Texaco Country Showdown – a Rich History of Celebrity Contestants

This year’s Texaco Country Showdown is set for Friday, August 2nd at Cowboy’s Night Club in Lafayette. The Showdown gives you the opportunity to perform on stage and hopefully launch your very own singing career. We've had some really really famous country music stars who got their start at the Showdown The annual event was first started in 1982. At the time Wrangler sponsored the event. Wrangler served as sponsor from 1982 - 1986. After 1986 the Showdown switched sponsors to True Value. Various companies co-sponsored the event, including GMC, Dodge, Coca-Cola, and Jimmy Dean. True Value was active in the event sponsorship for 14 years, until in 2000, when Colgate became the event sponsor until 2011, when Texaco took over.

From our friends at Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia: Many contestants of the Showdown have gone on to have music careers, mostly in the country music genre. Tracy Byrd, Tracy Lawrence, Carrie Underwood, Mark Chesnutt, Jason Aldean, Ashton Shephard, Jeff Bates, Katrina Elam, Toby Keith (as an Easy Money band member), and Brad Paisley all are contestants who won their local region of the Showdown. State and regional winners that are known in the country music business are Neal McCoy, Billy Dean, Sara Evans, Billy Ray Cyrus, John Michael Montgomery, Bobby Pinson, Chad Brock, LeAnn Rimes,Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry, and Rick Trevino. Some other notable contestants include: Garth Brooks,Tim McGraw and Martina McBride. 

So, if you would like to be the next Garth, Martina or Tim make sure to get your entries in, and check out the details for the 2013 Texaco Country Showdown with 97.3 the Dawg!