and advance to the finals," said Chovencek.

The other judges for this year’s competition were Alexis Veigas and Amy Danzeiser.

Ruggiero is hoping she does well at the next level but says, "If it happens, great, if not I mean I had a really good time doing this so either way I’m happy."