Searchlights drew students to the glamorous, light-encrusted Copper River Country Club on the night of Feb. 12. This elegantly decorated building was the location of the annual Night of the Stars (NOTS) formal.

Students had the opportunity to dress in their finest and spend an evening with friends enjoying food, fellowship and movies made by their peers.

“I really enjoyed having formal at Copper River this year,” Karen Tolladay, ’05, said. “My favorite thing about formal was getting my nails done.”

This year, formal was held at a new location and featured previously unseen novelties like a chocolate fountain into which students could dip rice crispies, caramels, marshmallows and fruit.

Another new facet of NOTS was the addition of the Commercial category to the movie competition. This option was offered to give students who were not involved with their class movies a chance to participate in NOTS. Any students who were interested could submit a commercial to be played between the movies at NOTS.

“I liked the commercials,” Mikey Wills, ’06, said. “The best thing about formal was seeing Paul [Kinnear] in his commercial with no shirt on.”

Kinnear’s advertisement for the FCS gym won the award for best commercial.

As in past years, each class made a movie that premiered at NOTS. Awards were given in categories such as Best Actor/Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Costumes.

This year the Juniors won Best Picture, as well as Best Screenplay, Dance Scene and Costumes. The Seniors took the awards for Best Cinematography, Music, Editing and Romance Scene. The only award for the Freshman was Best Teacher Cameo.

Senior Damon O’Brien and sophomore Karen Reed won the awards for best actor and actress. Best supporting actor and actress went to sophomore Will Hierholzer and junior Alex Hart.

“The movies this year were as good as ever,” Scott Falk, video production teacher, said. “There were a few technical difficulties leading up to the evening, but we got them figured out in time.”

Falk was also pleased with the location selected for this year’s event.

“The venue was perfect,” Falk said. “The meal-and especially dessert-were yummy!”

Leadership advisor Josh Tosland was also pleased with the success of the evening.

“This year exceeded my expectations,” Tosland said. “This was our first year with a theme other than Hollywood, and it went really well.”

While Tosland is happy with the way things turned out, he remains hopeful that there will be room for improvement in the future.

“I tend to think that plenty of things could go better than they did because I am a perfectionist,” Tosland said. “But, mostly, it went very well.”

For more information about NOTS and other student activities, contact Tosland at [email protected].

For information about the Video Production class, contact Falk at [email protected].