KEMMERER — Two Kemmerer students will participate in a singing competition on Friday in Afton. Janelle Sawaya and Angel Sadler were selected to participate in Teen Vocalist, which will take place at 7 p.m. Friday, June 26, at Star Valley High School.

There will be a live audience, with free admission, but seating will be limited and will be on a first-come, first-served basis. However, the event will also be broadcast on SVI Media and will be viewable free of charge. It can be watched at SVInews.com or on the SVI Media Channel on the Livestream app, which is available for smart phones, tablets and TV streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV.  The broadcast will be streamed in HD and with five different cameras.

Six contestants — Paul Jardine, Ki Simkins, Emma Graham, Duncan Elder, Allie Jack and Jacie Angell, all from Star Valley — will compete alongside Sawaya and Sadler.  The contestants were selected from an online audition process earlier in June. Auditions were open to anyone 18 and younger currently living in Lincoln County. Auditions were a capella.

The event will consist of two rounds. In the first round, all eight contestants will perform, after which four finalists will be selected to compete again in the second round. Those four will sing a second song, and the winner will be selected. The winner will receive a check for $500. The runner-up will receive $200.

Judges and the audience will team up to pick the four finalists and winners. There will be three judges on stage during the entire event who will score each contestant and provide feedback after each performance. Each judge’s score will account for 25% of the vote. The other 25% will be made up from a live audience vote. After each round, the audience — both those in attendance and those watching the broadcast — will vote for their favorite contestant via text message. Voting information will be given after each round.

The three judges include Shelby Thatcher from Kemmerer. Shelby is a former Miss Wyoming pageant winner and has been judging vocalist competitions for five years. The other judges are Mellissa Dickey, who won SVI Media’s first-ever vocalist competition in 2016, and SVI Media’s Dahl Erickson.

More info, including contestant bio’s for both this teen competition and the main vocalist event can be found at TheVocalistUSA.com. It can also be found on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.