Thursday, Oct. 15, twelve senior boys competed for the title of “Mr. NNHS” in the NPAC.

One of our very own staff members, Jeff Leu, won the title. Even so, all personalities seemed to have their moment in the spotlight during events from beachwear to talent.

Jack Dirienzo, audience choice winner, entertained the crowd with his unique talent. Dirienzo performed a ventriloquism act using sophomore Gabe Matar as his “dummy” who “came to life” at the end of the show. The abundance of laughter heard from the audience made his act a clear crowd-pleaser.

Dirienzo said in past years, seeing football teammates like Chris Gajcak participating in the competition inspired him to do the same.

“When I walked into it, I was just really looking for a platform to be myself and show off and make some people laugh,” Dirienzo said.

Other contestant’s performances, such as Chris Fu’s, did not go as smoothly as Dirienzo’s. For Fu’s talent portion, he collaborated with Communication Arts Teacher Mr. Nierman to create a skit centered around playing electric guitar. A few minutes into Fu’s act, he lost sound for his guitar and resorted to an air-guitar performance.

Despite the situation, the audience cheered throughout the performance. Fu said the tech team did a phenomenal job setting everything up, the chord was just not correctly plugged into the amp. Fu was able to go back on stage at the end of the event and impress the audience with his musical talent.

“I was definitely happy I was able to make up for it, and the crowd was really cool about it,” Fu said.

Runner up Bobby Voss also put on a crowd-pleasing performance. After singing a piece accompanied by Mr. Jansen, he joined Matthew Magee on stage for a guitar-singing duet. Similar to Fu’s situation, Magee’s sound malfunctioned and Voss did his best to improvise and keep the act rolling.

One of the many encouraging members in the audience was junior Alex Guel, and he reflects back onto Magee’s performance.

“I really liked the way Bobby turned around Matt’s performance from what could have been a really awkward situation,” said Guel.

At the end of the night, nearly everyone seemed satisfied with the way the results turned out. The talents that the boys put on stage definitely made up for the minor technical glitches.