They squawked. They chirped. They
cackled. And when the feathers finished flying Gabe Bolio, James Clifford and
Eli Nash walked away with the Leondard J. Waxdeck Trophy on Friday night as the
winners of the 48th Piedmont High School Bird Calling Contest.
Gabe, James and Eli, all juniors,
wowed the judges with their rendition of Tympanuchis
cupido, the Greater Prairie Chicken. Senior Dina Zangwill placed
second with her call of Gavia stellata,
the Red Throated Loon. And sophomores Becca Havian, Jo Ireland and Amy Kelleher
finished third with a spirited mating call of Falco rusticolus, the Gyrfalcon.
All three acts will fly New York later
this month to appear on "The Late Show With David Letterman,"
continuing a tradition dating back to 1997 on the Letterman show and another 16
years before that on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson."
The evening was a double triumph
for Eli, who also served as co-host for the event with his friend, Alec Sieben,
who competed as well with fellow juniors Zane Haney and Brian Lee, peforming
the call of Grus Americana, the
Laughing Gull.
Before the curtain went up Eli and
Alec were asked how it felt to be both co-hosts and rivals at the same time.
"We respect and admire each other
as hosts," said Eli, "but we despise each other as competitors."
The evening also featured a singing
quartet of Lucy Faust, Sofia Gotch, Apryl Hsu and Nako Narter, who diverted the
standing-room-only audience with a do-wop rendition of "Rockin'
Robin" while the judges – author Kelly Corrigan, retiring Piedmont Middle
School principal Jeanne Donovan and retiring Piedmont High School English and
Public Speaking teacher Janet Labberton – reached their decision.
The crowd also viewed a rare video
of the Piedmont bird ballers' very first appearance on "The Tonight Show
With Johnny Carson" in 1976, followed by a surprise appearance by Carson's
nephew, Jeff Sotzing, who presented principal Richard Kitchens with a framed
poster from the 1990 contest, which Waxdeck, the contest's founder, gave to
Carson.
"It hung on the wall in
Johnny's office until he retired, then it hung in his home until he died,"
said Sotzing. "Then it passed to me. But I think it's time it came back to
where it came from."
Kitchens promised it will hang in a
place of honor at the school, right next to the Waxdeck Trophy itself.
The bird calling contest began in
1963 as a class project in Waxdeck's biology class after one of his students
asked him, "Wax, can we do something to liven things up here?"
The first competition, held in
Waxdeck's classroom at lunchtime, drew only a handful of spectators. But its
popularity mushroomed, and it had to be moved to the school's Alan J. Harvey
Theater, where it quickly became the hottest ticket in town.
In 1976 Johnny Carson began hosting
the bird callers on his show for the next 16 years.
"It was huge," said
history teacher Ken Brown, who has been the contest's faculty advisor for the
past four years. "I remember being a teenager back in the '70s and
watching the bird callers every year on 'The Tonight Show.' When I finally got
hired to teach here, I thought, 'This is the place!'
Carson retired in 1992, and Waxdeck
died suddenly from a heart attack two years later. It looked like the bird
calling contest had run its course.
But the students refused to let it
die. They resurrected the competition in 1995 and asked Carson's successor, Jay
Leno, to host the bird callers on "The Tonight Show."
Leno, who was still trying to get
out from under Carson's shadow, turned them down. But Letterman, who adored
Carson, was glad to have them on his show. And there they have appeared ever
since.
The students will fly to New York
on May 20 and appear on "The Late Show" the next night, May 21.
And the contest's future is
assured. Sitting in the second row and having the time of their lives were
Eli's sister Emily and her friends Molly Szczech, Addie Christensen and Amelia
Eldridge, all eighth graders at Piedmont Middle School who will enter Piedmont
High next year.
"We're going to enter the
contest together!" said Amelia. "We've already started
practicing!"
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