Six Hollywood stars owned the spotlight of Rezac Auditorium on Nov. 18. All six of them were upperclassmen boys putting it all out on the stage: singing, dancing, dressing up and cracking a few jokes that toed the line of school appropriate. The stars of the night competed to see who would be crowned the 39th ever Mr. MHS.
Opening the show, seniors Wilson Wesch, Favian Gomez, Lake Rodriguez and Patrick Huser, as well as juniors Gabe Morla and Jack Dunn, were introduced individually and walked out on stage in formal attire.
“Most of the people I knew, [but] weren’t friends with, but now I’m closer with everyone,” Dunn said.
In the first head-to-head competition of the night, contestants dressed in their coziest pajamas and raced to see who could stack 10 cups the fastest and then proceed to hop over, in a potato sack, to “pin the tail on a donkey,” all while making sure not to spill the glass of warm milk that they held in one hand the entire time. Dunn finished first in the race, starting his night strong.
Wesch started off the talent portion with a sock puppet act, though his sock, “Sock-O,” stole the show and put the audience in stitches. Gomez, sporting a banana costume, shocked the crowd with his impressive card magic. Rodriguez inflated the fun, making various balloon animals from dogs to giraffes to dinosaurs and everything in-between. Huser and four of his buddies had everyone grooving with a soda pop dance, which Huser said took “20 hours” to practice. Morla sang “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran while performing it on his guitar. And Dunn performed Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 1” on his viola.
“I never really got the opportunity growing up to perform by myself in front of a large crowd. I was always too scared,” Rodriguez said. “So I’m really excited that I got to go out and do that to prove to myself that I could.”
Following talents, the show went into a brief intermission. The break allowed contestants to get dressed up for the next block of the show, where they dress as MHS teachers: Wesch as P.E. teacher Hanna Gabel, Gomez as English teacher Seth Alexander — in a pink gorilla costume, no less — Rodriguez as Debate and Forensics coach William Soper, Huser as AP European History teacher Kane Davis, Morla as history teacher Darren McCoy and Dunn as English teacher Chad Pennington.
“The Pennington thing was pretty good, because everyone knows Pennington off of his signature beard, his gray sweater cardigan thing,” Dunn said.
Contestants then caught the attention of paparazzi, dressing as Hollywood icons, Wesch as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Gomez as Leonardo DiCaprio, Rodriguez as Ryan Reynolds, Huser as Tom Cruise, Morla as Happy Gilmore and Dunn as Keanu Reaves.
The performance part of the competition hit its climax with one final dance, featuring all six competitors, setting the stage for crowning. In the end, Huser took home the title of Mr. MHS.
“Congrats, everyone else that helped me, because I had four other guys on my talent and that took a lot of work for all of us, so I’d like to thank them,” Huser said. “But the feeling that I most felt was honestly just pride in the effort we put in.”
The judges responsible for the decision were pediatrician Kate Dove, former MHS counselor Tony Wichmann, former MHS theatre director Linda Uthoff and 2023 Mr. MHS champion Drew Hutchinson.
“We could definitely tell Patrick put in a lot of work, that dance routine was just spectacular,” Hutchinson said. “All of them in sync. I know that definitely took hours, and all of his costumes were just on point. He really killed it in the competitions. Just went above and beyond.”
Mr. MHS is sponsored by three different clubs — Student Council, Business Professionals of America and the American Field Service.
“BPA sells the tickets, they advertise, make the programs. They get to keep the ticket money,” StuCo sponsor Dustin Duntz said. “AFS does a bake sale. They get to keep their bake sale money. And then StuCo gets to keep the money from the fan favorite vote through the buckets.”
A problem that occurred in preparation for this year’s pageant was getting contestants to commit.
“We had six people try out originally,” Duntz said. “And actually, I think of those six, all six decided not to do it after they tried out. So then we found six new people to go through the competition, but we had six really good contestants, and they put a lot of effort in.”
Dunn, who won the audience’s popular vote, was joyful that he was persuaded to participate, after initially not planning on taking part.
“I actually wasn’t going to, but then [StuCo student body secretary] Sophia Hoeme called me up and was like, ‘we have no one doing Mr. MHS, do you want to do it?’ And I’m like, ‘sure, why not?’ and it has been a great experience,” Dunn said. “…I will probably be coming back next year.”
The Mr. MHS pageant never takes itself too seriously, a part of why contestants and spectators alike enjoy it so much.
“It’s a very fun, entertaining night for people to come out and show off, not only our students’ best talents, but also their humor and energy as well,” Duntz said.
