Royal Purple

Issue date: 12/5/07 Section: Arts & Lifestyle

Media Credit: Alison Wisneski Whitewater Idol contestants Dominic Ramirez, winner of Best in Show, Megan Schilz, first place solo winner, and Jack Schuknecht, winner of Best Duet, pose with their trophies. The number of entrants to the show increased this year.

Dominic Ramirez, Jack Schuknecht, Michael Favaro and Megan Schilz can add Whitewater Idol to their list of musical accomplishments after winning last Thursday's competition in the Light Recital Hall.

Whitewater Idol started out with 40 entrants, but the auditions whittled that number down to 16.

"We had a lot more participants this year and we had a lot more quality entrants," Nicki Viso, sophomore and co-programmer for the Residence Hall Association, said.

Before the event took place, Viso and Caitlin Ninedorf, another co-programmer for RHA, put in a lot of work to make sure the night went smoothly.

The two worked on promoting the event, recruiting entrants and judges, scheduling auditions, designing T-shirts, ordering trophies and reserving the venue.

"We had to reserve a room in advance, and we didn't know about the Packer game," Ninedorf said. "We found out about it later, but it was too late to change."

Viso took it as a compliment that the Light Recital Hall was packed despite Thursday night's Packer game against the Dallas Cowboys.

"It felt really special to know that there were so many people there when there was a Packer game going on," Viso said.

Although the turnout was impressive, they ran into a few miner glitches before the night was over.

Kaitlin Larimer, sophomore, almost didn't get to perform when it looked as though her burned copy of Alicia Keys' "No One" wasn't going to play. The CD skipped several times during her performance, leaving Larimer to dance onstage without music for a few moments.

But the music malfunction didn't shake her confidence a bit. Larimer said it threw her for a loop, but for the most part, she thought it was funny.

"I believe dancing and laughing at yourself is the key to avoiding nervousness," Larimer said. "If you're having fun, it masks [your mistakes]."

Continued...

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