High Life / A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : 2 From O.C. Make Finals for Awards

Two teen-agers from Orange County have been named finalists in the fourth annual Music Center Spotlight Awards competition sponsored by the Pacific Telesis Foundation.

Shauna Bradford of Los Alamitos, who attends Los Alamitos High School, is a finalist in the jazz/modern dance category, and Adrienne Stiefel of Laguna Hills, who attends Mission Viejo High, is a finalist in pop vocal.

Twelve students (two in each category) were chosen as finalists after six months of competition. Students also are competing in ballet, opera, jazz and classical instrumental music for scholarships totaling $45,000.

Performances by the finalists, who were selected from a group of more than 400 high school students from five counties, will take place 7:30 p.m. March 10 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Winners in each category will receive $5,000 scholarships; runners-up will receive $2,500.

Among the celebrity judges will be Paula Kelly, Bella Lewitzky and Juliet Prowse for jazz/modern dance and John Raitt and Joe Williams in the pop vocal category.

Tickets to the performance, awards ceremony and dinner are $150; patron tickets, which include the pre-performance reception, are $250. For more information, call (213) 972-7567.

The second “Hearts for the Arts” auction Feb. 8 raised $30,000 for the Orange County High School of the Arts.

The nearly 500 who attended the event at the Westin South Coast Plaza were entertained by the school’s classical and commercial dance departments, the chamber orchestra and the Kids Next Door, school song and dance troupe.

Items up for bid that evening--among them a Hawaiian vacation, a trip to New York and a walk-on part in the TV series “Cheers”--were donated by OCHSA supporters from all over Southern California.

“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”

--Erma Bombeck