This year’s Mr.NDA was full of talent and many different acts I wasn’t expecting. In case you missed it, you missed a really great show put on by our junior and senior boys. These boys have been figuring out acts and practicing them almost continuously the past few weeks. Balancing school, sports, family, friends and the show can not be easy, but these contestants  definitely pulled it off. Here are my choices for the best acts of this year’s show.

To begin with, the show was hosted by Kristen Burkel and Maddi Tennity. The girls did a phenomenal job and really helped pull the show together.

Many entrances were hilarious and had me laughing through the whole thing. One of these was Matt Duffy’s Mean Girls entrance with his “plastics.” Duffy really captured what the movie portrayed, adding his own twists as well. The entrance may have been hard to understand if you never saw the movie, but I have seen the movie multiple time and found Duffy’s entrance hilarious.

Another entrance that had me laughing was Vinny Pallini’s magic act. Pallini threw stuff into the “magic wall” and something else came out of it. He threw things like an elf, a state champion metal, a Barbie doll and many other things into the wall. But that wasn’t the funny part; what was funny was what came out of the wall. When the elf was thrown, a “real elf” (Danny Stewart), came out of the wall. When the state champion metal was thrown, part of the football team came running out, and when the Barbie was thrown, Pallini’s escort came out. Pallini had a very creative entrance, unlike any entrance I’ve seen before.

Other entrances that I thought were creative included Charlie Urick’s and Ben Richard’s entrances. It was so cool how the two entrances intertwined into each other’s. I also saw this in Cam Knight’s and Jacob Zeise’s entrances. Knight’s and Zeise’s entrances both portrayed the boys’ close friendship.

Next up was the swimwear. The swimwear portion had a variety of pictures of the boys in their best swimwear. We saw new photos, throwback photos and some photoshopped ones as well. The boys all did a great job in choosing their pictures for this year’s show.

After the swimwear was the talent portion of the show, my favorite part of the competition. This year we saw a quite a few singing performances, contrary to last year’s one or two singing acts. One of my favorite’s was Matt Duffy’s Mean Girls Christmas dance. Again, if you hadn’t seen the movie, it probably wasn’t as funny as it was to those who have seen it. The boys even got everyone to sing along at the end of the dance, just like in the movie.

Another one of my favorites was Andrew Zipp’s aerobic dance, where he was accompanied by some of his friends. The dance was hilarious, but also required some talent and memorization. I was laughing so hard throughout the whole dance. The boys did very well, and Zipp’s talent was definitely one of my favorite acts from this year’s show.

After the talent portion of the show was the question and answer part with Mr.Havlichek, a math teacher at Notre Dame. The boys were each asked one question picked out of a bowl. The questions ranged from the most valuable class they’ve taken to why they think they got into the show. The boys answered the questions very well with just the right amount of seriousness and humor.

Next Mr.Congeniality was announced. The 15 boys and others involved in the show all vote on the competitor with the best attitude and most helpful nature during preparation. This year’s Mr.Congeniality was Jacob Zeise.

Next, second runner-up was announced. This year’s second runner-up was Vinny Pallini. Pallini deserved a placing in this year’s show as both his entrance and talent were very well put together. Pallini put in a lot of work not only this year, but last year as well when he was in the show as a junior.

First runner-up was the next one announced, Joe Sladek. After the hard work he put in this year and last year, he was no surprise as first runner-up.

Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for, the crowning of Mr.NDA 2015. Greg Young, last year’s winner, came back from Marquette University to crown the winner. After three hours of many different talents, we were finally going to find out who won the title. This year’s Mr.NDA was Jack Pavek, who very well earned the title.

Pavek was in last year’s show, as well as Pallini and Sladek. Last year, Pavek and Jack Wied had everyone laughing with their “Tight Pants” skit. This year, Wied came back to help with Pavek’s talent. Pavek wrote a song about his close friendship with Wied. Pavek’s entrance was also very funny with his being arrested for “speeding” and many dress code violations.

Congratulations to this year’s Mr.NDA and words of gratitude to all the contestants and everyone else who helped out with the successful show.