KELLY CLARKSON, a 20-year-old cocktail waitress from Texas, was crowned Fox’s first “American Idol” Wednesday, beating out rival Justin Guarini for the title.The night before, the show featured a final face-off between Clarkson and Guarini, a 23-year-old former door-to-door salesman, each singing three songs, including the two written for the series.An estimated 15.5 million votes for the finalists were cast after the show, bringing the total to more than 100 million during the series run.Fox stretched out the suspense in a two-hour show Wednesday night, announcing the winner seven minutes before it ended.Clarkson earns a recording contract, and will release a CD single later this month and a full album in November. Will Young, who won the British version of American Idol, sold more than 1 million copies of his first single. Fox will feature the show’s top performers on a special Sept. 23 program, and they’ll head out on tour soon after. The American Idol winner has also been tapped to sing the national anthem at the Lincoln Memorial Sept. 11, the Washington Post reported.One viewer, singer Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, said she voted five times for Clarkson, her fellow Texan.“I knew from the first episode that Kelly was the best one on there,” Maines said. In Clarkson’s hometown of Burleson, Texas, more than 500 students and their parents gathered in the gym of her old high school to cheer her victory. “I’m just proud of her. It’s like a dream to see our friend fulfill her dream,” said Ashley Donovan, who worked with Clarkson in a movie theater in this town about 10 miles south of Fort Worth. Clarkson sang in her school’s choir and performed the lead in the school production of Brigadoon during her senior year. She tried to make it in the music industry in Los Angeles after graduation, but returned to Burleson discouraged over rejection.The competition, adopted from a British series called Pop Idol, kicked off in June. Clarkson was the survivor among 10,000 entrants who thought they had what it takes to be pop stars. Along the way, the Fox series became the television hit of the summer, especially among teenagers and young adults. A sequel to the show is expected on Fox this winter.Trying to discover stars among amateurs has a long history in American entertainment; Frank Sinatra won a radio amateur hour in 1937. More recently, the band O-Town’s career was launched through ABC’s Making the Band and Eden’s Crush on the WB’s Popstars.The program was equally popular in Britain, where it ran from late last year to early 2002. It was a boon to its host network, ITV1, with the finale attracting more than 70 percent of 16- to 34-year-old viewers and generating close to 9 million voter calls in two hours.(SD-Agencies)