Twenty-two Oklahoma songwriters, their songs and panache will kick off Muskogee’s month-long Azalea Festival during Saturday’s Muskogee Songwriting Contest Songfest.

The musical contestants range from a 17-year-old Cromwell girl, Tessa Rae Newman, who also barrel races, to an Oklahoma City father of four, Patrick Cullen, and a Jenks school teacher, Andrea Turner.

The one thing that binds all the contestants is a passion for music and an early introduction to it, according to a media release.

“I got my love for music from my mother, who bought me a piano at the age of 10 and my first guitar when I was 14,” Cullen said.

Cullen will be one of 12 adult contestants at the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame for the second annual Muskogee songfest, a free concert. Last year, 10 adults competed for $1,000 in prize money, with a local man, Ted Aukerman, winning the $500 first prize.

The format was expanded this year to include, beside the competing adults, a youth division, songwriters 18 years old and younger, and two $500 first prizes, one for the winning adult and youth contestants.

Last year, all the contestants were from eastern Oklahoma, but this year the contest attracted nearly 200 entries from songwriters from across the state. The youth division has Tanner Evan Hodges, a contestant from Randlett, a town of 511 people in Cotton County in the southwest part of the state, as well as two contestants from the Tulsa area.

The adult division features songwriters from Tulsa and Oklahoma City, as well as Gans, Grove and Cromwell, a town of 265 people southwest of Henryetta.

The contest does not restrict the type of song entries, so those attending the songfest will hear a wide range of music. Song entries include those in the R&B tradition and genres representing country, gospel and a blend of folk and blues.

Three judges will have to choose first-, second- and third-place winners from the 22 performances. The judges are Muskogee’s latest addition to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, songwriter Chick Rains, and Kelli Doolen Farmer, a Northeastern State University music instructor, and her musical husband, Shannon Farmer.

If you ask the contestants, the event is more than just a competition. All 22 are laying their passion on the line, and almost every last one of them can point to someone who put that spark for telling a musical story in them.

“I use my music as a weapon and a vase of flowers, for protest and for praise,” said Tucker Carter, a Tulsa songwriter, who is actually a Muskogee native. “My family, including my grandfather, Wilburn Carter, has always supported me and pushed me onward. They’re why I’m in the place I find myself today.”

The songfest is sponsored locally by the Muskogee Area Arts Council, John Michael’s Music and Sound, and the Muskogee Chamber of Commerce, as well as by the Oklahoma Arts Council.

Adult contestants