After hours of grueling run-throughs and rehearsals, the 11 senior participants of Mr. and Miss WJ 2009 strutted their stuff across the Reddick Auditorium stage Fri., March 13, displaying talents that ranged from singing, dancing and dramatic reading, to banjo playing.


The night began with the casual wear portion of the competition where each of the contestants, upon being announced, strode, ambled or, in Pablo Baeza’s case, crawled across the stage as each of the four senior emcees read contestants’ self-written bios that were barely audible among the squeals and chants of the audience.

The night then moved on to the much anticipated talent segment of the competition. This year, not only was there an abundance of singing, but there was a wide range of singing ability, from the best of the best, to the solely amusing. By the end of the night, two of those singers were pronounced the judges’ selection for Mr. and Miss WJ. Michael Vessels, who sang Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” a full octave lower than Freddie Mercury, won his floppy crown after winning over the crowd that sang along to help him. Robin Irene Goldensohn’s singing voice won her the fuzzy pink tiara after her performance of Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” with the help of her two back-up dancers, senior David Orkin and junior Mateo Williamson who made the slow, sad song hilariously inappropriate. The two winners each received two prom tickets.

Goldensohn, who performs with WJ S*T*A*G*E and who has been singing since she was two years old, never considered participating in Mr. and Miss WJ early on.

“I always sort of thought about it, but actually doing the contest was kind of spur of the moment,” she said. “I didn’t prepare for months in advance. I know some people did and I’m really impressed by that.”

Looking at the line up of performances, many students sang and played musical instruments, a change from what’s typically performed at Mr. and Miss WJ.

“I think it would be nice to have a little bit more variety of talent,” said senior class co-sponsor Katherine Baird. “Music is not the only talent. There are more visual talents that we didn’t see a lot of this year.”

Another absence from the competition was the variety of ethnicities that bring a lot of talent to WJ.

“There’s so much talent in the black community and the Hispanic community and none of them are here,” said banjo player and second place winner Gabe Schwartzman. “There [were] no people of color in this [competition].”

Following the talent portion of the show came one of the big shocks of the night. Clad in skin-tight, leg and stomach bearing outfits was the SGA lip-syncing along to “Stop Right Now” by the Spice Girls. Not only was SGA President Duane Wilson wearing a leopard print mini dress and a rather large afro, but by the end of the performance he nearly flashed the entire audience. Each SGA member portrayed one of the Spice Girls and with only four SGA members, the absence of Ginger Spice went unnoticed.

There was also no major issue of cutting people during the audition process and all of those who got their forms in on time got to perform.

“I like the overall structure of [the competition] that everybody participates until the end to the final three questions and they all get to showcase their talent and the casual wear and the formal wear,” said Baird. “I like it the way it is.”