It’s not very often that someone gets the chance to sing the national anthem at an event. It’s even rarer when it’s for the president of the United States.

Claire Toupin, a music education and vocal performance major at Oakland University, did precisely that.

President Obama made an appearance at Macomb Community College in Warren on Sept. 9. According to the Detroit Free Press, he pitched the idea of free community college to anyone with good grades, and announced a College Advisory Board that will expand programs that already provide free community college.

Toupin had attended Macomb before transferring to Oakland and dazzled audiences while performing in the community college’s show choir, The Macombers. Her former Macombers’ director texted her one day to ask her if she would like to sing the national anthem for “someone special.” She turned him down because she had class all day.

“About three hours later, [the director] texted me and said he found out that it was President Obama and he was wondering if that changed anything,” Toupin said. “So I said, ‘Um, yeah I’ll do it!’”

Before she stepped onstage, Toupin underwent a background check by the Secret Service. They even watched her rehearsal.

“I definitely saw a ton of Secret Service guys,” she said. “You could kind of tell who they were because they were very official looking and wore black suits. I’m sure there were a bunch that were wearing street clothes.”

Right before she performed, Toupin also had to go through what she described as “sort of a plane ride check,” where she walked through a metal detector and police officers searched her purse.

Even with the security measures, she had VIP seating with important people, such as state representatives and Macomb bigwigs. She was even seated right behind Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s wife.

“I felt very official,” she said. “They all kept asking me, ‘What do you do in Washington?’ And I had to keep explaining that I’m just here to sing the anthem.”

Despite some preshow jitters, Toupin said as soon as she got onstage and started singing she wasn’t nervous.

 “I saw many people singing along with their hands over their hearts,” she recalled. “This may sound cheesy or whatever, but I’m a very patriotic person, and being able to sing our national anthem for the leader of our country, no matter how I personally feel about him, was an amazing experience. “