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Contest proves successful for photographer |
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Thursday, 15 February 2007 |
by DAVID MULVANEY
Chief Photographer
Sorry to all you ladies out there, but the fourth annual “Win-a-date” contest has come to an end.
I know it’s disappointing, but if I could go out with every one of you, I would.
For me, this means no more seeing my face plastered around campus and in every newspaper. And to be honest, I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing. It was kind of fun to have random people recognize me all throughout campus.
I would be taking pictures at some event and have a teacher say, “Hey,
you’re that guy from the newspaper,” and I’m thinking, “Well yeah, I’ve
been a photographer at the newspaper for two years, glad I’m finally
getting some credit,” only to have the teacher finish off with, “the
Win-a-date guy!”
 Active Image | Garrett Price | The Appalachian
The Appalachian’s chief photographer and senior technical photography major David R. Mulvaney has a good laugh over dinner at Red Onion Cafe with his date, freshman biology major Shaina L. Gold.
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Here I was thinking my skills as chief photographer were finally
getting some recognition when it hits me for the first time that I have
just become “The Win-a-date guy.”
In case you still have no idea what contest I’m talking about, let me
explain how this whole thing works. Each year before Valentine’s Day,
one lucky newspaper staff bachelor gets chosen by the editorial board
to go on a blind date.
Apparently there aren’t too many singles on staff so I wasn’t really
given much of an option. I was certainly a tad apprehensive, but I
figured it would be a great chance to get out of my comfort zone and
have some fun doing so.
One of the things that made me more nervous than anything else was that
I would not be able to see any of the entries or have a say in who was
chosen. It was all left up to my “trusted” co-workers.
The weekend prior to Valentine’s Day rolled around and the name and
number of the lucky winner was given to me. I waited until Friday
morning to call and got no answer.
“Oh, no, I can’t end up being the win-a-date failure,” I thought to myself.
I shot an e-mail to the winner and received a quick response phone call
from a roommate explaining how we had it all wrong. The e-mail the
newspaper received was describing a fellow roommate, Shaina Gold.
With the new number in hand and after a couple of hours of phone tag, I spoke with my real date for the first time.
The voice of a very sweet girl put me at ease and I knew this would go
smoothly. We hoped to be able to go out Saturday night but
unfortunately for me, she was going out of town for the weekend. So
Monday became the night that magical Win-a-date sparks would fly.
It was even better since I got excused to miss an hour of class to go
out on a date, something I suspect will never happen again.
The pick-up time was 8 p.m., and I was pretty nervous but, after seeing
her and introducing myself, I knew it would be a good time.
It was off to the good eats over at Red Onion Café, where we were treated to its finest entrées.
We established right away that neither of us had ever done anything
like this before. She claimed to be shy, but my undeniably good looks
and witty personality were more than enough to keep the laughs coming
and conversation flowing.
We talked about all sorts of things, from her recent move up to
Appalachian without even seeing the campus, the long road she will be
on to become a surgeon, about why women, including herself, can’t stand
having their picture taken even when they are beautiful, which Shaina
is.
I couldn’t help but be a bit surprised when she told me she was a big
fan of hockey and then a bit upset when she said she was a Pittsburgh
Penguins fan. After all, everyone knows this is Hurricane country.
After finishing off our dinner, we topped off the evening with
delicious Marble Slab ice cream. In case you haven’t been there, drop
everything, and go right away. This place is off-the-chain and by the
time the ice cream was finished, we were both ready to pop.
The date went better than I could have expected and while I may not
ever live this down with my friends, I had an awesome time with a very
lovely lady.
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