ENNIS, Texas — You know you're a big deal in a small town like Ennis when someone anonymously offers to pick up your tab at a local restaurant.
That's when it hit church musician Reagan Mills that maybe he was finally on his way.
"We were in this Chili's, the Ennis Chili's," Mills told WFAA. "Somebody, out of the goodness of their heart, paid for our meal without telling us. Our waitress said somebody wanted to pay for your meal and I thought oh my goodness!"
A dose of goodness because the preacher's kid is the newest national celebrity in Ellis County.
"Hello! Howdy, howdy, howdy," Mills proclaimed as he entered the American Idol stage at an audition in Nashville. "Well I figured if I was gonna be a star I might as well come on American Idol and shine," he told judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan.
Renditions of "Easy on Me" by Adele and a gritty gospel version of the Clark Sisters' "Is My Living in Vain" ended with the judges crowded around the piano with him. Bryan even invited Reagan's mom and sister into the studio to sing a chorus with him.
"Everybody has been ... I feel like a superstar," Mills said weeks later in an interview with WFAA at Grace Tabernacle, his family's church in Ennis. "I mean, I just feel like one of them old Hollywood people there. People are coming up to me like, can we take a picture with you? And I'm like, what?!"
Reagan Mills grew up in churches in Ennis and in Paris, Texas, playing piano and singing with his mom and sisters during church services. His dad, Russell Mills, was the pastor.
"My dad started this church seven years ago on Father's Day," Reagan Mills said as we sat in the empty sanctuary in Ennis.
Which is a part of the Reagan Mills story American Idol hasn't yet told.
"My dad was everything to me," Reagan Mills said.
Russell Adrian Mills was just 58 years old when he contracted COVID. He was improving in a Mansfield-area hospital when he suffered a pulmonary embolism and died in September 2020.
"I wish he was here," Reagan Mills said of his dad. "Because let me tell you, he would be going hog wild over this whole experience!"
An experience that earned him three enthusiastic 'yes' votes from the American Idol judges, and the coveted golden ticket that will take him to Hollywood for the next round of auditions.
"My first-grade teacher said, Reagan, you're either going to be an entertainer, or you're going to be the president of the United States. I always jokingly tell people, like, I love the attention. That's why I wanted to be a star, so I could get some," Reagan said.
In the meantime, the 24-year-old singer/songwriter waits for his next round of auditions and keeps his day job as a stylist and cosmetologist at the Beauty Bar on West Knox Street in downtown Ennis.
And he keeps dreaming about where an American Idol stage might take him.
"I guess as far as they'll let me. They'll have to cut my fingers off because I ain't getting out," Reagan joked. "I'll be holding on like this. I love to sing, and I would love to be a big performer. Y'all are going to see me at the Grammys one day. Y'all are going to see me maybe at the Country Music Awards. I don't know. You just see me anywhere. You may see me on the corner of the street, but you'll see me somewhere."
Maybe even at that Chili's restaurant around the corner from his church. But no, he says you don't have to buy him lunch. He's got a golden ticket fueling his Hollywood dreams now.
"But whoever did that, thank you," he said of the free meal.
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