{"id":267032,"date":"2017-12-22T06:06:33","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T20:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=267032"},"modified":"2017-12-22T06:06:33","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T20:06:33","slug":"fama-bags-grand-prize-governors-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/fama-bags-grand-prize-governors-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Fama bags grand prize and Governor\u2019s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_267033\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-267033\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Talent-pix.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Talent-pix-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-267033\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-267033\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Neil Fama, 7th CNMI Got Talent grand prizewinner (fourth from the right), poses for a photo with the event\u2019s judges after being awarded $2,500 Wednesday night at the Saipan World Resort Taga Hall. (Kimberly A. Bautista)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Northern Marianas College student bagged the 2017 CNMI\u2019s Got Talent grand prize award and the Governor\u2019s Choice award Wednesday night. <\/p>\n<p>During Bridge Capital\u2019s 7th Annual CNMI\u2019s Got Talent, Neil Fama took home $4,000. He was awarded $1,500 by earning the Governor\u2019s Choice award and another $2,500 by earning the CNMI\u2019s Got Talent grand prize award.<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old college student is an aspiring magician and has been practicing magic for a year now and this was the first time he performed his tricks in a competition like the CNMI\u2019s Got Talent. <\/p>\n<p>Fama\u2019s year of practice was well worth it because he completely amazed Gov. Ralph DLG Torres with his prepared tricks. <\/p>\n<p>Fama said it took a lot of time out of his day to perfect his tricks and he even took lessons from professional magician Leon Etienne from the Hyatt Regency Saipan\u2019s Sand Castle. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes a lot of time and practice\u2026I\u2019ve been studying books, online tutorials, and from Leon Etienne\u2026 a handful of the tricks I performed were thanks to him,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Fama performs in many events including birthdays and school functions. He is still training to further develop his craft despite the challenges that comes with magic. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo right now I am still in training. It is very difficult but it is all worth it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>According to Fama, his dream is to travel the world and bring happiness through the art of magic. <\/p>\n<p>Karen Lagunay, the first runner-up who came in tied with Fama, took home $1,500. She is a performer from Tinian and was sponsored to travel to Saipan by Star Marianas.  <\/p>\n<p>Lagunay also took home $500 for winning the special award called best in Tinian by default. <\/p>\n<p>The second runner-up was singer Lawrence Tubera who took home $1,000, third runner-up was The Band Nearby who took home $750, and the fourth runner-up was soccer enthusiast Joel Fruit who took home $500. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Northern Marianas College student bagged the 2017 CNMI\u2019s Got Talent grand prize award and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":267033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[26,16477,11154,122],"class_list":["post-267032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cnmi","tag-leon-etienne","tag-sand-castle","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}