Winner of Spokane Idol has shot at pop stardom

The voting is over. The ballots are tabulated.

Decision 2004 has been made and a clear winner has emerged.

She is Courtney Parks – our newly crowned Spokane Idol.

(Cue the trumpet fanfare.)

Forget the primary election. Politicians come and go around here like winos on West First.

But a Spokane Idol?

They don’t run in herds.

Parks won the singing competition Monday night in the muddy, drizzling grandstand at the Spokane Interstate Fair.

(This year’s replacement fair motto: “Bring Ewe Umbrella!”)

Parks’ prize is a trip to San Francisco and an audition with a producer associated with TV’s smash “American Idol” show.

If accepted, the 24-year-old Greenacres resident will move to the next round where she will sing to the most feared and recognizable vocal critics in show biz:

Randy Jackson. Paula Abdul. Simon “The Terror” Cowell.

Winning American Idol is a lottery-odds proposition, sure. But at least Parks has a shot at pop stardom, and I’m proud to have helped her pull the trigger.

I was one of four judges at the Spokane Idol event. I’ll be honest. I spent much of the contest freezing my fanny off on an unforgiving plastic chair in front of the stage. Oh, how I wished I’d made more pleasant plans for the evening.

Like getting a root canal, perhaps.

They should have called this thing the Spokane Igloo contest.

The competition, sponsored by Wild 103.9 FM radio and KAYU Fox 28 television, featured 20 crooners who had made the cut from several preliminary events.

The finals took slightly less time than the Vietnam War.

OK, I’m exaggerating.

The Korean War.

Factor in the unmistakable aroma of barnyard manure that haunted the grandstand like the ghost of Slim Pickens.

Outside of a rodeo, I’m personally opposed to mixing entertainment and feces. At one point I thought about jumping on stage, grabbing the mike and belting out that classic, “Send in the Cows.”

Then Parks took the stage.

For the first time my goosebumps weren’t caused by the cold.

Zowie! Parks has a big-as-Broadway voice that defies her 5-foot-2 size.

This gal can sing. She’s got game. She’s all that.

You fill in the blanks.

Courtney Parks can hang with anybody I heard on last season’s “American Idol” show.

(Note: At the risk of being stripped of my Spokane Stud title I must confess to watching more than a few episodes.)

Perfect pitch. Incredible control. Excellent phrasing. … Parks has every tool in the professional singer’s tool belt.

Plus something more.

She has that difficult-to-define “It Factor.” Blond hair. Blue eyes. Parks looks great. She wears an eternally bemused expression on her face and oozes with saucy, crowd-captivating confidence that makes you think of Bette Midler in her prime.

For her first number, Parks nailed “It’s All Coming Back to me Now,” a difficult Celine Dion vocal piece she chose to show off her dazzling technique.

She returned to the stage as the first singer in the final five. Parks set a gold standard none of the other four could match. She belted out the appropriately named “Big Time,” a splashy show-stopper recorded by Broadway sensation Linda Eder.

“I tell you what,” says Jenni Turner, a local singer/producer and head judge for the Spokane Idol competition. “With that kind of confidence she was telling us, ‘Sit back. Relax. I’m going to give you something to listen to.’ “

Parks is as much fun in person.

Turns out I didn’t have to walk far to meet her. She is a bartender-in-training at Heroes & Legends, a sports-themed restaurant a half block from the newspaper at Riverside and Lincoln.

Maybe it’s just me. But I find a comforting poetry in having a bartender representing our blue-collar burg. True, a laid-off Kaiser worker would be preferable. But a bartender works just fine.

Parks playfully filled me in on her important biographical details.

“I’ve got no kids, no ex-husbands and no baggage.” Pause. “Except for Louis Vuitton.”

See? Told you she was saucy.

Parks has only been in Spokane three months. She came here from Alaska, where she developed her singing chops doing musical theater in a 2,000-seat auditorium with no microphone.

“That’s where the voice comes from,” she says. “I had to fill it up.”

Parks learned how to add grit to her voice by singing three nights a week in a blues joint. She earned a paycheck tending bar at an airport.

Her Spokane roots run deep. Grandad Jack Parks played catcher for the Spokane Indians in 1949. He was the only player to get married at home plate.

Courtney moved here with plans to finish her college at Gonzaga University and then enroll in its law school. Then this idol competition got in the way.

These days she’s keeping her options open.

“I would love to just go down there and blow them away and make it into the top 12,” says the Spokane Idol. “Maybe I’ll even win the thing. But I’m gonna do everything I can to hand them the package they’re looking for.”