LBCC’s February Talent Show has Students Engaged

Is someone yacking in the parking lot? The flu is going around, but it could be for other reasons. Many people have a very big secret to keep. More parking lot vomit is likely.  Two or three other people could pass out, including the replacement emcee, who has just come aboard. 

Welcome to the LBCC talent show.

The school talent show ended with the student crowd raucous, impatiently chanting, demanding they wanted their way at the Tripp Auditorium on Feb. 19 2026. 

“You knew, maybe 20 minutes before it happened.”

Emcee Zhaine Raymundo recounts the circumstances behind her unexpected recruitment as the event host.

“I wanted it to go well because I was really excited for it. I was like, you know what? I'll pop a Tylenol between sets. It's OK.

I had little flashcards with what acts there was, but everything else was just on the fly. Other than that, I just kind of winged it. The next day I crashed. I kind of pushed myself a little bit too much.”

Even the host has got talent. “If I didn't have as much going on (I) would have joined. I performed in front of crowds to do a Filipino traditional dance before. So I thought about doing that again.”

So diversely talented, Raymundo was instead thrust into the gig of an impromptu stand up comedian…well, sit down, anyway. Seated with shades on. No, Raymundo was not too cool for the job, actually quite the opposite, she was so committed to her fill-in role, she should have been even more relaxed and reclined – at home, with the lights low. 

Instead, there Raymundo was, in the Tripp Auditorium, in front of a big crowd. One a bit too loud for a dog who waits in the wings. Raymundo, to top it all off, has a concussion. Still, she soldiers on as host.

“They gave me a little seat and at a point, one of our performers who I'm friends with (Georgie Jensen), she came up, she put the chair behind me and she forced me to sit. While I was just rambling off jokes to give time” (for the judges to make their decision).

In high school Raymundo was the school spokesperson and presented at a world championship, “so being on stage wasn't too bad for me.”

Sky Paul summed it up: “Huge kudos to Zhaine Raymundo. And Meei-Shiang and Jaymie Poujade for planning this great event. I know that them promoting the show via word of mouth is what got” such a great crowd.

With such surprises swirling behind the scenes, how do you begin? 

“I heard a few people really putting themselves out there in a courageous way.  So I thought, we'll just go first because we're not of that caliber at all,” said Instructor Annaliese Watson, explaining wanting to start off the show with something silly, a song that listed the countries of the world, with the help of several students. 

The group didn’t get the chance to practice ahead of time. Watson didn’t need practice, owing to a long ago road trip that had as a soundtrack the catchy number from the Animaniacs cartoon.

“It's like really rapid fire and kind of ridiculous and funny. It relates loosely to anthropology, which is what I teach, because we study humans around the world

It's actually quite easy to learn, even though it seems, like, impossible. It's one of those things that like once it's in your head, it's not going anywhere.  I now can forget all manner of important information, but that song remains.” 

Hunter Steele appeared twice on stage. Playing solo guitar with the haunting and beautiful “Why" by Andrew York, which allowed him “time to focus on phrasing (and) dynamics.”

Steele has composed a few pieces of his own and plans to soon explore the production side of music. “My career goal is to teach private guitar lessons.”

Steele also accompanied Melodie Barnett singing a soulful version of “Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, which was voted the second best performance of the night. 

Barnett should have gotten a behind the scenes award too.

 “Mel definitely deserves some attention because she ran lights, sound, and performed which is no easy task,” said Steele.

Also appearing twice was Tate Haywood.

The first song from Evil Dead the Musical, “talks about her fiance getting killed (by demons) before they got married, which was ironic,” said Haywood.

“We thought it'd be funny to have the proposal after,” said event planner Meei-Shiang Poujade.

“A Love Like Ours Will Never Die,” the couple sang for their second number, then he got down on his knee and got the biggest cheer of the night. The crowd was delirious in their shock.

“The other performers were equally as surprised as everyone else when the jaw-dropping proposal happened; no one except the event organizers knew about it beforehand,” said fellow performer Jason Miller.

“I knew right before because it was in my note cards and I almost gave it away. I was reading it off and then,” Raymundo admitted, “I went, oh, proposal. I shouldn't say that out loud. Skip.”

The talent is wonderful, but they are moving faster than rehearsals, much faster than the plan.

“It's like what do we do? Do we pull everybody back in?”  Poujade explained. “Everyone's out in the lobby just mingling and having fun.”

“Congratulating the newly engaged,” added Raymundo.

They are about half an hour ahead of schedule. A plan completely reliant on the scheduled time, because the second half of the program is full of students who are currently still in class. So the planners stall and acts come rushing in, straight from their classrooms. 

Michelle Kyle “basically came in, threw her backpack at me and went on stage,” said Poujade, to sing “Wagon Wheel.”

Cory Stutz rocked perhaps harder than the crowd had ever heard a ukulele rock before. As many have in the past, Corey in his own style, also warned of the dangers of “The House of the Rising Sun.”

Then there was Denali Bosco, doing tricks with her dog Paisley.  “My personal favorite was the dog. So cute. Like the most well behaved dog I have ever seen,” said Haywood.

Jason Miller: “Funnily enough, I'm not too big of a fan of Imagine Dragons. The extent of my knowledge of them stems from (a phase in) my middle school years. The song I played, "It's Time,” is a notable exception.”

Daniel Amezquita performed a sparse version of “The Goodness of God.” “I want(ed) to do a song that brings a message.”

Angel Chajon Estrada sang a song by Vicente Fernandez to honor the memory of a family member. “He was my great grandmother's favorite singer.”

Vayne Lim sang  "So tired" by Kay Starr. “I chose that song because I could resonate with being a hopeless romantic. I felt nervous and unsure how I did during the performance” because of  anxiety but “felt relieved and proud after the performance because I actually went up stage and did what I said I was going to do. I feel proud of LBCC for having so much talent.”

The competition was so intense even 2 encore calls and wonderful classical guitar playing earned Vlad Stancescu 3rd place. Vlad was preparing to the play the songs, as he had long intended, as a gift for his mother’s birthday.

Even the crowd itself had musical chops. After the judges were sequestered outside the auditorium to anoint the winners, the impatient crowd launched into an impromptu group sing along acapella of “I Want It That Way.” As the judges continued their long deliberation, wrestling with such a tough decision, the audience chanted loudly for the final verdict. Boisterous laughter from the judges deliberation could be heard through the walls, apparently not at Raymundo’s time killing jokes.

Finally the unenviable selection had been made. Judge Jaxon Lee explained how difficult it was to select the winners, due to the abundance of talent. Luckily, he said, the winner was unanimous.

They all crowned Kaelynn Carroll the winner.

“We all became a close family because we were all sitting in the auditorium with each other and listening,and it was really cool because, like, Kaelynn and Tate and Melodie, they’re all singers, but they would all help each other,” said Poujade.

“I, as the MC, really enjoyed it. Even though I was thrown last minute into. It was very high energy,” Raymundo said. “I got feedback from other people and they wanted to see it happen again and for that to happen would need probably more volunteers or just more people in SLC. (It’s) a great place. We host all the events and so having more people is always the better.”

“The entirety of student leadership was so supportive of everything. Everyone was saying it was really hard not to let me know what was going on because they all knew,” newly engaged Haywood said.

“Everybody who was in that talent show was so talented. Like, I had no clue. But it doesn't surprise me at all that we have such a talented community of students. Every single person who was up on that stage, I would love to see them do something again.”