KENOSHA, - A 17-year-old high school senior from Wisconsin has made it past the first audition on Fox's "American Idol."

Angelica Puente's audition in Omaha, Neb., aired Tuesday. She sang Celine Dion's "Power of Love" and all three judges passed a visibly nervous Puente through to the next round in Hollywood.

Randy Jackson, one of the judges, told Angelica Puente, who has never had formal training, that she needed to stop listening to records and start developing her own style. Paula Abdul told her she had a promising voice but said not to let her nerves get in the way. Simon Cowell told her "with a bit of effort, you actually could be very good."

"What you didn't see was that they had me sing another song," Puente said. "They wanted me to show off my voice better. But they had good advice, and I just focused on listening to what they had to say."

"The whole experience was great, but it was all very emotional," Puente said.

The show did a segment on her struggles with her father, Jesse Puente. The Tremper High School senior said she had been living with her grandmother after fights with her strict father.

At one point, she said she called her father from a Martina McBride concert and left a recording of McBride singing live on his answering machine.

"At the time, I was just thinking like a teenager and not realizing he was just trying to be a good parent," she said. "That's when I left that song as a message on the answering machine."

That's when Jesse Puente said he would help her anyway he could to follow that dream.

"I told her to go out there and do her best," Jesse Puente said. "And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

Angelica Puente and her older sister Deya used to perform for the family, and she and her cousins would make up dances to the songs.

"We've been saying for years that she had talent," Jesse Puente said.

"She's never had any trouble belting out a song, even at the dinner table. We're very proud of her."

After Angelica Puente's audition, the show's host, Ryan Seacrest, called Jesse Puente on his cell phone.

"I'm very proud of her," Jesse Puente said. "All of us want to be in a band, and to watch her give it her best, it means a lot to me."