The 16th annual Mr. Patriot competition, scheduled for March 22, has been canceled due to lack of participation.

The competition has been going on at South since 2003, when Patrice Aitch, then an assistant principal, brought the idea from her former school, Marquette.

Student Council sponsor Christina Alexander said they started with 15 boys willing to participate, but ended up with only 7 after several practices. She said the remaining 7 participants made the ultimate decision to cancel the event.

“I was disappointed, but I kind of saw it coming,” Mr. Link Crew, senior Vinicius Marcial said. “Everyone lost motivation.”

However, although South experienced a lack of interest, that wasn’t the case at West or Central. Those schools already had their Mr. Longhorn and Mr. CHS competitions and had more than 20 participants at those events.

Senior Student Council member Ilda Okanovic speculated that the South climate is different from Central and West.

“I think there’s more student involvement at those schools, including more administration and faculty involvement. Teachers and administrators have more common ground with the students at those schools,” she said.

Alexander said Mr. Patriot has usually been popular at South.

“We’ve had good success in the past and it’s harder to do with a small number of guys willing to participate,” Alexander said. “Especially with athletic events going on, it’s hard to keep momentum.”

Senior Jason Quinn signed up to participate in the event as Mr. Dance Team, but ended up dropping out.

“It’s not much of a show when there’s only 7 people,” he said.

Quinn said the event could be marketed better in the future to get more student interest.

“They should go to every club and tell them about Mr. Patriot and ask them if they would be interested,” he said.

However, Alexander did contact the sponsors of every club several times to inform them and asked for students to sign up.

Okanovic agrees with Quinn that the event could have been supported more.

“Stuco shouldn’t have to handle the whole thing. We need student, teacher and administration support. The administration couldn’t care less what we organize. They just want us to abide by the rules.”

Okanovic said she thinks traditional events like dances and Mr. Patriot are going to continue to lose student participation.

“I think people aren’t interested in those types of school events anymore. There’s an overall lack of school morale and people don’t want to be involved,” she said. “They just get caught up in their own lives.”