I just spotted this on one of the Clayboards, and wanted to post the transcript. It's a great article about Clay back in his high school / college days. I've bolded the really good parts. :)


By Alisha Puckett The Herald
(Published May 20‚ 2003)

My seventh-grade year, his eighth-grade year. Fall 1992.
The room was silent, and no one was working harder than Clayton Grissom. While the class was diligently working on yearbook layouts and figuring out how to photograph the winter dance, Clayton's mind was elsewhere.

It always was.

Clayton was busy masterminding jokes and witty remarks, which he conjured up with great ease. He was one of Leesville Middle School's class clowns. Often sarcastic, often theatrical, borderline annoying.

But the witty, funny boy that I shared my middle school, high school and college days with is all grown up; now, he practices his talents of a different kind -- singing in front of millions on national television every week.

Clayton Grissom is Clay Aiken, one of two finalists vying for a recording contract and pop stardom on Fox TV's hugely popular show, "American Idol 2."

Clay changed his last name after high school and shortened his first name at the suggestion of friends and "Idol" producers. It's weird to hear people call him Clay, because I think, "Don't they mean Clayton Grissom?"

Of course, it's weird to know a kid I grew up with in Raleigh, N.C., is rubbing elbows with celebs like Paula Abdul, living it up in the Hollywood hills and making girls everywhere drool at the sight of his green eyes and wild hair.

Of course, his hair wasn't like that when I knew him, and his eyes weren't as easy to see under his inch-thick eyeglasses, rimmed with bright gold.

His face bore tons of freckles and some zits, too, until "American Idol" artists got ahold of him. It's amazing what makeup and some mousse can do.

And he's always had the lanky, beanpole look to him. Clay's reddish-brown hair used to be neatly trimmed and styled, never out of place.

His clothes were never trendy. He loved to wear jackets -- it didn't matter if it was raining or cold.

To top things off, Clay wasn't a "ladies man," and he didn't have many girlfriends. The Web sites and message boards filled with women clamoring to get his autograph or gossiping about his relationship status would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. He remained low on girls' radar screens until college, when I last saw a few ladies swooning over him at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2002. I'm still convinced it was his sweet voice that won them over.

Clay's appearance and image have undergone an extreme makeover, but his genuine convictions to music, his faith and to helping children haven't changed since I met him in 1992.

In yearbook class, in the middle of conversations, in the middle of lunch and even in the middle of lecture, Clay would break out into song. He had a voice, as we all know, and he loved to practice for anyone who would listen.

My classmates and I would go to choral concerts, and Clay was the easiest to spot and had the most recognizable voice. He was front row and center, the only boy among 40 girls, yet he looked like he was having fun on stage.

Growing up, Clay would tell me stories of his auditions at the Raleigh Little Theatre or his travels with Leesville High School's top choral group.

He starred in a few musicals and loathed the hard work, but he basked in the delight of singing to an audience who clapped just for him. He would tell me his singing might not take him anywhere in life, but he still enjoyed doing it for children at hospitals and for the elderly at Christmas. And that was why God had blessed him with such an awesome talent -- not to make six figures and live in a recording studio, but to tickle the ears of people who needed to hear his music.

It's funny to recall the conversations we had about his singing. All of the obstacles he would have to go through and the competition he would face seemed daunting, but he was determined to keep up his passion.

The last time I talked with Clay was a couple of months before he auditioned for his big break on "American Idol 2" in Atlanta. I was the editor-in-chief of UNCC's campus newspaper, and Clay called me, begging to have a reporter cover a charity dance he was organizing; it would benefit disabled senior citizens.

After he informed me of his plans, he chided, "Don't you think college kids would rather read about a bunch of old geezers on the front page of the newspaper instead of mundane academic topics?"

I was stunned at his putdown of the people he was trying so hard to help.

He chuckled, and I imagined a wicked smile coming across his face. What a jokester.

Clay said he was kidding, his program was more than worthy of coverage and I'd be a fool not to offer publicity of such a worthwhile cause.

Some things never change.

Clay may be the next Justin Timberlake or, heck, maybe even the next Elvis.

But to me, he will always be Raleigh's Clayton Grissom, and the class clown who was the only boy in concert choir and whose hair was never out of place.

Alisha Puckett is a copy editor in The Herald's sports department.