By Courtney Rickert
“To be honest, I’ve never been so nervous in my life.” Jennifer Rios, class of 2016, has just finished performing Coldplay’s “Fix You” in the first round of Assumption College’s American Idol-inspired singing competition, as part of the college’s Family Weekend 2014 celebration.
During first round of the competition, hosted in Laska Gymnasium at Assumption College at 7:30 pm on September 27th, 2014, each of the Assumption students chosen to compete in the competition performed their first song. Some of these contestants include Carolyn Chaplin 17’, Katie Cholera 15’, Korleen Sheridan 16’, Andrew Donohue 16’, Alexa Holmes 15’, Matthew Mariner 15’, Molly Frazier 17’, and Shan’t Egging 18’.
The crowd of several hundred friends and family members of the contestants enjoyed complimentary kettle corn in between rounds of the competition. The panel of three judges chose which contestants would make it to the second round in a private, undisclosed location.
Those remaining in round two of the competition were Katie Cholera, performing Christina Aguilara’s “Bound to You”, Andrew Donohue, who sang an a capella version of Adele’s “Someone Like You”, Alexa Holmes, performing Bonnie Rait’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me”, Brooke Meegan, covering Sarah Brightman’s “Unexpected”, Jennifer Rios, who performed Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”, and finally Molly Frazier, covering Queen’s “Somebody to Love”.
Two hours later, the competition was down to two contestants: Alexa Holmes and Jennifer Rios:
Alexa performed Citizen’s “How Does it Feel?”, while Jennifer performed Adele’s “Skyfall”. After the final round of the competition, the crowd was directed to text in their votes for which competitor they thought should win the overall competition and claim the grand prize of 500 dollars.
Assumption had voted: Jennifer Rios was the newest AC Idol!
When asked about how she felt about winning the competition, Rios replied: “I’m so happy to have been a part of this competition. It’s amazing. I’m on cloud nine right now!”.
Because she has won the school-wide competition, Rios will now move on to compete with the winners from the other consortium colleges, including Anna Maria, Worcester State, and WPI.
THE AC301 