The first time was the charm for Jess Russ, a songwriter from Alabama.

Russ won a 2025 Grammy Award on Sunday in the category of Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song, for her work on “That’s My King.” The song was recorded by gospel great CeCe Winans and released on Winans’ 2024 album “More Than This.”

Russ, 27, earned a Grammy on her very first try, sharing the award with Winans and three other songwriters: Taylor Agan, Kellie Gamble and Lloyd Nicks. Their win was announced on Sunday afternoon during the Grammys Premiere Ceremony.

“This song was written by a bunch of strangers who became family in a room, and the room was full of joy,” Russ said on stage as she accepted the award with her colleagues. “God is kind.”

Most Grammy winners for 2025 were announced at the Premiere Ceremony, held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and live-streamed on YouTube and the Grammys website. Only a handful of awards, pulled from a total of 94 Grammy categories, were given out during the televised ceremony on Sunday night at the Crypto.com Arena.

“I’m fighting back tears, but we’re doing all right,” Russ said in a backstage interview after her Grammy win. “We wrote the song four years ago, almost to the day. It’s taken a journey for sure. … And thank you, CeCe Winans. I mean, she’s a legend. I weep like a baby every time I hear ‘Alabaster Box’ still, and so does my mom. We just are grateful that she decided that this was a song she wanted to carry.”

Russ and her fellow songwriters also gave a shout-out to The Bridge Church in Spring Hill, Tenn., where they evidently worked together at a writing camp.

Russ grew up in Alabama and attended James Clemens High School in Madison. She’s also a 2020 graduate of Concordia University Ann Arbor in Michigan, where she was a music education major.

“A member of the women’s lacrosse team, a student ambassador for the admissions department, and an organizer of student life events, Jess finds that she feels most attuned to herself when she’s practicing, creating, learning, and teaching music,“ says a profile of Russ on the Concordia website.

Russ lives in Nashville, and works as a creative specialist at Integrity Music, according to her LinkedIn profile.

“I don’t know how to begin to describe or explain how life all feels right now. Both extremely hard and overwhelmingly beautiful,” Russ said in November 2024 on Instagram, after her Grammy nomination was announced. “To this little girl, Your dreams matter. Your dreams are valid. Your dreams can come true. Your dreams are worth believing in. You are worth believing in. No matter what. I am so proud of you.”