Sophomore accounting major Jesse Arman could be Miss June. Junior architecture major Ludo Douglas might be Miss November, and sophomore physical therapy major Katie Lang will pose for the cover.
These girls and at least seven others will appear in a calendar the fraternity Phi Kappa Alpha is hoping to produce. The group held its 2005 Dream Girl Competition Sunday night in the Curry Student Center Ballroom.
Lang, who won the title of “Dream Girl,” received a $225 spa treatment gift certificate, a silver tiara, a sash, a dozen red roses and will appear on the cover of a calendar featuring all of the contestants.
“It feels wonderful,” Lang said of her achievement. “I never thought I’d win. I only practiced five minutes for my routine.”
For the talent portion of the competition, Lang demonstrated her ability to remove two shirts off her back, down to a pink tank top, all the while swiveling her hips to keep three Hula Hoops around her waist.
Other competitors recited poems, tap danced, performed gymnastic stunts or, as Ashley Adamczyk did, danced the routine that appeared at the end of the 2004 movie “Napoleon Dynamite.”
The contestants were judged not only on their talent performance, but also on their answers to Boston-themed trivia questions. Some of the girls apologized and offered excuses for not knowing the answers to the multiple-choice questions.
“I’m sorry, I’m from New York,” said Arman, who missed a question about the Red Sox, but still took second place and won a $75 gift certificate for a spa treatment, and a $20 certificate to Our House East.
After the first round the three judges, two from the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and the other from the Boston Fire Department (BFD), deliberated for about five minutes and narrowed the contestant pool down to six finalists.
The $5 entry fee for the event was donated to the MDA through the BFD. Dream Girl Chair Jonathan Wojtkun said the first annual competition raised about $500 and brought in between 75 to 100 people.
While the judges chose the finalists, those in attendance had the chance to go home winners as the fraternity raffled off ImprovBoston tickets, Museum of Science passes and baseballs autographed by Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein, manager Terry Francona and pitcher Tim Wakefield.
After the field was narrowed, the finalists had one more opportunity to prove they should be named “Dream Girl.”
The remaining six contestants chose an open-response question at random from a fireman’s hat.
Third place winner, sophomore communications major Nina Baltierra, chose a question that asked her to define the school spirit at Northeastern and how it can be improved.
“There’s some school spirit around, but it’s not manifested in our souls,” she said. “We have to have extra amounts of fun at campus events like this.”
As third place winner, Baltierra took home a $20 certificate to Our House East and a $50 certificate to The Cheesecake Factory.
The event, which is also put on by other Phi Kappa Alpha chapters around the country, has been the topic of discussion for Northeastern chapter members for three years, and came together as Wojtkun started weekly planning meetings six months ago.
Wojtkun said he was nervous before the show, but after the event, he thought it had gone off without a hitch.
“It went flawless. I’m graduating so I won’t be here next year, but I’ll come back just to watch this,” he said.
The cost to put on the event was about $800, he said, and he expects to fund next year’s competition with the proceeds from the calendar sales which will begin sometime in the fall, if the project is seen through, Wojtkun said.
