There used to be a time when asking someone to the prom was done by telephone or maybe over a mac-and-cheese lunch in the school cafeteria. Things have changed.
A “promposal” is the act of inviting a date to a prom in an elaborate, creative or bizarre way, often a very public one. Some have popped the question with the help of flash mobs and billboards. Others have presented their prospective dates with live kittens or puppies wearing collars that read “prom?”
Teens are writing invites on the lids of pizza boxes or on the sides of live cows or horses (really).
And while some promposals can take a huge bite out of Juliet’s or Romeo’s wallet, others are using their heads, not their credit cards, to make the invites special.
Louis Harmon and his friends, Wynter Mason and Kari Rodgers, all seniors at Firestone High School, were hosting a talent show last month.
During a comical skit in which the threesome portrayed elderly churchgoers attending a worship service, Louis paused.
“I want to ask Wynter — will you go to prom with me?”
The audience burst into squeals and applause. Still in character, Kari dropped to the stage floor as if she had been overcome with emotion.
“Louis David Harmon,” Wynter said into a microphone. “I will go to the prom with you.”
Louis’ promposal was posted on YouTube.
A beastly move
For her senior year, Emma Weihe didn’t want to wait to be asked to the prom, so she decided to ask her good friend David Speer. Both were performing in Revere High School’s production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. He played the Beast, and Emma had the role of Mrs. Potts.
At performances, the audience has the option of sending cast members a flower with an attached message. Admittedly a bit shy about such things, Emma decided to ask David with the help of a flower.
“I filled out my message and hid the flower in the pile of similar ones for other cast members. From there, all I could do was wait for David to find it,” Emma explained. “Just before we were going to warm up, he ran up to me and said that he would love to go to prom with me. It’s such a joy to be able to go with David. I’m incredibly excited.”
Gone fishing
Anytime they can, Ryan Bossler and his girlfriend, Ashley Bonnot, go to her grandparents’ farm to fish.
During a recent fishing trip, Ryan instructed Ashley’s mother, Laurie Bonnot, to call her daughter to help her with a chore in the house. He assured his girlfriend that he would watch her line for any bites. When she was out of sight, he reeled in her line and attached letters to spell “P-R-O-M.”
“He recast her pole so when she came back, he could tell her he thought she had a nibble,” Laurie explained. “As she reeled on the line, she thought she had a fish … the letters slowly came out of the water one by one.”
Charmed and excited, Ashley accepted Ryan’s invitation to the Tuslaw High School prom.
Another fish story
Jeremiah Gonidakis, a junior at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, also loves to fish. So his girlfriend, Mikayla Frye, a senior at his school, decided to incorporate his hobby into her promposal by sending him on a scavenger hunt.
At four locations along the river near Brust Park, Mikayla placed bamboo fishing poles. At the end of each line was a cut-out of a fish with one of four letters spelling P-R-O-M. Jeremiah’s final stop was at Mikayla’s home where the actual question was written in chalk on the driveway.
He said “yes.”
Iced coffee
Hoban High School’s Morgan Matthews made an agreement with one of her friends a while back that when it was time to go to the prom, they would go together. But when the time came, Demetrius McGhee told Morgan that he didn’t think they should go. It was a trick.
On a recent day, when she opened her locker, she found the word “P-R-O-M” spelled out with construction paper taped to the door, a note, flowers and an extra-large McDonald’s frappe.
“I was really happy because I didn’t think he would ask me… ” Morgan said. “And the frappe was significant.”
Stuck in the mud
Not all promposals go as planned. According to a Norton police report, a young man went to Silver Creek MetroPark and drove his truck in an area where he shouldn’t have gone to stir up some mud. Once the truck was covered with the muck, he wrote the word “prom” on it.
But he soon discovered that his truck was mired in the mud. He called a buddy to help him get free, but his pal’s truck got stuck, too. The next call was to his friend’s father. Dad came to the rescue and went to work trying to get the teens’ vehicles loose. He also got stuck.
Out of options, they phoned for a tow truck. When the driver came, he called police.
Aw, shucks — the hopeful guy, his buddy, and his father were charged with criminal damaging and trespassing on park property.
And the girl? She said “no.”
Kim Hone-McMahan can be reached at 330-996-3742 or kmcmahan@thebeaconjournal.com. Correspondent Gina Mace contributed to this report.