Students get creative to snag prom dates

NEW YORK, April 25 (UPI) -- Students at a New York high school are going to great lengths in prom date appeals, in a practice that is gaining popularity, classmates say.

Stuyvesant High School seniors have donned costumes and made elaborate preparations to ask their intended partners to the senior prom, the New York Post reported Sunday.

Senior David Park, 18, enlisted two friends to help him invite Ronny Ho to the June 12 prom at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel. One friend dressed up in a dragon costume, the other as a horse, while Park wore a grey sweatshirt and a sign around his neck reading "shining armor."

As Ho watched, Park jumped on his "horse," attacked and "slew" the dragon, and then went on one knee in front of Ho with a long-stemmed rose, the Post said.

"Now that I've slain the dragon," Park said to Ho, "will you be my princess and come to prom with me?"

She was "kind of terrified at first," Ho said. A crowd of students cheered when she said "yes."

Larger-than-life prom proposals at the school started two years ago, students said, when a senior hung a large sign in the school asking his girlfriend to the dance, the Post reported.