Senior Will Zellner Crowned Mr. NDA XXV

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After a week of video presentations the Academy Awards went live on Friday for the Q & A finale of the show.

Senior Will Zellner left the auditorium with the crown worn by Owen Campbell, now a senior, for the past year.  The 25th winner centered his intro and talent act around the popular Dancing With the Stars television show.

Senior Thomas Zakowski took second runner-up, junior Jack FitzGerald took first runner-up and Zellner won the vote of his fellow competitors as Mr. Congeniality.

Junior Joey Bonadonna, one of the nine finalists for the title, summed up what it was like to participate in the show during this pandemic year.

“It was an honor to be in the show.  A lot of hard work went into it from the staff, contestants, tech crew and emcees, and I was happy to be a part of it. Overall, I’m very happy for Will on his achievement of winning the title of Mr. NDA,” said Bonadonna.

Other finalists included Tola Adejumo, Seth Baeten, Cooper Bukowski, Will Drake and Jacob Massart.  Seniors Lainey Chosa and Sam Ruffell served as emcees and wrote the colorful script.

Mr. Matt Schultz, per tradition, asked the questions of the contestants, each of whom could ask four family members to the live show in the auditorium.

Judges were four students, four staff members and an “audience” vote by the student body who watched four days of intro and talent acts Monday-Thursday of the week.

Cooordinating the show were staff members Jen Laaksonen, Julie Campbell, Holly Hinch, Sara VanGrunsven and Carolyn Brown.  Last year’s Mr. NDA, Owen Campbell, contributed countless hours editing videotape for the daily presentations.