‘Completely Shocked’ Junior Wins Stevenson’s 'S-Factor'

Georgia Norfleet felt “super awkward” after drawing a blank on the lyrics for her first song Friday night during ’s “The S-Factor.”

“I was so embarrassed,” said the Long Grove junior, one of a dozen contestants in the fundraising talent show, modeled after TV's “The X Factor.” “But no one said anything about it.”

So she simply stepped out in the hallway near the school’s West Auditorium and took a few moments to gather herself.

“I always get real nervous when I go on stage. It's like there are all those people there and they are just waiting for who you are and what you’ve got,” she said.

“You just kind of have to look at it like … it's for a real great cause and I just wanted to have fun with it. And not really worry about what happens. Whatever happens, happens.”

What happened was Norfleet, dressed in cowboy boots and a black dress, delivered a rousing version of Shania Twain’s “No One Needs to Know” that won her first place in the competition.

“I was completely shocked,” she said of her win, which came from text-message votes from the crowd of 200 people in the auditorium. “There was some huge talent on stage. I did not expect it at all.”

Norfleet’s first-place finish climaxed the first-ever S-Factor, which was sponsored by Stevenson’s Kiva Club. The organization raises money to loan entrepreneurs in Third World countries.

Club sponsor Patrick Block, a world history and political thought teacher at Stevenson, said members of the two-year-old club came up with the idea for S-Factor.

At first, he thought it was a little ambitious.

But in the end he told the teens, “I’ll do it if you think you can do it,” said Block, one of six judges during the show. “They did everything, the lighting, the sound. It’s been really unbelievable."

“We were pretty nervous,” he said. “But they filled the house.”

And that was quite an achievement, considering Stevenson’s basketball team was playing a home game at virtually the same time.

The club hoped to raise between $1,000 and $1,500 Friday night, he said. Already, Stevenson’s Kiva Club has raised money for 188 entrepreneurs.

As for Norfleet, her S-Factor triumph is another feather in her performance cap, which includes singing with The Patriot Singers and Lady Jazz and appearances in Stevenson’s stage productions of “Sweeney Todd” and “Les Mis.”

So the logical question might be whether Norfleet is looking at a professional singing career.

She seems to be hedging her bets.

“I am scared to death going into that field, because it’s so hard to make it,” she said.

But then she added, “If that could happen it would be amazing. But as of now, I’m thinking about going into other fields.”