Photos by Madeline Pado
This wasn’t your typical beauty pageant. No women contestants. No tiaras. No expensive sparkly sashes.
Instead there were men parading themselves in front of a crowd, wearing toilet paper sashes and pink crowns.
Lucas Rohde, a journalism freshman, won the Mr. Taylor Place Male Pageant Thursday night in front of a crowd of around 100 people.
“I really did not expect to win,” Rohde said. “I really just did this for fun.”
Eight contestants strutted their stuff in the second annual Mr. TP pageant at the Taylor Place dorms. They competed in five categories including swim wear, formal wear, talent, pick-up lines and Sun Devil pride.
Sophomore journalism major Pearce Bley was runner-up for the second year in a row. Jonathan Lewis, Nathanael Shermett and Will Argeros scored third, fourth and fifth places, respectively.
The pageant began with a welcome from host Drew Sexton, a journalism senior. He introduced the contenders and the swimwear category. Contestants flexed muscles and turned cartwheels to wow the audience, eliciting cheers and applause.
Next on the agenda was the formal wear division. Despite the hot Arizona evening, participants gamely donned attire ranging from dress slacks and button-down shirts to entire suits and ties.
The subsequent talent portion of the contest garnered the most enthusiastic crowd reception of the night. Audience favorites included Shermett’s piano rendition of “He’s a Pirate” from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, as well as Bley’s guitar and vocals for “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie and Rohde’s “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot.
The pick-up-line division was also popular with the night’s audience. The contestants’ one-liners ranged from humorous to mildly sweet to perturbingly risqué. Sexton attempted to quell the contestants’ increasingly lewd behavior by entreating them to “keep it PG.”
Despite Sexton’s protests, contestants continued to make overt sexual innuendos and gestures, which were often met with cheers and laughter from the audience.
“I haven’t laughed this hard in a good while,” said Blane Ferguson, a journalism freshman. “I nearly cried from laughing so hard.”
The top five finishers were awarded sashes made of toilet paper as well as sparkly pink crowns. Rohde also received a plunger and three rolls of bath tissue.
“The plunger should come in handy,” Rohde said. “We don’t have one yet. And I’ll use the toilet paper very much.”
Contact the reporter at chloe.brooks@asu.edu
