On Friday, March 7, the annual Mr. North Harford show took place at the Hawks Nest. 14 boys all fought for the crown, with senior Mason French taking home the victory.
The show consisted of many parts including formal-wear, when the boys wore their best formal outfits and escorted their moms across the stage. The active wear section consisted of the boys showing off their best “active” outfits while sharing hobbies and interests of the contestants.
Next, each boy participated in an act to show off their talents. The next section was spirit wear, each boy showed off their Hawks pride and answered questions during Q&A to show off their personalities. The show concluded with a group dance that the contestants spent weeks practicing and learning.
There were contestants from every grade this year that participated. Freshmen contestants included AJ Ward, Joshua McKenley, Aaron Blake, Cayden Lujan, and Jimmy O’Conner. Lucas Hale was the only sophomore to participate, and he returned from last year. Juniors Xavier Dunaway and Jacob Frank joined. Six seniors also fought for the crown, including Mason French, Kavin Carter, Josh Steltzer, Tucker Deal, Cael Sims, and returning contestant Drew Tagliaferri.
Each contestant showed off their hidden talents during each of their acts. This portion of the show started off with freshmen contestants, including Lujan playing the violin. Next was O’Conner, who sang and played guitar to Zach Bryan’s “Heading South.” The last freshmen act was Blake, Ward, and McKenley having a donut-eating competition, seeing who could eat three donuts the fastest while having other contestants feed it to them; Blake took the victory. Hale sang and danced to a mashup of songs throughout the decades. Dunaway and Frank did the Chip and Dale skit from Saturday Night Live.
The senior acts started with comedy from Carter. Next was Steltzer performing a piece with his jazz band to a song he wrote for the show. French, Deal, and Sims performed a synchronized swimming act accompanied by Tagliaferri as the shark. The last act of the night was Tagliaferri’s sumo wrestling act accompanied by his opponent, Dunaway, and was refereed by Blake. Tagliaferri took the victory.
This year’s show was put on by the journalism staff with the assistance from the yearbook staff. The show’s hosts consisted of seniors Lexi Gott, Riley Herold, and Izzy Kropkowski, as well as a field reporter, junior Kendall Walter. The hosts continued the use of the “Dance Moms” pyramid to rank the boys throughout the show.
O’Conner mentions he is glad he decided to join this year but “will probably not do it again until senior year because I want to watch a few.” The best part was “the acts, but just waiting in the dressing room and hanging out while the show was happening,” he adds. For the freshman, the most “difficult part was the Q&A because you’re on the spot and have to be creative and funny.” Overall, he says, it was a “memorable experience.”
French says he was “really surprised when my name was called, and I wasn’t expecting to win.” French also thought that Deal and Sims deserved some recognition, since they were a huge part of the act. The best part was “doing the whole thing with friends and coming up with our own act that hopefully others would find funny,” French adds. The most difficult part for the senior was “overcoming nerves, especially in the beginning when the spotlight was on us,” he adds. But the sunglasses French wore for the Q&A section made it hard to see, so it took some of the pressure off. Overall, French says he would “tell people to do it in the future” as he had a lot of fun and a good experience to make a fool of himself in front of an audience!
The final performance of the show was the group dance, this year again it was choreographed by seniors Abby Szramka and Olive Callon. Szramka and Callon choreographed, taught, and made a mashup of songs for the dance.
Returning winner Ace Baran returned to the Nest to say a few words to the audience and contestants as well as announcing the winner and passing the crown onto French at the end of the night. Baran says he “was looking forward to coming back and watching the show” all year long as the show is very special to him.