With talents, high fashion, sheer guts and even an attempt to solve a tricky calculus problem, nine males of Saratoga High walked down the runway of the McAfee Center on Jan. 27 in front of an audience of over 100 people for the second annual Mr. Saratoga.
This year, the title went to junior Tavon Naddaf, who played an intricate instrumental on his electric guitar for his talent.
The mock pageant is held by the senior class and allows male students to compete in fashion, talent, swimwear and a Q&A. The senior class’ fundraising efforts will go toward making prom bids cheaper and pooling money for senior gifts.
The student who earns the most audience votes wins the title of Mr. Saratoga, which means that he best encompasses the values of the school.
“I was surprised I won,” Naddaf said. “I didn’t have any strategies [for winning], but to those who compete next year, I’d say just go up there and do something you’re confident in.”
Senior Eoghan Walsh and junior Kian Ghelichkhani were announced first runner-up and second runner-up respectively.
With a unique twist on the talent portion, sophomore Andrew Zheng solved a calculus problem in real time.
“I didn’t know what the problem would be before I solved it, so it was a completely unfamiliar problem,” Zheng said. “Luckily, I didn’t mess up.”
Zheng said he decided to use math as his talent in order to bring a little comedy to the contest.
“I thought it would be funny to do as a talent,” Zheng said. “I wanted to have a lot of fun with the pageant, and this was a good way for me to incorporate some comedy into it.”
Senior Karen Chen, who helped organize the event, said that throughout the show the student judges provided fun commentary in order to highlight the contestants’ strengths and potentially help the members of the audience decide who they wanted to vote for. This year, the judges were seniors Allison Lin, Luke Salin, and Kanaai Shah.
“We wanted to make sure the event was fun and light hearted,” Williams said. “I think both the senior class officers and the contestants ended up being very pleased with how the night went.”
