Senior prom is a big deal for most students at Hawthorne High School.  It’s a night to fix your hair, dress up, and spend time with friends—or maybe even someone special. Asking that special someone to spend that special time with you, however, can be difficult. Students from Hawthorne High School (HHS) have taken on the challenge and found creative ways to make the asking as special as the prom evening itself.

Ethan Ramos, a senior at HHS, decided to ask his new girlfriend Renee Buchanan, also an HHS senior, in a way that had the whole school talking. Arriving at the high school at 4:00 a.m., Ramos, stamped through the snow on the football field, spelling out in 30-foot letters: “Prom?” “I was so surprised,” said Buchanan. “It was the nicest and most romantic gesture anyone has ever done for me.”

Ramos is not the only person to take on this challenge. Juan Guido, also a senior at HHS, asked Samantha Tolomeo, a junior at HHS, with the help of his brothers, Sebastian and Manuel. Guido took Tolomeo to a look-out spot in the Hawthorne Heights to see a view of Hawthorne. There, on the ledge, she saw Guido’s brothers, holding a sign that read “Prom?”  Guido said, “I wanted it to be special. I wanted to do something big. I wanted to do something cute. She was very surprised to see my brothers with the sign when we got to the spot where she expected to see a view of Hawthorne.”

Jimmy Contrini, an HHS senior, asked HHS senior Kim Mulvey on Valentine’s Day in what some would say was a very “sweet” way. Contrini laid out five chocolate-covered strawberries in a box that he handed her also spelling out “Prom?” Contrini said, “I knew she loved chocolate-covered strawberries and Valentine’s Day was coming up so I figured I’d just get the strawberries customized and give it to her on Valentine’s Day. The idea just came to me.”

HHS isn’t the only place with romantically creative minds. Internet websites such as Shareranks.com and Lightplanet.com give ideas on how to ask that special someone to be with you on one of the most memorable nights of your life. One creative idea was to put the question on a slip of paper and bake it into a fortune cookie. Another suggested having  a friendly police officer pull over the prospective date and give a fake ticket saying that someone is interested in taking that person to the prom. In the end, a lot of sites suggested just to ask casually as if it isn’t a big deal.

Some ideas on these sites are useful, others not so useful. A user on Shareranks.com suggested putting the phrase “Prom?” on your teeth and then smiling. Another one suggested that someone dress up as Moses and approach the desired date with a list of “Commandments” such as “Thou shalt not have another date before me” and “Thou shalt be ready by 7 p.m.” The idea also included having the desired date put the answer on the bottom of a bowl of red gelatin so Moses can “part the red sea.”

Although some ideas may seem corny and others may seem desperate, it’s the thought that counts.

Now what better way is there to end an article about ‘ways to ask people to prom’ than this: Vanessa Garces, will you do me the honor of attending prom with me?