The simple act of asking someone to prom has become one of the biggest trends amongst high school teenagers. The new way to snag a prom date? A promposal, an elaborate invitation way beyond the traditional flowers and a smile. The promposal has been sweeping the nation via social media and, in some cases local news stories, as it grows in extravagance and frequency. Several East High students have come up with their own promposals in hopes of wowing their prospective dates.

Senior Tyler Peeples recently came up with a fantastic promposal for his girlfriend, senior Rachel Pope. Tyler worked with Mr. Schlabs, athletic director, to set up the front lobby as if he were about to sign with a college. Local news crews, Tyler’s friends, and Rachel all gathered to watch the signing and support Tyler. Mr. Schlabs helped with the surprise by giving a speech about all of Tyler’s accomplishments before asking the question on everyone’s mind-what school was Tyler signing with? Tyler responded with a big grin, a handmade sign, and a poster of Rachel asking her to attend the prom with him. The invitation was received by a squeal of delight from Rachel and applause and laughter from the gathered crowd.

“I told Coach Schlabs and Mrs. Rayl my idea and they just of took off with it,” said Tyler, “I just like to do good stuff for people who deserve it. I just wanted it to be big and in front of a lot of people.”

Senior Michael Zuniga also came up with a sweet promposal for junior Samantha Jurkowski. Samantha is a hurdler on the EHS track and field team so Michael went down to Okie Blanchard Stadium and used five hurdles to set up signs spelling out “PROM?”.

“She has practiced there every day and luckily she always walks down to the locker rooms at Okie,” said Michael. “So I knew that as long as she didn’t look to the left and see the hurdles standing there then I could walk her outside and from the exit of the locker rooms you can just see PROM? on the hurdles.”

While Michael may have done a lot to keep up the element of surprise it was worth it to see Samantha’s reaction when she saw the promposal.

“I was very surprised,” said Samantha, “I didn’t even see it when I was first walking down to it because he was talking to me and distracting me and then I looked up and it was there. It was very sweet.”

Another creative promposal at East High was senior Casey Sever’s to senior Trae Pierce. Casey used the reader board in front of the school to ask Trae to prom.

“Ms. Mercer helped me,” said Casey, “She was the one who asked Mr. Allen and the main office if she [Trae] could get out of class.”

“It was really shocking but it was really cool,” said Trae. “He had to point it out. I saw him standing beneath it and he told me to look up.”

Senior Javaun Garcia also came up with a creative promposal for junior Delilah Mims. Javaun surprised Delilah by dressing up as a cop and meeting her in the library with coffee, donuts, and a clever sign.

“I just wanted to do something fun and kind of creative that I hadn’t really seen anybody here do before,” said Javaun about what inspired his promposal, “I dressed up as a cop and then I gave her donuts and coffee and I had a sign that said, ‘I’m trying to cop a date and you’re bad so can I cuff and take you to prom?’”

With promposals on the upswing, look for even crazier invitations to hit the EHS halls next year.