As of October 24th, Evie Clair is engaged to her long-time best friend and sweetheart Clancy Thomas. Evie and Clancy first met several years ago when Evie performed during a high school basketball game at her father’s alma mater. Clancy Thomas, the captain of the team, was thrilled to have her sign his basketball. Although there wasn’t an immediate connection, their relationship developed over the course of a four-year, long-distance friendship. Fans may recognize his name as a lyrics contributor on her first album, Okay Day. As Evie and Clancy grew closer, in the Fall of 2021 they decided to attend the same university together in Rexburg, Idaho. Now, they are officially engaged, and the couple is planning a wedding shortly after her 18th birthday in early December.
For many of her fans, this has seemed to have materialized almost out of thin air. Many still see her as the thirteen year old girl who tearfully took the stage for her dying dad on Season Twelve of America’s Got Talent. After the show, Evie had multiple tours and headlined in a show for several months with rigorous show schedules while living in a casino. All this as a ninth grader, performing and keeping up with classwork while also working through the loss of her father, compromised her completion of all of her ninth grade courses.
During the next year, as a tenth grader Evie was able to complete all of her ninth grade classes while taking her tenth grade classes. Based on her success with this, her school counselors were confident when she said she could take on double classes — eleventh and twelfth grade — to graduate a year early. She used the down time during the pandemic to complete eleventh grade courses online while attending twelfth grade classes, and graduated as a senior at age seventeen this past spring. With the same drive, which Evie puts into everything she does, she pursued and was granted admission to BYUI this fall, where she and Clancy, who had been away serving a foreign mission, began attending classes.
Her engagement and wedding plans have brought concern to many who know the difficulties which come with a marriage commitment. In a world where divorce is ever more common, many distrust the institution of marriage, while others consider it secondary in importance to graduating college, starting a career, etc. And while many argue that a seventeen-year-old lacks the maturity to make such a permanent decision, they may not realize that Evie is considerably more mature than most seventeen-year-olds. Evie is considerably more mature in many ways than some adults, having already had a fully-professional career for the past several years, while dealing with the painful loss of her father, working through deep theological questions regarding his death and her faith, completing her high school education in three years instead of four, being an active member of her church, supporting multiple charity fund raising events, giving testimonial interviews that encourage others in the faith, and producing multiple original songs and albums as well as frequent covers on her social media channels.
This is the experience of someone in their thirties – not your typical seventeen-year-old, which, of course, Evie is not. Evie Clair has identified with thirty-year-olds ever since the age of three. She has wisdom beyond her years that has been amplified by her experiences as a professional artist. Given her deep faith, trust and reliance on her Heavenly Father, she has frequently demonstrated restraint and discernment when approached by entertainment professionals with offers to sign contracts, in order to avoid those who would steer her down a wrong path. To this day, Evie has not signed with a label, or entered into a long-term contract, as she has always had a sense of knowing when something is off.
It is with that same faith, trust and reliance on her Heavenly Father, plus the heart of her earthly father in Heaven living in her, that she knowingly has made this commitment. Perhaps her father is directing her path from heaven. He must be happy knowing she found Clancy Thomas in his own high school gym.
