Hebert tops ‘Quest’

Sarah Hebert entered this year’s “Quest for the Best” to have fun and that’s exactly what she did
Winning first place was just an added bonus.
The 15-year-old Fort High student walked away with top honours before a sold-out crowd last Thursday night at the Townshend Theatre, beating out 19 other acts for the $500 cash and one-hour limo ride.
“I went to Thunder Bay this weekend and spent some of [the money],” she laughed. “The rest I’m going to use to get acoustic guitar lessons.
“And I’ll probably take all my friends on the limo ride–they might get mad if I don’t,” she chuckled.
Alyson Booth, 21, garnered second place as well as one of the two people’s choice awards up for grabs. She’s already spent some of her winnings on karoake CDs for recording her voice to music.
“I was very, very, excited and very, very, shocked to win,” Booth said. “The people’s choice award . . . meant more to me than anything because it was the people watching who voted for me.”
Kelly Moulik came in third place, winning $200.
Other winners included Jon Bone (most original), Tim Grover (audience response), Isaiah Stevens (contestants’ choice), and Carly Stromberg (the other people’s choice).
Stephanie Hawkins, who judged the competition along with Jim Newman and Mary Ann Kasich, found the talent amazing and the variety enjoyable.
But she also planned to draft a letter to organizers at the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce on how to fine-tune the event.
“Somebody came in and collected our score sheets in the middle of [our judging] other performances. That was a bit distracting,” said Hawkins.
“Large points of scoring went to audience response and that’s not fair if one guy has 50 people there to clap for them and somebody else is a newcomer and doesn’t have anybody,” she reasoned.