Illinois: High school assigns prom dates by random lottery – IOTW Report

Illinois: High school assigns prom dates by random lottery

EAG: FREEPORT, Ill. – A small Illinois Catholic school is continuing a nearly century long tradition of picking prom dates by random draw.

Each year, juniors and seniors at Aquin Catholic High School hold a vote to determine whether or not to keep the school’s annual prom tradition alive, and every year students have agreed to be paired with their classmates for the big dance through a random lottery, the Freeport Journal Standard reports.

“It’s a cool thing that we do by choosing to keep with tradition each year,” junior Sedona Smith told the news site. “I’m excited to have something to tell my own kids someday, and for those of us as junior and seniors, we are already like family and something like this just brings us closer.”

This year, boys gathered in the school’s library dressed in goofy costumes or formal attire to draw names for their dates while the girls waited in the gymnasium to learn their fate. The boys then put on a series of skits before each takes a turn asking their date to prom.

“The students like the tradition of the prom draw and it takes away the nervousness of finding a date and they all just get to enjoy the evening of the prom,” school spokeswoman Laura Diemer.  more here

17 Comments on Illinois: High school assigns prom dates by random lottery

  1. Really neat idea. There is a trend now for groups or individuals to go stag, eliminating the pressure of finding a date. I think that is pretty cool and it takes the expence down for the guys, and the expectations also.

  2. One of the most important milestones in the maturation process is finding a girl you like and gathering the courage to ask her out, regardless of the end result. Scary as hell but channeling that angst and uncertainty to asking a girl to the prom and dealing with the subsequent heart ache or elation that might follow is critical to developing healthy relationships and confidence through the years. This lottery is another participation trophy. Have we become so risk adverse that we shield teens from the pain and joy of being human?

  3. I got the gumption to jump over a church pew one Sunday morning about 41 years along to talk to a young lady that I had wanted to talk to and meet. I think I surprised her but she did agree to talk to me and she married me a year later. My Mom was also at church that morning and saw me do that, she still reminds me of that all these years later and she’s almost 92. And I’m still surprised that she married me.

  4. I think this is great because it is a tradition that the students want to keep. They can work on getting the nerve up to ask a girl out for something else. These young people actually cherish something that has gone on for over 100 years and I think that speaks a lot about them.

  5. Geoff, sorry to hear about your Mrs. I don’t mean to quibble, but from your anecdotes, it sounds like she was out of your league and, like my out-of-my-league wife did me, she married you anyway. Lucky for us, they just roll like that sometimes. RIP, Mrs G.

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