Feb. 17—A Hatley High School graduate with classic rock and country flare and an Amory transplant with hopes of stardom will make their separate national television debuts Feb. 19 on the season premiere of "American Idol."
The season 21 premiere airs at 7 p.m. on ABC and will be available for streaming the next day on Hulu.
Colin Stough, who lives in Gattman and graduated from Hatley in 2022, and 19-year-old Zachariah Smith, who recently moved to Amory, will be among musicians auditioning before celebrity judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan.
Smith, who is an Indiana native, works at Bill's Hamburgers. He has a wife, Crysta, and three stepchildren. While his set lists include hits by Bon Jovi and Bob Seger, his biggest inspirations are Michael Jackson, Queen, Bruno Mars, The Weeknd and Ariana Grande.
"I've been singing since I was 6 years old," Smith said. "I took some guitar lessons when I was about 8 years old, played a little bit, put the guitar down and picked it back up. I'm mostly focused on my voice and focused on entertaining and being a performer. I think that was the highlight of what started my career."
He has played locally at Bill's Hamburgers and also at The Coffee Pot during last year's Cruisin' Amory. Smith has also written one original song but sees the potential of others.
When he was 15, he figured he would try out for open auditions for "American Idol" but figured he needed more experience. After going through preliminary rounds, he auditioned for the show's upcoming season in Nashville before the celebrity judges.
"Now that I have a family and kind of got adjusted to the adult life, I really would like to follow my dreams," he said. "I did it because I thought I could have a really good shot of going somewhere with it and coming out with a musical career like I always dreamed of."
He first auditioned from home on a Zoom call and passed the judges' round to open up the Nashville opportunity.
"You go in there with 200, maybe 300 people in the holding room and everybody's singing, and you start thinking, 'Wow, there's such great competition here and so many great voices,'" he said.
That's when self-doubt starts to creep in, Smith said.
"I think, for me, once I stopped listening to the voices inside my head and got on the horse and started running with it, I just started having fun in the process," he said. "It definitely inspired me to just go in there and do my best in the Nashville audition."