North Carolina Chapel Hill's Anoop Desai is in American Idol wild card

22 year-old Chapel Hill resident Anoop Desai hopes to join the ranks of other North Carolinians to make it big on "American Idol" who auditioned for FOX's American Idol in Kansas City and made it into season eight's top thirteen. Thus North Carolina's "American Idol" chances are still alive.

The state will have two contestants in tonight's "wild card" round. The eight contestants were revealed at the end of Wednesday night's show, and Chapel Hill's Anoop Desai and Elizabeth City's Ricky Braddy are the winners of American Idol wild card Round.

Desai and Braddy will try to sing their way into the finals at 8 p.m. today on Fox. Three of the eight will make it, The ociated Press reported. Beginning next week, the 12 finalists start competing -- with one singer sent packing each Wednesday.

Desai had to sweat it out until the very end -- he was the eighth and last one to get through. And he finished out of the top three as voted on by viewers after Tuesday night's performances.

Tonight's show begins at 8 p.m. The only lock as far as I can tell is Danny Gokey, 28, of Milwaukee, that last guy who killed with Mariah Carey's "Hero."