This is the second year she had entered the competition and while she missed out on being among the 10 finalists last year, she was in the top 20 and was invited to perform her song at the awards night, she said.
Mrs Parish, who is the principal of Willowbank School, was impressed with the awards night.
‘‘It was really professionally run,'' Mrs Parish said.
She was surprised when she received a call telling her she had made it on to the finalist list this year as ‘‘it was a quick, lastminute'' entry.
The song that made it into the final was called A Fair.
The song was about making commitments and sticking with them, she said.
‘‘Although life is great 90 per cent of the time it occasionally isn't so great. It's not always a perfect, rosy little picture,'' she said.
The song concentrated on working through the not-so-good times, she said.
Mrs Parish, who moved to Southland from the North Island four years ago, has not been involved with music since her high school days when she competed in the Smokefreerockquest competition twice, along with some school productions.
However, her husband Chris, brother-in-law Tony and fatherin-law John were all heavily involved in music and that prompted Mrs Parish to follow in their footsteps, she said.
‘‘It's good to have an interest outside of school,'' she said.
She is a member of three bands, Erratic, Perk and Limited Edition, but said she only performed at a few gigs a month.
Perk gave Mrs Parish a platform to try songs she had written herself as well as performing covers.
Describing the musical genre Perk mainly played, Mrs Parish said it was ‘‘nice, quiet lady music, red-wine music''.
Besides playing in bands, Mrs Parish had performed in two Gore Operatic Society theatre restaurants, she said.
