By CRAIG FREILICH

Rebecca Branchau of Gouverneur is in Greenfield, Mass. on another step up the ladder to the top of this year’s Texaco Country Showdown.

Branchau won a local competition at this year’s Potsdam Summer Festival, and then won at the Gouverneur-St. Lawrence County Fair to qualify for the country music talent competition in Massachusetts this weekend.

The winner there goes to the regional competition in Pennsylvania in October.

This weekend, she and the four other acts “have six minutes from the first note to the end,” she said.

Rebecca, who has sung for years with local bands, will sing Martina McBride’s “Broken Wing” and her own composition, “Conquest.”

If she succeeds this weekend in Greenfield, next stop is Hershey Park, Pa. on Oct. 26.

“It’ll be fun no matter what,” Branchau said.

The national finals are in the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn. next Jan. 17, where the top prize of $100,000 will be awarded.

Over the years, according to the Texaco Country Showdown web site, stars such as Garth Brooks, Sara Evans and Brad Paisley have competed in the Showdown. At the 1983 national final, Martina McBride and Neal McCoy competed against one another, only to lose to The Jim Arnold Band. In 1985, Sweethearts Of The Rodeo won the final before becoming one of country music's hottest duos.