KING OF CHARM

My fourteen-year-old-sort-of-shy-semi-anxious-oh-so adorable-friendly son was nominated by his high school student council as one of five boys to represent the freshman class in THE KING OF CHARM---which is sort of a "beauty pageant" with a twist. Each boy has formal wear with a question, every-day wear with a question, and a talent portion. The boys basically try to get the most votes by being, cute, sweet, funny--and most of all CHARMING. One "king" from each grade level is crowned.

All the boys were so brave for entering and each shone for different reasons. One of my favorite moments from the senior class came when Aaron was asked the question: What song would you sing to a girl to impress her?
Aaron's reply: It's kind of lame to just tell you the name of a song, so I'm going to find my girl in the audience to sing it to her. He goes into the audience, and returns to the stage with his 3-year-old baby cousin and he sings, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You'll never know dear how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away. How sweet is that?

I was SO NERVOUS for my guy, because this is just not something he normally would do. He's not the class clown. He's the quiet, nice guy on the edge of the room that's every one's friend. HE WAS AMAZING. He got up there and held his own. We're talking about a baseball/soccer player that put his sister's school dance uniform on--which includes a skirt--and performed the school dance song with pom poms. By the end of the song, the crowd was singing the fight song right along with him. The boy that was crowned KING of CHARM for the freshman class did a shocking rendition of Beyonce's ALL THE SINGLE LADIES---there's just no way to compete against that. But, no matter...

His 18 year old sister who lovingly coached him through the whole process summed it up best on the car ride home when she said, "Jarrod, you're OUR King of Charm."