WATERVILLE — Mike and Doreen Haven couldn’t believe their ears the first time they heard their future daughter-in-law, Julia Gagnon, sing.
They were at the family camp in Poland, sitting around the campfire and playing guitars and singing, and a usually quiet Gagnon got up the courage to sing along.
“It was, ‘Oh, my God,’” Mike Haven recalled.
The magnitude of Gagnon’s talent hit Doreen Haven when she heard her perform at a Central Maine Idol competition last summer at the Quarry Tap Room in Hallowell.
“The first time she did it, I sat there and bawled my eyes out,” she said.
Gagnon won the contest, garnering a $10,000 prize. The woman who as a girl was too afraid to show her talent because she didn’t want to stand out in school, got up the courage to audition for “American Idol” last year and was accepted.
Now, Gagnon’s is a household name, garnering wild praise as one of only 14 performers left in the …