Mr. NHS crowned at Male Handsome Pageant
By Ben Holman
Nevada Daily Mail
Friday night in the Nevada High School auditorium, NHS Renaissance hosted the annual Mr. NHS Male Handsome Pageant. The contest featured 21 contestants who had been nominated by different school organizations.
It was a night full of enthusiastic contestants spurred on by loud cheers from the crowd that filled the auditorium. The young men were judged in formal wear, talent and sports/club wear throughout the evening.
The judges for the evening's event were five local women who were selected to ensure that none of them had any ties to the contestants. Amanda Fisher, Robyn Moore, April McDowell, Melinda Strom and Jennifer Haley were the five judges.
After the contestants performed their production dance to the tune of, "I'm to sexy," the competition began in earnest. Contestants were escorted onto stage by a young lady and then allowed to take their turn on the catwalk -- many of the contestants tried to woo the judges with winks, booty shaking and peek-a-boo glances over the shoulder. All this while the emcees, Skippy Tipton and Marcella Ast read the contestants answers from a questionnaire they had filled out. Questions on the questionnaire included, "If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be," and, "Could you work for a female boss?" The latter question was answered in the affirmative by all the contestants, possibly because they didn't want to alienate the all-female judging panel.
After completion of the formal wear portion was the talent competition, where the young men of NHS showed off their hidden talents. Eric Atkinson, representing National Honor Society, showed of his athletic prowess by leaping over 6 other contestants who were standing upright in a line. Matt Kennedy, who represented the Soundsational Singers, gave the screaming audience his best Elvis impression singing, "Burning Love." The audience seemed to be most entertained, however, by Anthony Hernandez, representing the yell leaders, who donned a hula skirt, coconut bra and basket of bananas on his head and performed, "The Banana Boat Song." Making the performance all the more entertaining were the difficulties the sound crew had with the recording, which kept skipping, Hernandez just put on an, "oh well," expression and soldiered on.
After talent came the sport/club wear modeling, where contestants wore outfits that best demonstrated the activity they were involved in. As they modeled their fashions, the emcees read more of the contestant's answers to the questionnaire.
While scores were tabulated, the girls from Renaissance performed a dance number to, "American Woman," and Hannah Ketterman sang, "Holding Out for a Hero," while Cole Headrick, Mr. NHS 2004, danced around in the background twirling a baton.
Once the scores were compiled, all the contestants were brought out on stage and Song Choe, representing the calculus club, was named Mr. Congeniality. Then the top seven contestants were announced. Jesse Garwood, representing Spanish club, Heath Baker, football, Ben Wilson, basketball, Anthony Hernandez, JD Pilcher, drama, Derek Fast, tennis, and Matt Gardner, representing the Sophomore class were the finalists who moved on to answer the final question.
The final question, asked of each finalist individually was, "If the United States were to sell a state, which state should it be and why?"
The answers were varied but Rhode Island was the most often picked state because of its size. Hernandez, when asked the question, got a puzzled look on his face and after a moment of thought said in a very matter of fact tone, "North Dakota. No one ever goes there, I don't know what goes on up there and do you ever hear about it in the news?"
After a short interview with Headrick, the winners were announced. The second runner up was JD Pilcher, first runner up was Anthony Hernandez and Mr. NHS 2005 was Ben Wilson, who had, moments before, received both cheers of approval and loud boos when he announced that he would choose to sell Kansas, "I just don't like those Jayhawks right now."