http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_chann...id=&change_well_id=2

Caroling in the cold: Chorus, DeGarmo perform
12/18/2005
By Leslie Wiggins
Staff Writer

DULUTH — Colorful Christmas lights adorned the Duluth Amphitheater stage Saturday evening as the crowd anticipated vocal performances during the annual Carols in the Park event.
Chilly weather could not keep the more than 400 people from enjoying hot cocoa, ice skating and holiday songs performed by 2004 “American Idol” finalist Diana DeGarmo and the Big Chicken Chorus, featuring soloist Susan Schreer.
People bundled up in coats, scarves, hats, gloves and draped warm blankets over their legs so they could keep warm and stay out longer.....

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/celebrities/3562003.html
Jan. 3, 2006, 12:40PM
Idol star DeGarmo celebrates new year with troops overseas

By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT — How does an 18-year-old American Idol star stay fresh and pretty while traveling to seven countries in seven days to entertain the troops?

Diana DeGarmo says you sleep and eat on schedule — and it helps to bring along your mom.

"Some people might call me a party pooper," she told the Associated Press in an interview Tuesday on a military aircraft en route to Germany for the final stop of the tour. "But you just have to do it."

DeGarmo visited several U.S. bases in the Middle East and eastern Africa to host holiday shows with comedian Reggie McFadden and country singer Michael Peterson. They were traveling in a delegation led by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace.

The weeklong United Service Organizations tour started at an air base near Doha, Qatar, and included stops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Djibouti and the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier somewhere in the central Arabian Gulf.

DeGarmo, last season's runner-up to Fantasia Barrino on the Fox American Idol reality show, said she had "learned that there's more to this war than sending troops overseas. They're missing so much and risking their lives."

The singer, who brought her manager and mother, Brenda DeGarmo, asked for several volunteers to come onstage for a dance contest in each performance and ended by singing America the Beautiful.

She said one of the strangest moments on the trip was performing for dozens of shivering troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad, with helicopters flying overhead and people shouting. She also spent the night in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces.




http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=6679
Melba Moore and Diana DeGarmo to Headline Brooklyn Tour
January 6, 2006 - by BWW News Desk

Tony Award-winner Melba Moore and "American Idol" star Diana DeGarmo will headline the touring company of Brooklyn.

DeGarmo will take on the title role in the national tour of the musical, an urban fairy tale by Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson that played Broadway during the 2004-2005 season. Moore will play Paradice, her rival diva. Tony Award-winner Cleavant Derricks (Dreamgirls, Big Deal), who appeared in the Broadway production, will also be on hand for the tour; he will once again play The Street Singer. Brooklyn's tour, which will kick off at the Bushnell Center in Hartford, CT this June, will feature the show as it was on Broadway--at an intermission-less 90 minutes.

The tour will once again be directed by Jeff Calhoun (Big River); he will also co-produce the tour with Producers Four and John McDaniel, who will also return as the show's music supervisor. The rest of the dates and venues of the Brooklyn tour will soon be announced.

Moore won a Tony Award for her star-making performance in Purlie, and has also appeared on Broadway in Les Miserables, Inacent Black, Timbuktu! and Hair. She is also a noted R&B singer whose hits include "Falling" and "Read My Lips," for which she received a Grammy Award nomination. Film and TV credits include The Fighting Temptations, "Loving," All Dogs Go to Heaven and a self-titled series.

DeGarmo, who is now 18, was the second place finalist on "American Idol 3." She has appeared in musicals such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and released an album called Blue Skies in 2004......

JANUARY 15
HILTON SKATING AND GYMNASTICS SPECTACULAR, SUNDAY, 4 P.M., ET:
NBC Sports presents the Hilton Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular, this Sunday at 4 p.m., ET from the Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga. The show features both the world's top gymnastics and figure skating stars. The lineup from the skating world includes Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano, two-time Olympic silver medalist Elvis Stojko, U.S. National Pair Champion John Zimmerman, U.S. American Open Champion Rory Burghart, World Champion Yuka Sato and U.S. Pair Champion Jason Dungjen. American Idol star and Georgia native Diana DeGarmo makes her hometown concert debut as the musical guest for this unique show.