Local teens are participating in the growing trend of creatively devised “promposing” strategies that are sweeping prospective dates off their feet.
Colton Toney, Iola, 18, said he got his idea of how to “prompose” to his prospective date, Scout Rush, Iola, 16, from Pinterest. He said he believes the trend of “promposing” is motivating teenagers to think creatively. Toney said he was a little nervous about asking Rush to prom, but when he heard that she was going to ask him, he elected to beat her to the punch.
“I kind of like turned the tables on her and surprised her,” Toney said.
Rush said she and Chloe Wilson,17, were about to leave school, but when she went to get in Wilson’s car, Toney was lying on the ground with a sign that said, “Now that I have kissed the ground that you have walked on, will you be my date to prom?” She said he had “prom?” spelled out on the ground with Hershey Kisses.
“It was super sweet,” Rush said.
Wilson received a unique promposal of her own. She said she was at home with friends when they persuaded her to go out to eat.
“They were being kind of weird about it, but they made me go with them, and they said they wanted to drive through the park,” Wilson said. “When we drove through (the park) one of my best friends, Evan Sigg, (had) spelled out “prom?” with Christmas lights on the football stadium’s fence.”
“It was freezing cold outside and it was snowing really hard and I was super surprised and shocked,” Wilson said. “It was really great.”
This is the third time Wilson will attend prom. She said the other promposals she received for the past years’ dances do not compare.
NOAH JOHNSON, 17, a junior at Humboldt High School, said he thinks prom, especially for seniors, is a special time that should come with special memories. He said that is what prompted him to prompose to Annalise Whitcomb, Humboldt, 17, in the way that he did.
“For people like me who have dated someone like her for seven months now, I want to go all out because she is my girlfriend,” Johnson said. “I want her to remember it.”
Whitcomb said Johnson told her they were going on a helicopter ride. She said once she showed up he told her that it was only a two-person helicopter and that she would have to ride by herself with the pilot, his uncle, Jerry Daniels. While she was up in the air Daniels hinted that she might want to take photos with her cell phone. After about five minutes of flying around Daniels handed her a note that said, “Anna will you go to prom with me? If yes, land the helicopter, if no, then kindly ask for the pilot to crash.”
“So I turned to the pilot and I was like I really want to land the helicopter, please don’t crash,” Whitcomb said. “So we flew around and I saw all the lights around his house in the field.”
Whitcomb said Johnson used lights to spell out the word “prom” in the field.
“I thought I was on a helicopter ride just for the fun of it,” Whitcomb laughed.
Whitcomb said this is the third time she will attend prom but never with such a grand promposal.
“This (promposal) topped every single one of them,” Whitcomb said. “It was so awesome.”
Johnson said most of his friends have stuck to the classic poster style promposal, although one promposed in a Jesus costume.
THE TREND is so contagious that Chloe Hageman, 15, Iola, said she was asked to go to prom twice by the same student. She said she had already been asked right after Christmas break by foreign exchange student, Francisco Barria, Chile.
“I knew he was going to re-ask me,” Hageman said. “He told me he wanted to because he saw how everyone had asked and he was like ‘wait I did it wrong.’”
Hageman said months went by and she forgot it.
Then one day after dance class her dance instructor asked her to transfer cleaning supplies to a bucket under a sink.
“I had this bucket like stuck under the sink and (the instructor) was like ‘Chloe can you come help’ and I was like ‘I am stuck under the sink,’” Hageman said.
She said once she got her hands free she walked into the studio to find six of her fellow dance students and Barria holding up letters that spelled out “prom?” Hageman said she was surprised and said “yes” to Barria for the second time.
From signs to Christmas lights and Hershey Kisses to helicopters, Whitcomb, Rush, Wilson and Hageman all said they now have dates for the prom.
