After no prom last year, students and families looking for 'a little bit of normal' this weekend

Apr. 15—Correction

This story has been corrected to show that masks are optional, not required, at Enid High School's prom Friday.

Teacher Dusty Hugaboom, Enid High School's junior class council co-sponsor, said he thinks the "Roaring Twenties" theme for this year's prom is more than appropriate for the current decade.

But the dozen EHS juniors on the council, who plan the prom each year, hadn't voted for the EHS astronomy teacher's own suggestion, anyway.

"Why we didn't have a masquerade (theme), I don't know," Hugaboom said with a laugh Wednesday.

After not getting the chance to dance the night away last April, Enid High School's prom Friday will see its students dressed to the nines from head to toe — possibly including masks over their faces, in accordance with district policy recommending wearing them.

"I'm sure that some of the dresses and the masks will match," he said, laughing again.

This year's dance will be held in Stride Bank Center's event center arena area, after Hugaboom said its location in previous years was deemed too small to allow for appropriate distancing.

Hugaboom said he believed this year's prom would mean more than a traditional high school rite of passage, especially for its seniors who planned last year's but didn't get to go as juniors.

It was the first prom he said he'd seen canceled in his 26 years teaching at the high school.

"We spent a lot of time talking about it and thinking about it and planning it, then just to have it pulled out from underneath us like that, I'd describe it as sad," he said. "They only get this one shot, so (the juniors) have been doing a lot of planning."

Staci Gober, owner of the Bridal Shop, which also sells and rents prom clothing, said girls start shopping for their prom dresses once Christmas ends, while some would be wearing their dresses they bought but didn't get to wear last year.

"I think everybody's just happy it's normal. Just to have a little bit of normal," Gober said Tuesday. "Everybody remembers their prom, no matter who you are. Or even if you didn't go, you know you didn't go to prom."

As to be expected, the week before prom is the busiest week of the year for the downtown Enid shop, at 228 W. Randolph.

Hundreds of prom dresses in myriad colors and styles fill the shop's second floor, the Prom Shop, while an extra rack holding newly arrived tuxedos was set up in the middle of the room amid all the dress racks.

Gober was checking in each suit, then texting each renter it was available for pickup.

The Prom Shop has more than 200 tuxes going out this weekend, and most of the boys came in Tuesday after school, she said.

High schools from all over the area are having their proms this weekend, including Drummond, Garber, Hennessey and Enid.

"I gotta keep rolling, or these boys will be screaming down our backs to get their suits in," Gober said Tuesday, moving from rack to rack stapling receipts to plastic bags holding tuxedos from the shop's supplier, Jim's Formalwear. "This week's a little sketchy. No one's eating, we're all like, 'Oh, Lordy.'"

Hugaboom quote

Gober then took a break to help one boy try on his newly arrived tuxedo who seemed less than enthused at first.

Zade Coleman, a senior at EHS, didn't go to his first prom last year, but that didn't seem to bother him too much.

"It was just another day, I guess," Zade said while Gober helped him fold his sleeve cuffs to put in cufflinks, which he'd never worn before.

"I'm not a suit person," he said.

At the Prom Shop with him and his girlfriend Tuesday, Zade's mom, Amanda Neitzke, said she hoped prom would be the beginning of many "firsts" as he graduates high school this semester.

"He's my only one, so I'm like, 'I need you to be able to do all this,'" she said, as Zade finished putting on the tuxedo, complete with a red vest, clip-on bow tie and pocket square Gober had folded and tucked into the breast pocket.

"Oh you look so nice ...," Neitzke told her son, who discreetly tried to wipe away some slowly forming tears.

Neitzke said she was probably going to cry, too, as she started taking pictures.

"Oh you look handsome. You look so grown up," she told him.

Ewald is copy editor and city/education reporter for the Enid News & Eagle.

Have a question about this story? Do you see something we missed? Send an email to aewald@enidnews.com.