Four Oak Ridge students competing in Bijou Awards in January

Four Oak Ridge students will compete in the Bijou Awards in January.

The Fourth Annual Bijou Awards will showcase the talent of high school students in and around Knoxville. The 2016 Bijou Awards Gala is on January 16 at the Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville.

Oak Ridge High School seniors Treston Henderson and Jacob Moreno will both compete in the male singing category.

Sarah Hepler, an eight-grader at Robertsville Middle School, and Marian Vacaliuc, a seventh-grader at Jefferson Middle School, will compete in the rising star category.

“Local teenagers will have the opportunity to not only show off their performing arts and create writing skills, but also to turn a $5 entry fee into a $1,000 individual scholarship and a $500 award for their school,” Bijou Theatre said on its website.

Auditions began in the fall, and the top five contestants in each category will perform in front a panel of celebrity judges on January 16.

Besides male singing and rising star, the categories are male acting, female acting, and female singing.

Other students who will be competing are from Farragut, Fort Loudon, and Gresham middle schools; Grace Christian, L&N Stem, and Northview academies; and Austin East, Bearden, Hardin Valley, Karns, Loudon, and Webb.

You can see the complete list of competitors on the Bijou Theatre website. That page also has a link to take you to a page where you can buy tickets to the January 16 gala, which starts at 7 p.m.

Oak Ridge Schools had three students reach the finals last year.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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