Harlem guys strut their stuff, drag style
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Harlem High student Josh Burt - as 'Modesty' - competes in the schools Mock Beauty Pageant Friday.
Photo by Donnie Fetter
Contestants paraded onto the stage like a nightmarish gallery of bad blind dates.
Sporting names such as Dee Licious and Scarlett O'Hairy, Harlem High School male students entertained the audience with the gender-bending Mock Beauty Pageant on Friday evening.
The mock pageant took place the day before the Miss Harlem High School Pageant and featured guys specially chosen by pageant contestants to represent them in the drag beauty contest. Christine Futch was named Miss Harlem High Pageant on Saturday.
"It's a great way for the girls to practice their pageant skills by helping the guys with their's," said Jimi Lane, a Spanish teacher at the high school and a former Miss Harlem High who helped stage the event. "Besides, they are all so stressed leading up to the real pageant, this is great comic relief for them."
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A serious note to the pageant was that the competitors from both pageants were charged with collecting as many donations as they could throughout the week leading up to the mock pageant to help fund the $500 scholarship given to the winner of Saturday's pageant and for the American Breast Cancer Foundation.
Christine Futch: Senior was named Miss Harlem High on Saturday.
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"We started this four years ago and it's been very popular with students and the community ever since," said Roy Lewis, the coordinator of both pageants and a drama teacher at Harlem. "It's about raising money while having a lot of fun."
Awards during the drag pageant were given for Miss Photogenic, Miss Congeniality and for first, second and third runners up. The overall winner, and crowned Miss Flashback, was Charlie Sanders under the name of Tata Lalicious.
When asked his thoughts on winning the dubious honor, Charlie said, "I did it all for world peace."