The finale of The Voice was held on Thursday, Oct. 21 in Washburn A/B. With three female contestants, each was able to sing a Beyoncé song as a tribute to the ladies. Then, each contestant sang a song of their choice.

The night was full of energy. Families and supporters of the contestants filled into the room, hurrying to find the perfect seat.

Angela Holthaus, representing Dr. Nunan’s team, started off round one of the finale with her rendition of “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé.

Next, Chartell Grissom, representing Dr. Desoto’s team, had the crowd roaring with praise as she sang “Pray You’ll Catch Me” by Beyoncé.

Coming in with passion, Megahn Scott, representing Dr. Grospitch’s team, had the audience in awe with her song “I Was Here” by Beyoncé.

After an intense round, the audience was given a short intermission to soak up the talent that they had witnessed.

When the audience returned, a video of the final three participants was played where each contestant remaining explained why they started The Voice and what winning would mean to them. After the sweet video, host Katherine Cook thanked the staff for their great work and everyone who made the event possible.

The second round of songs is when the competition really started to heat up.

Grissom had the audience going crazy with praise as she sang “Ready For Your Love” by India Arie. Her charm and voice started off the second round on a high note.

Scott chose the song “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals to show her incredible vocal range.

The last finalist of the night, Holthaus, turned the table on the audience and the judges, singing “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. Holthaus sang without her guitar this week so she could interact more with the audience.

With a tough decision to make, the judges left the room to decide who would be the winner of The Voice at Washburn and would take home $1000.

With a drumroll from the crowd and the opening of an envelope, Cook announced that Scott had won.

“I am feeling on top of the world. I can’t believe this happened. I never thought I would win,” said Scott.

The night was whisked away by all three finalists and Scott was in shock of her win.

“It definitely was not easy, my competition was fabulous and they have beautiful voices and honestly I could see any three of us winning,” said Scott.

Scott explained that she was grateful to have had the experience and even though she did not realize she had won until seconds later, she realized that she did not want any of the finalists to lose.

With her prize money, Scott plans to pay for college, but admits she may treat herself a little.

Scott’s performance definitely shows that she has talent.

“I would consider going on the real Voice. I just don’t know when I’d have time for it. Honestly, Arianna Grande would be my coach,” said Scott.

Though Dr. Grospitch was not Arianna Grande, Scott was still appreciative of him.

“Dr. G was amazing, I loved every second of having him as a coach. He gave me really good advice on how to present myself on stage and how to really captivate an audience,” said Scott.

As shocked as she was, Scott was thankful for everyone that surrounded her.

“I want to just thank everybody involved and everybody did a great job. There wasn’t one person that this could have happened without. I just really want to thank everybody for making it fun” said Scott.

With gladness in his heart and happiness in his eyes, Grospitch congratulated his team representative.

“Meghan’s voice is so strong and she’s got so much range, I just told her to have fun. Tonight was really just about enjoying her time on the stage and helping people see what personality she had and I thought she did a great job with it,” said Grospitch.

While his participant won, Grospitch was ecstatic about the performances he had seen throughout the weeks. It was a tough decision for the judges, but ultimately they had to decide who would win.

“All three of the people that sang tonight have such beautiful voices, so much power and I guess just strength in it all. It was not an easy decision for the judges at all. We all just kind of had that moment of like, alright who’s going to get it. We just looked at the range that Meghan brought to the group and it was really the voice, so we had to follow it,” said Grospitch.

Throughout the past four weeks, there were some stellar performances by students.

“I really liked Meghan’s last performance, but Chartell did one last week that was just very soulful and very powerful. Angela just surprised me, I just didn’t know what voice she had. She’s always so quiet on campus, so to just see her get behind a guitar was really cool,” said Grospitch.

Although The Voice at Washburn has come to an end this year, the event had a great turnout and showed students that with hard work, anything is possible. The excitement around the event leaves those involved hopeful that it will return in the future.

“I think that based on the turnout we had, we will see this event again,” said Grospitch.

Edited by: Ellie Walker, Kyle Manthe