The annual night finally arrived for FC students, as girls spent hours and guys spent minutes beforehand to get ready for the most popular event of the year. The 22nd annual Night of the Stars (NOTS) commenced at The Grand 1401 on the 10th floor from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Feb. 15.

This year’s theme for NOTS was “Winter Wonderland,” with The Grand decorated accordingly with a white setting and blue accents, along with blue uplighting to make the room more of a winter night. As students arrived at the venue, they were checked in, on the first floor, by junior high science and Bible teacher Terry Richards and high school Secretary Brenda Warkentin.

Theme adds to atmosphere

Students then entered the elevators only to exit on the top floor where a small decorated room with lamp posts, snow and mason jars awaited them, along with a table, where programs for the night were displayed. Different from past years, professional pictures were taken by Milne Photography on the 10th floor instead of the first, due to conflicting events.

As students looked upon the room they saw decorated tables with lanterns, snow and frosted pinecones to add to the setting. Accenting the room were twinkly lighted trees, which illuminated the atmosphere.

After posing for pictures with their dates or friends for Milne, students convened with the rest of their peers for conversation and more pictures. There was a drink bar, manned by Matt and Vanessa Markarian, for the students to enjoy and quench their thirst before sitting for dinner.

In addition to the drink bar, a photo booth was offered to the students as well as a personal picture section set up by Student Leadership. Students were free to mingle with friends as well as pose for pictures in three different areas.

Attending NOTS for the first time, Jennifer King, ’17, was thoroughly entertained by the entire night. The theme and movies were a great aspect of the event for King.

“I really enjoyed my first NOTS,” King said. “I liked the theme and watching the movies for my first year. The movies were all really good, but I think the juniors should have won. I get that it’s there senior year but the juniors just spent more time on their’s so they should have won. Overall, it was a really fun night. I really liked the photo booth as well. I thought that was a great addition to everything else.”

Senior Daniel Moore was happy to be involved with the event, enjoying the fun atmosphere presented at NOTS. Moore found the theme comical due to the current weather conditions outside, but appreciated the overall night.

“I thought it was one of the better NOTS I’ve been to,” Moore said. “It was a lot of fun even though there were some technical hiccups but that even made it more fun. The theme was cool but it was a little weird because it’s 80 degrees out, but we were in a ‘Winter Wonderland.'”

Emcees impress, overall night enjoyed

Dinner was served at 6:45 p.m. with an opening prayer from Natalie Ruiz, ’14. The night was emceed by juniors Christopher Grossman and Aaron DeWolf. The duo opened up the night with some witty banter and kept the event moving smoothly.

During dinner students were still free to idle about the lounge area as well as visit with friends at neighboring tables. The photo booth was open until 8 p.m., so many students grabbed their dates and friends to catch a picture in the booth before it closed.

For DeWolf the night was one to remember. Being able to emcee the event was a great joy for DeWolf, making it one of his better years at NOTS. Although there were some areas DeWolf would like to improve he was pleasantly surprised by the night.

“It thought NOTS this year was better than my first two years for many reason,” DeWolf said. “The decorations were a lot better this year, and the lighting was so great. It was obviously better for me because I had a blast emceeing. For next year hopefully we can get the photos downstairs and get the movies to have a little bit more effort involved with classes taking that a little more seriously.”

Sarah Lim, ’14, appreciated her last NOTS. She believed it was a great one to end on, as she was very entertained by the atmosphere as well as the hosts for the night.

“I had a really fun time at NOTS,” Lim said. “I thought the decorations were great and the entire atmosphere fit very well with the theme. Chris {Grossman} and Aaron {DeWolf} were also great as the emcees. It was fun watching them do their thing on stage. The entire night was just a lot of fun.

Films entertain, bring laughter

At 8 p.m. the movies created by the four classes were shown to the audience, with Grossman and DeWolf introducing them. Going according to grade level the freshmen movie was shown first, but for the first time in NOTS history the class made a series of commercials instead of remaking a popular film.

The sophomore’s remake of A Cinderella Story was the next to be shown, followed by a short intermission for students to stretch their legs and take a bathroom break.

The audience was called back by DeWolf and Grossman to sit for the viewing of the junior movie which was a rendition of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Again, an intermission was announced at the closing of the junior movie, but this time it was to announce dessert. On tables in the back of the room, assorted cheesecakes and vanilla and chocolate cake was provided for the students to enjoy while they sat back down to watch the final movie.

Changing it up a bit, the senior class decided to do an original movie, which has never been done by any class before. The script was written by senior Mark Bennett, titled The Best Worst Night.

Sophomore Olivia Quebe was a part of the making of her class’ movie. She enjoyed the time spent in the production of the film, but also found it a bit stressful.

“It was kind of stressful making the movie,” Quebe said. “It was really fun watching all the actors do their parts, especially Claire Kollenkark because she was hilarious. It was great watching all the movies and seeing how each class did their interpretation. I was glad the seniors won because Mark Bennett put a lot of work into it.”

Award ceremony surprises crowd

Following the viewing of the movies, an award ceremony commenced to give recognition to the various aspects of the movies. The awards were given out were as follows: Best Soundtrack, Best Screenplay, Best On-Screen Chemistry, Best Editing and Best Line in addition to the traditional Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Picture.

The awards were announced by a multitude of students ranging from freshmen to seniors. After have only winning one award in the past three years, the senior class went home receiving four awards, including Best Picture. The junior and sophomore class films were accomplished as well as they took home awards of their own.

Bennett was surprised at the outcome of the award ceremony. He was happy to finally produce his original film after pitching the idea to his class for four years, but was stunned when the movie received its many awards. Bennett was thrilled to win the award for Best Picture, as it was his last year attending.

“It was really exciting, the Best Picture award was a complete shock to me,” Bennett said. “I saw the junior movie and i was like ‘Wow it’s so much better than ours.’ The Best Soundtrack one was a funny award because I didn’t actually do any composing for it. It was just kind of like ‘Hey you have good taste in music,’ but it was really exciting. It meant a lot to me because it was a good way to go out, it being my senior year. It was probably better to do this original movie this year than it would have been junior year.”

Winning Best Supporting Actor and Best Line, Justin Porter, ’15, was happy to be a part of the junior class film, and be able to give the class another award. He was supportive of the senior class winning, but did think his class deserved the award as well, due to the amount of time and effort put in to the film.

“It was cool to win the awards,” Porter said. “I was really happy with the way our movie turned out, and I think everyone enjoyed it. It was a fun experience to be a part of. I think my class will do even better next year but props to the senior class and Mark Bennett for their win with their original move.”

Due to a small problem in the embed code, our slideshow cannot be directly inserted into this article. But the Night of the Stars 2014 slideshow can be viewed here.

This author can be reached via Twitter: @viv_hinojosa. Follow The Feather via Twitter: @thefeather.

For more features, read the Feb. 14 article, Seniors choose original film for NOTS.