By Dinah Alobeid

The Esquerre twins spent Memorial Day weekend receiving encouragement and praise from their extended family members at a slew of barbecues. The reason for the outpouring of support: Joyce, a sophomore communications major, and Vivian, a sophomore criminal justice major at the University of Maryland, are entered into a contest to be the next Wrigley’s Double-mint Twins.

The first section of the contest required interested twins to send a picture online and answer the question, “What simple pleasure do you enjoy most in life,” and ended May 31 with the announcement of the 15 semi-finalist pairs. Or so the twins and other contestants believed. However, a change to the Web site was added late in the day on May 31 stating that the semi-finalists will be notified in the coming days, between June 1 and 3.

The semi-finalists will meet with judges in New York to be interviewed so the judges can take a closer look at the twins’ personalities and see how they interact with one another, the twins explained. Another, more tasty, bonus is the semi-finalists will receive a year-long supply of Doublemint gum.

“Our breath will never smell bad if we win,” Vivian said.

As for exactly when they were going to find out if they were still in the running, the twins were a little confused.

“They didn’t say anything when we signed up. They just asked for a phone number and an e-mail address so we are expecting to find out around midday,” said Joyce.

Joyce and Vivian said that family members from all over the country came to celebrate the long weekend and the only way to accomodate the numbers of people was to have several gatherings. With 20 first cousins on their mom’s side there was a plethora of encouragement to dish out this past weekend.

“Our mom is one of nine children and that definitely helped us get the word out about the casting call for Wrigley’s,” the twins said.

The twins explained that family members told friends to go online and vote on a scale of one to five to show support for the twins, even though the online votes do not contribute to the selection process, only the judges votes count. The twins contacted people through The Facebook and their mother’s co-workers to help spread the news of what they were partaking in.

“We think at least over a 1,000 people voted online and that makes us really excited. Of course, this whole weekend our family told us, ‘You guys have to win,’ and ‘You’re the best-looking ones in the competition,’ but they are our family,” Joyce said.

The girls grew up in West Orange, N.J., and were involved in extracurricular activities and performance art from a young age. Vivian took ballet lessons while Joyce took gymnastics lessons for three years each and they both studied piano for two years. Joyce’s interest in performance began early when she took part in a summer acting workshop. Throughout school, however, track prevailed in the twins’ lives.

They ran cross-country and track from the third grade until their senior year of high school, they said. However, on more than one occasion, being twins did not work in the girls’ favor.

“We run the same events and at one meet during indoor track the officials couldn’t tell us apart and made Vivian run an extra lap,” explained Joyce. They took precautions for the next race by wearing their hair differently and having one twin wear contacts while the other ran with glasses. This didn’t seem to be enough because during the next race the officials made Joyce run an extra lap herself, Vivan said.

“You have to pay attention to what we wear if we are notifying you to tell us apart,” Vivian said, as she remembered the frustration of the mix-up. They approached the officials to let them know they would be attempting to distinguish themselves through different hair and eyeglass use and even one twin turning their jersey inside out.

The girls also described fun incidents of being twins. During preschool the twins were in different classes, separated only by cubbies, they said. They were five-years-old and decided to switch classes for a day to see if anyone would notice but were immediately caught. As soon as they tried they each froze as they didn’t know the other’s assigned seat. The girls also like to pick up each other’s phones and call the other’s friends just to get the response, “You sound different.”

Their mother, Barbara Davis, said she has always supported their aspirations to do something, even something small, with modeling or acting.

“Of course I am excited for them, this would be a great opportunity. It is great how the Internet has connecetd all of our friends and family and the girls’ friends at school to support them and vote for them,” said Davis.

The postponement of the results hasn’t disheartened the twins.

“It makes it a little more nerve-racking but we are still really excited to find out,” said Vivian.