Written by Forrest Ripley
As President of HBA, I am used to representing our organization at various meetings and events. However, last week required using a myriad of new skills to rep my favorite organization as I was elected to represent HBA in the annual Mr. Mccombs male pageant, a night of fun to raise money for a good cause. In this friendly competition I would vie for the Mr. McCombs crown along with 8 other gentlemen from other McCombs student organizations. After spending a month practicing my dancing, figuring out what my talents were, and attempting to get my body in swimsuit season shape, the big night finally arrived. My fellow pageant members and I began the evening with an elaborate group dance choreographed to Macklemore’s finest beats. It’s hard to describe the camaraderie I built with my fellow men after jointly spending two weeks learning how to best moonwalk, flex our guns, and shake our booties.
After the dance, each contestant made three return trips to the stage to model their outfit of choice, show off their swimsuit fashion, and display their finest talents. For my outfit of choice, I donned my full-body taco costume I conveniently already owned to epitomize my lifelong love of Austin’s most famous Tex-Mex cuisine. In the highly anticipated swimsuit round, I proudly showcased my winter tan lines by wearing retro pastel swimtrucks complete with an inflatable crocodile innertube. At last came the talent portion of the evening. Because of my indecisiveness in picking a talent, I decided to try out several skills in lieu of a single talent. To begin, I played Adele’s Someone Like You on my keyboard while singing the song an octave or two lower than the song’s author. For the second half of the song, I abandoned my keyboard and relied on the actual music track while I tested the limits of my juggling abilities by tossing, catching, (and occasionally dropping) an assortment of balls and clubs.
In the end, I did not walk away with the coveted Mr. McCombs crown, but I had a blast pretending to be talented, beautiful, and graceful. The amount of support from my fellow BHPers made the experience even more fun. Even better, all of the event’s proceeds ended up raising more than 2000 cans for the Capital Area Food Bank in addition to more than $500 to the winner’s charity of choice. All in all, it was quite a successful night.
