Mr. LHS Dazzles Crowd

Lakeland student council hosted the first ever Mr. LHS, a men’s beauty pageant with juniors and seniors, on May 25. 

Led by newly elected ASB President, Piper Reilly, and other members of the student council including Piper Reilly, Avery Sherman, Zoee Young, Peyton Sterling and others got eight juniors and seniors to participate in the contest.

The eight contestants were Caysen Loutzenhiser, Terry Edwards, John Cornish, Erik Briske, Collin Cameron, Thomas Calder, Jameson Elliot and Cameron Harris. 

Practices and rehearsals were held two days before the event was held. With the student council and the contestants making sure the show runs smoothly. 

Erik Briske, a junior at Lakeland, enjoyed going to the practices before the competition. 

“The group practices with the guys, a lot of laughable moments between all the guys. It was a good time with all of them,” Briske said. 

The competition was composed of multiple events for the contestants, each event had a nickname for the winner. Mr. Smooth Talker for the interview portion, Mr. Hercules for fitness, Mr. Baywatch for the model walk, and Mr. Hotshot for the talent section. 

Mr. LHS also had five judges, including Nick Haynes, Jennifer Casas, Tim Kiefer, Colleen Hall, and Francesca Myers.

At 6:30 pm, people crowded into the commons at Lakeland, with seats filling up faster than a high school hallway during a passing period. 

“The nerves and the adrenaline going through us, and we all took pre-workout beforehand,” John Cornish said about the show. 

At the start of the show, the lights went dim, the spotlight turned on the stage, and the four well-dressed members of the student council walked onto the stage and introduced themselves, the five judges, and the two MCs of the night, Liam Bradford and David Tesch. 

The eight contestants walked up to the stage one by one being introduced by the MCs. 

After the contestants were introduced, each of them was asked some questions. The first question was, what makes you stand out from the rest of the contestants? The second and third questions were drawn randomly from a basket for the contestants to answer. 

After the interview section of the show was completed, the two MCs killed some time and brought some dad jokes to the stage. Some were amazing and some were face palming bad. 

The next part of the show was the strength contest, where each contestant had to do pulls up on a bar. John Cornish finished second in the pulls up, but Cameron Harris did the most pull-ups in the contest. 

Now one of the more interesting moments of the night was the model walk. Each contestant got into their bathing suits and strut onto the stage with a walk-on song of their choice. Many contestants truly showed their personality with the walk, and some took full advantage of the opportunity. 

John Cornish danced to the popular song “Ice Ice Baby”, and when the lyrics of the song hit “turn of the lights and ill glow”, the lights went out for a couple of seconds. Then when the song said “Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle” the lights shot back on and Cornish then ripped his tank top off and showed off his muscles. 

“Definitely where I rip my wifebeater off, that was my favorite part,” Cornish said about his favorite moment of the night. 

Thomas Calder decided to take full advantage of a certain product called baby oil and slathered himself with the oil. When Calder walked on stage, the crowd erupted in cheer and Calder walked around flexing and ended his model walk with a backflip. 

“Probably be the walkout song where we flexed and stuff, that was the best part,” Terry Edwards said. 

After the model walks, the contestants were then able to show off their hidden talents. One of the MCs, David Tesch, showed off one of his talents by spinning a basketball on his finger and taking a bow while the ball was spinning. 

Caysen Loutzenhiser’s talent was to play the guitar, yet he wasn’t able to play much since his nose started to bleed. 

Liam Bradford, one of the MCs, played off with what happened by saying, “(Loutzenhiser) actually hidden talent is being able to nose bleed on command”. 

Other contestants showed off great talents, Terry Edwards and John Cornish sang a country song together, Thomas Calder and Collin Cameron did Ballerina from Nutcracker, and Jameson Elliot dressed up like Bob Ross and painted on a canvas.

Yet, the one talent that stood out from the rest was Erik Briske, who danced to the song “Bodak Yellow.” The dance routine included rip-off pants and lots of butt moves performed by Briske. “I enjoyed my personal dance,” Briske said. 

“My favorite event was Erik’s dance,” Caysen Loutzenhiser said. 

The show then went into a short intermission so the judges could tally up the points from each event and see who would be crowned the first ever Mr. LHS. 

After intermission, the eight contestants did one final dance together. They each rode out on toy ponies and danced together to a mashup of songs. Some standout moments were Jameson Elliot break dancing and Erik Briske showing his butt off just one more time. 

The show concluded and awards began to be handed out. Mr. Smooth Talker went to Collin Cameron, Mr. Hercules went to Cameron Harris, Mr. Baywatch went to John Cornish and Mr. Hotshot went to Erik Briske. 

One last winner was yet announced, and that was for the title of Mr. LHS. Thomas Calder took the honors of winning this contest with his standout performances. 

“I was very shocked, it was pretty crazy, I wasn’t expecting it. I thought I had a pretty bad interview section, I felt like all the other competitors did really well,” Calder said. 

turned out to be better than a lot of the people expected it to be, even some of the contestants and people who worked on it. 

“I think it turned out way better than I could have imagined, especially being the first year we did it, we had so many people show up the guys did great, and everything was just awesome,” Piper Reilly said. 

“I think my favorite part was seeing it all come together at the end, the practices were awful, I was not expecting this,” Cameron Harris said. 

Gallery • 12 Photos