This year, thirty-two of Portage High School's talented young men competed in the 2013 Outstanding Young Man Scholarship Program. It took a lot for Eric Mesarch to impress the judges and crowd in order to win the title of Outstanding Young Man.
The thirty-one other PHS seniors who competed with Eric Mesarch were Eric Anderson, Joe Beckham, Greg Birkmeyer, David Burr, Dakota Callender, Logan Cole, Rashaan Coleman, Ty Crawford, Collin Czilli, Ian Deperio, Patrick Derr, Kevin Elkins, Justin Givens, CJ Haupt, Tim Huber, Devin Kludt, Anthony (AJ) Laramie, Jeff McElfresh, Todd Mocabee, James Podgorski, Greg Prohl, Top Pronpudpong, Alexander Schreier, Zach Smith, Tyler Soberg, Jimmy Spence, Jake Spencer, Cody Spoolstra, Zachary Swets, Ross Williams, and Ryan Wilson.
Devin Kludt finished as the first finalist, followed by second finalist Rashaan Coleman, third finalist Alexander Schreier and fourth finalist Collin Czilli. David Burr and Jimmy Spence were named the Good Guys (Awards) by the rest of the contestants. Patrick Derr won the Joe Stevens Award. Presentation and Address awards were given out to Todd Mocabee, Logan Cole and Eric Anderson. Casual Awards were taken home by Kevin Elkins, Zach Smith and Justin Givens, while Physical Awards were won by Tim Huber, Greg Prohl and CJ Haupt. The top academic award went to Cody Spoolstra, who was ranked number one in his class with a GPA of 4.6364. Jeff McElfresh (4.56) and Eric Mesarch (4.5532) also received academic awards.
The evaluation for Outstanding Young Man was based on the judges' conference (30%), academics (10%), physical segment (20%), casual segment (20%) and presentation and address (20%).
The new directors this year were William Fortenberry and Brett Gordon. Portage Police chief Troy Williams was back again to the surprise of many as the Master of Ceremonies. Judges this year were Aaron Priest, Tim Slatton, John Pritchard, Matt Scheuer and Eric Ruiz. Last years winner, Marko Pekovic, was in attendance to perform an opening speech and assist in handing out awards.
The Physical Segment, which is always a crowd favorite, featured the boys dancing to the song "Can't Touch This." Last years Distinguished Young Woman winner, Rachel Stewart, and first runner up, Clarissa Tokash, choreographed the physical segment.
Jimmy Spence, a contestant, said, "I loved the physical segment and will always remember how hard we worked on it."
The boys practiced for three weeks in order to be prepared for the performance. All in all it was a great time for all of the contestants.
Greg Prohl said, "I feel it was a great experience because I've gone to school with a lot of these guys and we've never said a word to one another. It was great to get to know each other and find out how cool many of them were. We are like a close family now."
Cody Spoolstra felt similar stating, "I decided to join because my brother did it six years ago. I got to witness what a great experience it was for him as he prepared for it."
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