CRESTVIEW — Crestview High School's theater department recently produced their 5th annual Bulldog Idol.
Bulldog Idol is a singing competition based on the TV series, "American Idol."
The theater club, called Thespians, created Bulldog Idol to raise money to go to a state festival, where they compete against other schools' theater programs.
To begin preparing for Bulldog Idol, Crestview's Thespians held auditions, where a team of Thespian officers judged the contestants and selected the students who were going to be in Bulldog Idol.
Victoria Ketchum, a student at CHS and a contestant for Bulldog Idol, said, "We went in one by one. We stated our name, age, and grade. We then sang our songs while being recorded, and we left."
Bulldog Idol was held on Feb. 27, in the auditorium at 7 p.m. The first thing that happened was they played a video made out of the audition videos.
Annette Gebhardt, the theater teacher at Crestview High School and the person who made Bulldog Idol possible, introduced all 10 of the contestants.
The contestants were Evelyn Gibson, Amber Sticha, Zoe Carr, Alexis Taylor, Michael Brooks, Angel Cruz-Colon, Jazzlynn Triplett, Jenna Morales, Victoria Ketchum, and April Gudinas.
Each contestant, one by one, sang their first song, and after they sang three teachers at CHS — Yolanda Porter, Lisa Kimbrough, and Darron DuBose — judged the contestants and gave them their opinions about what the contestants could do better. The judges were asked to pick five students out of 10 to be in the second round of Bulldog Idol. Those students were Jenna Morales, Victoria Ketchum, Michael Brooks, Angel Cruz-Colon, and Zoe Carr.
In the second round the contestants went back on stage, one by one, to sing their second song. After each contestant sang the judges gave them more advice about their singing and their performance. Only then were the judges able to pick two contestants, Michael Brooks and Zoe Carr, to compete head on to win Bulldog Idol.
The last two contestants performed their last song. Zoe Carr performed an original song with Larnza "Mufasa" Culpepper, a CHS student who beat-boxed. Michael Brooks sang a pop song.
After they both performed, Gebhardt left the decision of picking the winner up to the audience. They were asked to send a message to two different numbers, one for Michael Brooks votes and one for Zoe Carr.
Gebhardt and Megan Keiffer, a Thespian officer, counted the votes while Culpepper did an amazing beat-boxing performance.
After he performed, last year's winner of Bulldog Idol, Jessika Land, performed a song for everyone.
After she was done, Keiffer announced the winner and Riley Williames, a Thespian officer, presented the awards.
The winner of the 5th annual Bulldog Idol was Zoe Carr.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: BULLDOG BITES: Crestview High Thespians name Bulldog Idol