A California teen got more than he bargained for when he came up with a unique way to ask a girl to the prom. Miguel Gonzales, 17, got his prom date, but also received a two day suspension in the process.
The Daily Mail reports that the teen trotted up to the girl’s first period class on horseback to request that she ride with him to prom. Gonzales took a horse named Romeo from his family’s ranch and rode him to the school while carrying a sign that read, “Will you ride with me to prom Catalina?” The girl, of course, said yes to the dramatic prom proposal. However, school officials weren’t so happy about the incident.
Mercury New s notes that in addition to winning over the girl, Gonzales also earned two days of suspension for trotting the horse onto school property. Gonzales said the principal was not very excited about the horse being at the school and said someone could have gotten hurt. Therefore, the principal handed Gonzales a two-day suspension.
Fortunately for Gonzales, it seems the community had his back and the school revoked the suspension after public outcry. The day that Gonzales trotted to the school on horseback, it was “salad dressing day” as part of the school’s spirit week. Gonzales was using the spirit day in an innovative way to ask the girl to prom and show his school spirit. His horseback ride was part of his costume which was “Ranch dressing.”
“Today was salad dressing day, because it was Spirit Day, and one of the themes was dressing up as ranch salad, and ranch… country related, so I showed up with my cowboy boots and everything on a horse. Well I was there for a bit and I knew people would come like security so I tried to leave, but on my way I heard the principal screaming… they said, ‘What if someone had gotten hurt’… I kind of knew I was going to get into trouble, but I thought it was going to be detention or Saturday school, but not suspended.”
After hearing responses from members in the community and realizing that Gonzales was simply being creative with the theme set by the school, the superintendent revoked the suspension.
“We do encourage our students to be innovative, and we appreciate the creativity that this young man demonstrated in designing his invitation for the prom; however, we expect our students to follow school rules. The student did not follow school rules in this case, and as a result there are some consequences. We do feel that the suspension was too far reaching in this situation, and we are reversing the decision.”
What do you think of the California teen’s innovative prom invitation and use of school spirit day?