By Sue Wambolt, Contributing Writer
Northborough/Southborough – At the suggestion of teacher Patricia Riley, Algonquin Regional High School (ARHS) seniors Nic Zanghi, Giles Ober and Sam Huddart created a “lip dub” video for their senior marketing research project. Titled “The Algonquin Lip Dub,” the Youtube sensation, which garnered more than 7,000 hits in 12 hours, was created to promote school spirit and showcase the camaraderie of the student body at “The Gonk.”
In order to encourage participation in the filming of the video, which took place on two separate days – one in December (dedicated to clubs and extracurricular activities) and one in January (dedicated to the sports teams) – the students used a variety of tactics.
“Our goal was to bring as many students together as possible, from students?involved in sports?to those involved in?extracurricular activities. In order to do this, we promoted the project?through?Twitter,?Facebook, posters, school announcements and video blogs,” they said.
Proving that T-Hawk pride runs deep, more than 950 students showed up to lip sync to the hit Carly Rae Jepsen/Owl City pop song, “Good Time.” ?In the video, after the school's front door is opened up by ARHS's legendary former Athletic Director Dick Walsh, students take turns dancing and lip syncing throughout the school to the upbeat tune. In one of the final segments, there is a montage of moments celebrating the school's many sports and clubs. The video ends with an overhead shot of the entire school.
The overhead shot was taken from an airplane owned and operated by Doug Stone, a local Realtor in town.? Davis not only went up with Stone, he “literally hung out the window of the plane,” the students recalled, to get the shot.
?The first-ever ARHS Lip Dub was completed in five months. Zanghi, Ober and Huddart worked together directing and producing the video while Mike Davis,?a?2011 ARHS graduate, filmed and edited.
The trio will be presenting “The Algonquin Lip Dub” at the state Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) conference in Boston, Thursday, March 14 through Saturday, March 16. DECA is a national organization for high school students enrolled in a marketing program and is the only student organization which prepares its members to be America's future leaders in the fields of marketing, management and entrepreneurship. The video will be entered in the “public relations” category.
If all goes well, the video will qualify for the National DECA conference this May in Anaheim, CA.
Riley noted that she was very proud of the students” work.
“I was excited when the boys decided to take the idea and run with it. I knew that the Student Council wanted to do this, but did not have the time to devote to such a huge undertaking so I suggested the boys take it on as I felt it would be a positive thing for Algonquin,” she said. “They put an enormous amount of time and effort into this project and never quit when it got tough.”
“Our intent was to leave behind a legacy for incoming ARHS students, and so far we are on the right track,” Ober said. “The response has been overwhelming.”
To watch the video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV3CoFvjdCc.
To learn more about DECA visit http://massdeca.org/blog/