In four minutes you can brush your teeth, make a bowl of cereal, or listen to a song. Every four minutes, someone is diagnosed with leukemia, and every ten minutes someone dies from leukemia. Leukemia and lymphoma are serious, and potentially fatal diseases. Leukemia is cancer of the blood and lymphoma is cancer of lymphocytes, a cell in the immune system. Wilson leadership had been working on creating a pageant, featuring men instead of women, but they wanted a cause to rally around; thus Mr. Trojan was created.

            Wilson leadership saw the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) as a worthy cause, well-known but in need of donations. “When Mr. Trojan was still only an idea, we had already contacted the LLS to think about doing their Pasta for Pennies program,” senior secretary Erin Ratts said. “Instead we decided to solidify the event. We asked them to provide us with a sponsor child so we could put a face to the cause. That is how we met Cyrus.”

            Cyrus Zentis was diagnosed with leukemia at age eleven, and is now two years in remission. He was named Boy of the Year from LLS for being motivated and an inspiration to other cancer patients during the LLS fundraising campaign leadership agreed.

            The Mr. Trojan pageant was held on Tues. Mar. 6, but there was about a month and a half of preparation that went into the event. First on the list was finding six contestants worthy of competing. “When we chose the applicants, each of the leadership students involved in Mr. Trojan were given the applications with numbers on the tops instead of names to eliminate bias,” Ratts said. “We graded out of 20 points on each of the five categories: athletics, school involvement, community involvement, character, and academics.  The six boys who scored highest were our picks. Two boys tied for sixth however, so we had seven guys.”

            The contestants were seniors Matt Abere, Isaac Levine, Nate Hansen, Ian Meyer, Johnny Hergert, Connor Wear, and Brian Wojahn. They were all competing for a $300 scholarship from OHSU, the winning prize from the pageant.

While leadership members were working on the logo, tickets, finding emcees, and other such things, the contestants were equally occupied. They were rehearsing for the events, selling tickets and buttons to students and the community to help raise money, and spending time with Cyrus. The boys went and visited Doernbecher and toured the children’s hospital, followed by bowling at Big Al’s. “The best part of the whole thing for me was touring the hospital and hanging out with the guys,” Levine said. “It was a lot of fun!”

            The pageant opened with the boys doing a choreographed dance. “Learning the dance was the hardest part of the whole thing,” Abere said. “We spent a lot of time rehearsing it. I wasn’t nervous until I heard ‘Let’s get ready to rumble!’ Then the curtains opened and I was surprised by how many people showed up.”

After the entertaining dance, the boys modeled three different outfits; casual wear, swimwear, and personality wear. They also answered questions from the emcees. Then the boys changed into tuxedos, courtesy of Mr. Formal, and slide shows were presented on each contestant showing the boys growing up. Then a larger slide show was shown about the boys’ day at the children’s hospital. Lastly, they answered final questions from the emcees, ending their work for the evening.

            The judges at the pageant were Wilson teachers Mr. Olsen, Mr. Niebergall, Ms. Duffy, and Wilson’s sports trainer Ryan Rockwood. They graded the boys on stage presence and answers, and added that score to the score they received on their application.

            At the end of the night, a guest speaker from LLS came onto the stage with Cyrus and gave a speech about the society and thanked everyone who came for supporting the cause. Then they announced the winner: Wojahn

        Wojahn won a $300 scholarship from OHSU. “The experience of hanging around all these outstanding guys and getting a chance to meet Cyrus was great,” Wojahn said. “It was really an awesome moment to connect with him, my peers, and the community.”

            At the end, leadership and the boys gave Cyrus a basket of all of his favorite treats and a Wilson sweatshirt. “This whole event really hit home for me,” Wear said. “One of my young childhood friends passed away from leukemia and more recently my mom had lung cancer, even though she never smoked a cigarette in her life. So it was very humbling to see how lucky my mom is, and at the same time supporting and remembering my friend. Meeting Cyrus had a bigger impact on me than I had anticipated. His resilience and perceptive race through the entire process showed me to never quit and to stay positive.”

            Leadership ended up raising $2,015 for the LLS, a donation the LLS and Wilson are surely proud of.