The Daily O’Collegian

Simon says, “Kyle Ensley goes onto the next round of the competition.”

But sadly, the rules to this popular children’s game don’t apply when playing “American Idol.”

Ensley, an international business and political science junior, made it to the top 50 of the popular FOX series.

And though he didn’t advance in the competition, Ensley won over the infamous Simon Cowell, one of the show’s three judges, well-known for his blunt criticism toward contestants, who gave Ensley compliments even off-camera.

After Ensley was cut, he was leaving the Pasadena Convention Center to head back to the hotel.

Cowell was leaving at the same moment and stopped to talk with Ensley.

“He was getting in his Rolls Royce Phantom,” Ensley said. “He was just like, ‘I just want to tell you I thought you should have made it, and you did really well, and you could have impacted a lot of people.’ That was really special — to know he wasn’t just saying that other stuff for TV — to know he really meant it.”

American Idol, in its seventh season, airs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. Three judges critique contestants but viewers are the ones who decide who will stay. Voting via telephone and text messaging begins immediately after each performance show, and the results are announced during the following night’s broadcast, according to the Web site.

Ensley first auditioned for American Idol in August. He was on his way back from Washington, D.C., after spending the summer interning for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

Ensley heard about the auditions and decided to head down to Texas Stadium to try out.

And luckily, Ensley didn’t have to go alone.

His father, Wendell Ensley, had come from Valliant, about 150 miles northeast of Dallas, to pick him up from the airport.

The duo waited 15 hours in the August heat so Kyle Ensley could audition.

Wendell Ensley said they started to leave at noon after arriving at the stadium about 6 a.m.

“Everyone around was practicing their singing and stuff,” he said. “[Kyle] finally told me, ‘We might as well leave. I don’t have a chance anyway. We’re just wasting our time.’”

But Wendell Ensley wasn’t about to let his son give up so easily.

“I said, ‘No, we’ve already waited this long. We’re going to get it over with so you can say you tried.”

The father and son waited with about 20,000 other prospective Idols. Each person auditioning sang for 15 seconds in front of one of the 13 sets of judges, Wendell Ensley said.

Finally, about 9 p.m., it was Kyle Ensley’s turn.

Wendell Ensley said his son wasn’t anxious about the audition.

“We were too tired to be nervous,” he said. “It was in August and about 100 degrees.

“And stuff like that doesn’t bother Kyle much. He’s been in [so many] activities in the past that it didn’t bother him really.”

American Idol wasn’t the first singing experience for Ensley, for he has been singing since he was 5.

At about 7, he started competing.

“I would enter talent shows, and I would sing country and dress up like a cowboy,” he said.

In the second grade, Ensley performed Tracy Byrd’s “Watermelon Crawl” at the Valliant Watermelon Festival talent contest and won first place.

However, Ensley said he didn’t enjoy singing country music and took a break for a few years.

In junior high, he got back into it, singing in church, performing inspirational music.

As for his time at OSU, he, so far, has won best male performance in Varsity Revue 2007 and best male vocalist in Spring Sing 2007.

Ensley hasn’t taken any private singing lessons.

The only training he received was in high school choir class.

Carolyn Grigory, vocal music director at Wright City High School, was Ensley’s teacher.

Grigory has taught the class for about 13 years.

She said Ensley was definitely one of her most talented students.

“He was always eager to perform,” Grigory said. “Kyle was an excellent student. He did what was required, plus more if he wanted to. He had a lot of natural talent. All I did was fine tune.”

Grigory said she wasn’t surprised that Ensley made it so far in the American Idol competition.

It was rewarding and gratifying to see one of her past students on national television, she said.

She knew Ensley, always the perfectionist, had the potential to go far with his voice, she said.

“He always wanted to know ‘Why?’,” she said. “Why should we do it this way, why is it better this way – he liked to understand everything.”

Grigory said she’s proud to have had Ensley as a student and proud of how well he did.

Wendell Ensley also said he’s still proud of his son, regardless of how far he made it in the competition.

“It probably turned out for the best,” Wendell Ensley said. “He has a lot of education ahead of him, and we didn’t want him to give that up.”

For example, this summer, Kyle Ensley will attend Princeton University in New Jersey as part of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship. He is one of 20 college students in the nation selected.

After finishing his undergraduate degree, Ensley plans to attend graduate school, studying international affairs.

He hopes to become a Foreign Service officer for the Department of State, working in U.S. embassies.

As for what Kyle Ensley plans to do with his singing career, the 22-year-old musician said he hasn’t sought out any recording contracts or tried to book events.

However, this hasn’t stopped people from coming to him.

Ensley received a call Monday evening from the Oklahoma City RedHawks, inviting him to sing the Star-Spangled Banner at their opening game in April.

Brides- and grooms-to-be have asked Ensley to sing at their weddings. Also, people asked him to serenade their loved ones on Valentine’s Day.

Ensley said all the attention he continues to receive still surprises him.

The Facebook group, “Elect Kyle Ensley your next American Idol” has been shrinking since Ensley was cut from the show, but it still has about 2,500 members.

Ensley said he shut down his Facebook profile after auditioning but recently reactivated his account.

Within 24 hours of opening up his profile, he had received friend requests from people in India, Pakistan, England and Sweden. He had more than 100 messages and was a little freaked out when someone even set up a fake account, impersonating him.

He has tried to reply to as many of the messages as he can, at least thanking people for their support.

One fan surprised him the most out of anyone.

“This one guy from New Orleans facebooked me and told me that my version of ‘You Raised Me Up’ inspired him to purpose to his fiancé because the next day was Valentine’s Day,” Ensley said. “That was nice. It’s just weird, though, because I never thought that many people would remember who I was.”