Thomas Rhett celebrated one of the biggest moments of his career last week when he was announced as the co-winner of the ACM Entertainer of the Year Award with Carrie Underwood. Having grown up around his father, 90’s country star Rhett Akins, and around the country music business since he was a child, Thomas has had plenty of time to imagine what winning Entertainer of the Year might feel like. So, when it finally happened, he said, “It truly has been a dream of mine since day one. There’s countless times where my manager, Virginia, has asked me, ‘What are your goals for the next five years? What are your goals for the next ten years?’ And winning Entertainer of the Year was definitely #1 on the list.”

Hearing Keith Urban call his name, and then finding out that he and Carrie Underwood were tied for the award only added to the surreal moment. And once he had that trophy in his hand he said, “It made me feel like I’m not the new guy anymore, if that makes any sense. You know, just being such a huge fan of Carrie since I can remember, since I was 15 or 16 years old, and winning such an iconic award with her, it just solidified a lot of things for me.”

Of course, Thomas is grateful for everyone around him who has worked tirelessly to help make his dream of being named Entertainer of the Year come true, including his band and crew, and he said backstage at the ACM Awards, “It’s such a weird year to not work and to be super uncertain about a lot of stuff. But I think this was a big pat on the back for just, the amount of hours we’ve put into rehearsing and improvising and making our show as best as it could possibly be. And this is such a dream, I don’t know how to put it into words.”

We think he did a pretty good job of finding the words.