By RICHARD SISSON

rgs008@latech.edu

 

The hunt was on. Tech students came out to display their finest talents in front of a delighted crowd Tuesday night.

Union Board hosted “Welcome to the Jungle: A Hunt for Tech’s Talent” in the main floor of the Student Center. The show featured 11 acts and door prizes for those students lucky enough to have their program number picked.

Lauren Brown, Talent Show coordinator and a junior speech communication major, was impressed with the amount of people who showed up at the event.

“Turnout was probably one of the biggest I’ve seen at Tech,” Brown said. “All of the contestants were really good and they kept the crowd interested. We wanted to showcase some of the talent Tech has.”

Some of the talent on display came in the form of Edmond Van Zandt’s poppin‘-and-lockin‘ routine. Van Zandt, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, was confident in his performance.

“I got talent and I want to show the world what I can do,” Van Zandt said.

Van Zandt has been honing his skills since his freshman year in high school.

“I used to do it all the time in high school,” he said. “The group I was with, they put me on and I started practicing and I got better. Other than basketball it was my only free time thing to do and it was very creative. It kept me out of trouble.”

Van Zandt finished in third in the competition. Anna Gleason, a graduate student of accounting, won second place with her acoustic rendition of T-Pain’s “I’m in Love with a Stripper.” Full House, consisting of Clint Nesmith, a sophomore computer science major; Nicholas McGrew, a senior mechanical engineering major; Jonah Ukpai, a sophomore electrical engineering major; Marquise Brown, a visiting student; and Justin Easter, a freshman psychology major, won first place with their Motown medley.

Tony Messina, a freshman music major, wowed the crowd with his country repertoire.

“I’m a country boy. Some people were meant to sing country and some people were meant to sing rock. I was meant to sing country,” Messina said.

Messina, whose clarion voice kept the audience completely captivated, had one artist in mind as his inspiration.

“George Strait. We’ve both got that smooth country sound,” he said.

Jason White, a senior sociology major, wrote an original song for the Talent Show.

“The song I’m doing tonight is just feel-good stuff. Most of the time it’s deeply emotional,” White said. “You just feel it, in my opinion. I don’t know if you could classify it as anything, you just feel it.”

Each of the contestants kept the crowd entertained and elated throughout the course of the two-hour hunt for talent.