Vicki Culver

One of the major highlights of the Lehigh Spring Festival is the Idol Contest which runs throughout the week for juniors and adults. The Lehigh Spring Festival Idol Contest, as it is officially known, draws large crowds nightly. The Spring Festival begins March 19 and continues to March 27.

If you want to compete in the Idol Contest, you must sign up fast so you can attend this year’s auditions to be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 8 for juniors or youngsters under 16. Auditions for adults will be on Tuesday, March 9 at 6 p.m. Both events will be held at the Majestic Golf Club on Homestead Rd. You can go online at Lehighacresspringfestival.com for an application form.

That’s the word today from Vicki Culver, the long-time emcee of the Festival Idol Contest.

“I’ll be accepting entries right up to the day of the auditions,” Culver said. People can call her at 369-1168 or applicants can fax her at 368-6000.

Culver, who owns Home for the Holidays gift shop on Homestead Rd., said the Idol Contest has been going on for some time now, back to when the American Idol Contest on TV started. Culver and others on the Spring Festival Committee decided to initiate the same type of contest and it has been a crowd pleaser ever since.

Sponsors Idol Contest: Vicki Culver, chairman of the Spring Festival Idol Contest, left, accepts a check for $3,500 from Joan Adler-Gordon, manager of Lehigh General and Implant Dentistry, which is sponsoring the Junior and Adult Idol competition. Photo Special To The Citizen

It is being sponsored this year by Lehigh General and Implant Dentistry at 1001 South Loop Blvd. whose manager Joan Adler-Gordon gave $3,500.

The event is being held this year in the memory of Eddie Braun who participated in the Idol Contest several times as a Rod Stewart lookalike. He died on Oct. 19 of last year from a massive heart attack.

“I know that if he were still alive, he would be on our stage again. He was very good and well liked,” she said.

From the junior and adult auditions, 12 are chosen from each category. They will go on to compete in the nightly competition on the outside stage at Veterans Park.

Songs By You deejay group will provide the music and the contestants must sing in karaoke style. Culver said if you bring your own music, it must be a CD with only music that you sing to.

Contestants are judged on appearance, confidence, animation, song choice and voice, Culver said.

The first night of the week-long competition will begin on Friday night, March 19 with six of the 12 in both categories chosen from auditions. There is no Saturday competition because of the main attraction Stayin Alive on the outside stage.

Then the Spring Idol Contest is scheduled to resume Sunday night with the second six of each group. It continues throughout the week with judges critiquing the contestants, but the audience will select the winners. Each night some are voted off until the semi finals on Thursday night and then on Friday night, the finalist and winner are chosen by the audience.

Culver said the judges will include Candace Sundby and her husband, David; Jim Kreger, the choir director at Faith Lutheran Church and some guest judges this year.

The times are 7:30 p.m. for juniors and 8:30 p.m. for adults. Those age 16 and over are considered adults.

The winner will get a handsome trophy and $200 while the runners-up of each category will get $100, Culver said.

“Last year we had an amazing group of talented people to enter. I hope a lot of them will return this year,” Culver said.