No 'Idol' love -- again! -- for North Carolina

For the second year in a row, North Carolina will go unrepresented on "American Idol."

No Tar Heels made the cut when the Fox TV singing competition announced the top 24 finalists for its seventh season Wednesday night.

Historically, North Carolina has had much "Idol" success -- with Fantasia, a High Point native, winning in season three, and Raleigh's Clay Aiken coming in second in season two. Season five featured three North Carolinians -- Chris Daughtry, Bucky Covington and Kellie Pickler -- in its final eight.

But since then, the state has had an "Idol" dry spell.

There was a brief chance the hit series would feature a Carolina crooner until Marsha Hancock, a 23-year-old country belter from Oxford, was eliminated Wednesday.

The youngest of Oxford developer Wills Hancock and his wife Ann's three daughters, Marsha is a music major at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., since graduating from Oxford's J.F. Webb High School.

Wills Hancock says his family is proud that she made it to Hollywood after passing auditions in Atlanta.

"To make it to the final 50 out of 150,000 -- she was actually the third from the last girl to get cut, so she was in it all the way to the end," says Wills Hancock. "Great experience for her. I'm sure it will help her somewhere down the road."

Marsha Hancock's family has some political history in North Carolina. Her late great-grandfather Franklin Wills Hancock, Jr., a Democrat from Oxford, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1930 to 1939, as well as several posts in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. His son, Franklin Willls Hancock III, served in the N.C. House during the 1940s and the N.C. Senate during the 1950s.

And Marsha Hancock's father is the first cousin of State Treasurer Richard Moore, a Democrat running for governor.