PHS PERSPECTIVE: Here he comes, this year’s Mr. PHS

By Byrne Fahey and Pia Chakravarty
   David Wright, a senior at Princeton High School, stepped up to the mic. “Hi, I’m David Wright, Mr. PHS … uh … I mean, Mr. Asian-American Club.”
   The audience stirred with laughter at his blunder, which turned out to be unintentional foreshadowing of his later victory in PHS’s annual all male pageant, Mr. PHS.
   ”I tried not to do that!” said Wright, later.
   At Mr. PHS, which took place on March 2, 13 senior boys, each representing a school club or team, competed in several rounds of competition to win money for their respective organizations. Run by the Student Council, the pageant was divided into three stages: beachwear, talent and formal wear.
   Contestants were introduced to the audience through the beachwear stage, each parading around in their own interpretation of the implied dress code. The boys wore everything from wet suits and flippers to nothing but a sign that said, “I Thought This Was a Nude Beach.”
   In the talent portion, contestants were given freedom to display any of their strengths. The result was quite a wide spread of … uh … skills, you could call them.
   Boris Xu, Mr. Chess Club, played a computer chess game blindfolded, listening to audio cues instead of seeing the actual board (and he still won!).
   Mr. Spectacle Theatre, Harrison Kauffman, wrote and performed a comic song, from the point of view of a nerd, speaking to bullies.
   The audience’s favorite talent, however, judging by their votes, was Wright’s. David performed his rendition of the “Evolution of Dance,” a dance sequence that went viral on Youtube.
   During formal wear, contestants showed off their spiffiest garments and competed in a question and answer round. At intermission, the audience was given a chance to vote for their favorite picks for both Mr. PHS and a separate “Cutie Bootie” award, which they judged based on unmarked photos of the contestants’ booties.
   Four contestants made it to the final round, for another question and answer session, from which a single contestant, Wright, finally emerged victorious as Mr. PHS and Addison Hebert followed him as both runner-up and Cutie Bootie.
   Contestants chose to participate for a variety of reasons. Some, like Wright thought it would simply be “pretty fun to do.” Others wanted to earn money for their clubs. Still others, like Sadik Shahidain, Mr. Science Olympiad, participated as a first for their organization.
   ”I don’t think anyone from my club has ever done it before so it was interesting to see a science nerd try it out,” said Shahidain.
   Most spectators enjoyed the talent part of the show most.
   Caroline Grenis, a senior said “My favorite part is the talent part and getting to see a lot of the people that I knew had these really cool talents, such as Boris playing chess blindfolded.”
   Rachel Gilmore, a junior, agreed, “I really enjoyed the talents. I thought everybody brought something different to the table, which was cool.”
   ”My favorite part of the show, as the person who was directing the show, was all the craziness that happened backstage,” said Lena Sun, a member of the Student Council.
   Sun also noted that she loved “the opening number that Caroline Bourscheid and Lucy Stone so awesomely choreographed.” The dance, a mash up of popular songs, including LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” and Beyonce’s “Run the World” showcased the bootylicious moves of the boys.
   ”It set the tone so everybody knew [the show] was going to be basically a big joke, but in a good way,” said Gilmore.
   ”The boys worked very hard,” said Sun. “A few boys recorded videos and shared them with the other guys, and I was really proud of them for learning all of that.
   Shahidain said, “At first it was [hard] because I’ve never really danced like that before … or danced at all … but we had so many great practices and the coaches; Caroline and Lucy were so good. We all picked it up.”
   Though a fun-filled and altogether enjoyable event, Mr. PHS required a great deal of preparation and hard work.
   Mr. PHS himself, Wright, said, “I tried to figure out what I wanted to do about a month to two months beforehand and then once I decided on the dance I was doing I practiced about every day for maybe 20 minutes.”
   Even escorts, students whose role was to simply escort the contestants during the formal wear event, put in effort.
   Angela Matcham, an escort, said, “I took it to the next level, I put up posters for Sadik, I helped him with props and his talent, so we were really trying to get him to win … well, I was.”
   The preparation and effort put in by the Student Council, the contestants, the choreographers and the judges seems to be worth it. As Aaron Thayer, English teacher and judge for Mr. PHS put it, “It’s a fun night, it’s really entertaining … it is a long night, but that’s okay.”
Byrne Fahey is a junior and Pia Chakravarty is a senior at Princeton High School.