Alice in Wonderland – 2015 Prom

By: Lydia Buzzard

On April 18th, WKU’s sidewalks were littered in sequins and glitter—the breadcrumb trails of Gatton Academy Prom. Students and their families spread out across campus for photos before the big event at 7pm, when the Augustein Alumni Center saw a procession of dresses and tuxedos enter its doors.

Inside the ballroom one could find Alice in Wonderland themed decorations: chess pieces, colorful bouquets, and empty souvenir bottles tagged “Drink Me,” tastefully adorned our dining tables. After voting for prom king, queen, prince, and princess, we sat down to dinner.

Dancing began at 8:15 with a lively, electric opening move by Academy junior Graham Reynolds. From that point forward, any exams, projects, or presentations plaguing us were nowhere to be found; it was a welcome evening of forgetting. Bass lines and catchy choruses united two classes and their guests as a single mob of teenagers fighting midnight.

At 10:30, this year’s prom royalty was crowned. D.J. Price and Eura Shin were named prom prince and princess, respectively. Meredith Bickett took home the prom queen sash, and Morgan Blair was named prom king, a promotion from his previous title as 2014’s prom prince.

One of the most memorable moments of the night was the last. The final song of prom was Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” With the opening harmonica riff, the dancing mob calmed, formed a circle on the dance floor, wrapped arms around each other, and swayed with the music, shouting the lyrics as loudly as we could. Of the Academy students in that circle, some of us were ending our Gatton careers while others were just beginning, but those futures would have to wait. For now, we had each other and a song that we all knew, and that was more than enough.