Rock County 4-H Fair STAR winner is texted to the top
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2012 Rock County 4-H Fair
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Nastassja Bates channels Whitney Houston in a powerful rendition of "I Will Always Love You" as the first performer at this year's STAR contest at the Rock County 4-H Fair.
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Amber Annen is rolling in the dough after singing Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and taking home first place in this years STAR contest.
JANESVILLE — Tuesday night's talent show at the Rock County 4-H Fair was easy on the ears, despite a voting glitch.
Ten finalists competed in the STAR Contest, which returned to the fair after a 1-year hiatus. The contest unveiled a new voting system that chose the winner by tallying votes sent in by audience members via text message.
The new system touched off a bit of controversy, as the audience received contradictory messages about what to include in the body of the text message. Each contestant was assigned a number from two through 11, which followed the word "star." Contest emcee Mike Austin instructed audience members to use asterisks, rather than the word "star," to cast their ballots. Meanwhile, each contestant held a poster with the word "STAR," followed by a number. The audience was allowed to vote by sending as many text messages as they could within a three-minute timeframe.
"We're not thrilled that it did happen, but at least everybody was at the same disadvantage," fair board member Stephanie Gassen said.
"It's really unfortunate that people were confused, but it did not appear to skew results," Gassen said. "She won by a significant margin."
More than 150 votes were cast, Gassen said.
The winner was 14-year-old Amber Annen, whose soulful and remarkably loyal rendition of Adele's chart-topper "Rolling in the Deep" won her the $1,000 prize.
To a musically untrained ear, the song sounds particularly difficult, as Adele hits a number of different vocal registers throughout the song, sometimes even within the same line.
"The chorus is definitely the hardest part of the song," Annen said. "Especially the word ‘deep.'"
Annen, who donned a watermelon pink dress during her performance, said she has been taking vocal lessons for three months and playing the acoustic guitar for nearly a year. She said she plans to use the prize money for an electric guitar.
Nastassja Bates, 25, opened the contest with a dazzling performance of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."
Another highlight was 10-year-old Savanna Jones, who sang a dead-on version of Sara Evans' "Suds in the Bucket." In a white cowboy hat, white boots and a pink sachet, Jones looked right at home on stage.
Jul 26, 2012 at 7:50 p.m.
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I agree MyBlueEquinox, the coordinators should have taken one look around and realized that there was no way that the votes received were correct. They could have also looked in the faces of the frustrated people all looking at their cell phones and complaining. They should have spent 2 minutes looking into the problem and then could have asked everyone to re-vote the correct way. If the winner had been the same then at least it would have been accurate and fair to the rest of the contestants. For the emcee to decide that the results were good enough was a slap in the face to all involved, contestants and audience. Even an apology here would be a start, but I'll bet we won't see it. Too bad, I always taught my kids to own up to their mistakes and learn from them. Many of the contestants 'were' kids...would be nice to think that an example of good sportsmanship could be set.
Jul 26, 2012 at 1:34 p.m.
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I was there and tried voting; I started voting (many times) with *6, which appeared to be working, and then I got a message saying *6 was not valid.. So I switched to Star6 like it said on the posters that they were holding on stage and it started working.
I had 10 votes go through with my "Star6" so if only 150 votes came in, there were only 14 other people in my same situation that voted. This is ridiculous! There were 150+ people at this contest and the decision was made by so few people.
I wish I hadn't listened to the adamant instructions from the Radio Host on stage. I guess listening and following directions bit us all in the butt this time...
Jul 26, 2012 at 10:20 a.m.
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Ah JimBob...thanks for your feedback. I didn't even try the word STAR because the emcee insisted that it was to be the * instead. How unfair to the contestants that didn't win that so many votes were not counted!
Jul 26, 2012 at 6:26 a.m.
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I was not there, but give kudo's to all contestants. As for the voting method, WHAT A MOCKERY!. Contests like this should only be judged by an exact number of people, who are unassociated with the contestants. If one performer brings in 200 people, they clearly have an edge over someone bringing 20. I also wonder how many votes were cast from folks who weren't there. Me and five of my friends text 20 people who then text in their votes. This creates 100 votes from people who didn't even see the singers. I'm sure the contestants entered for the love of their craft, but if I was one of them, and knew how voting was to be done, I'd have not wasted my time.
Jul 26, 2012 at 1:48 a.m.
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I feel so bad for all of the contestants in this contest!! How ridiculous that the emcee did not know how to run the contest!! He clearly told us to use the * key instead of the written word star on the contestants boards! They should have voided the contest when they saw only 150 votes were cast!!! Every single person in our area had our texts come back invalid. There had to have been several hundred just in our small area!!
No offense to the winner of the contest and maybe she would have been the ultimate winner had it worked properly. BUT, it did not work and this was NOT a fair contest!!!!
Jul 25, 2012 at 9:08 p.m.
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Yes, it should have been worded "ONLY" 150 votes were cast. Between my daughter and I we were able to text almost 60 votes in the 3 minute span between just the two of us...of course because of the 'glitch' they weren't counted. The contest clearly wasn't accurate. For the fair board to feel that 'everyone' was treated unfairly so therefore the results were right is ridiculous. The only thing that can be accurately stated is the winner had the most votes counted...NOT received, because we all know the majority of people had the same problem we did. Further, it is my understanding that the issue wasn't with the phone carrier...the announcer told everyone to use a * before the number of the singer they were voting for. In reality, everyone SHOULD have typed in the word STAR, not *. My son, who was watching on the other side of the grandstand starting typing in STAR when the * didn't work and guess what...every vote went through. How could coordinators of this event screw their own event up? Sad, for the contestants who spent money on entry fees and travel, on top of their time. I'm glad that this contest was brought back,and I hope it comes back next year, but the radio station and the fair boards response to their 'glitch' is lacking...they owe the contestants an apology because a true winner was not determined.
Jul 25, 2012 at 8 p.m.
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Does anyone except me find it odd that "more than" 150 votes were cast? Or should I say "only" 150 votes were cast? If you were there, and looked around, you would have seen way more than 150 people with their phones out trying to text. I was one of them, but all 16 of my text messages were returned with "The Keyword *5 could not be found. Make sure you entered the keyword correctly and try again.....powered by polleverywhere.com".
I tried again, and again, and again, as did everyone around me who had the same carrier as I. Apparently you couldn't vote if you had one particular carrier....one of the top 3 in town.
That's too bad. I wonder if the results would have been different if everyone who chose to vote could have had their votes counted.
If the final vote tally was "only" 150 votes, there was clearly something wrong.....anyone in charge of the contest care to offer an explanation?
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