By Kayla Pagan –
Wednesday night American Idol fans chose the tenth season winner, Scotty McCreery.
Seventeen-year-old McCreery and runner up, Lauren Alaina who is 16 walked hand-in-hand for the all-country two-hour finale in Los Angeles.
Together they brought the biggest amount of votes in the history of American Idol with a total of 122.4 million viewer votes.
“I was rooting for Scotty McCreery,” said senior Ashley Bowers. ” I love his voice and I’m glad he won.”
McCreery stuck to his style by putting his own country twist to every week’s challenge.
He had out-shined top singers such as 20-year-old Casey Abrams, a jazz fanatic of Idyllwild, California, 22-year-old rock lover from Santa Cruz, California, James Durbin to Haley Reinhart, a 20-year-old vocalist from Wheeling Illinois.
Unlike Alaina, he was outgoing and connected very well with the audience. He had an idea why he had been voted American Idol’s tenth season winner.*
“It’s because I’m one of them. I was just a kid who was bagging groceries three months ago,” he told Derrik J. Lang, a member of the Associated Press.
Wednesday the two finalist had performed individually with Tim McGraw, a country icon as well as Carrie Underwood, Idol’s fourth season winner. The two were the youngest pair in the history of Idol. Alaina had just made the cut for the season auditions last year, auditioning at age 15 which is the minimum age requirement.
“Scotty wasn’t my favorite from the beginning,” said senior Kendal Siegworth. “But after awhile he started growing on me, I definitely think he deserved to win. He is extremely talented.”