James Tate and the Shelton High School Prom

All anyone in this part of the country can talk about is a romantic kid from Shelton, Connecticut named James Tate -- who has been banned from his high school’s senior prom.

And what terrible thing did this teenager do? He and friends taped some big block cardboard letters up on the school’s outside wall – at 1AM – asking a girl to be his date to the prom. “HMU – Tate” said the signature. In a more elegant age he might have said call me. But this is 2011—so he said HMU. As in “hit me up”. Which, when I was going to my senior prom, was all about lending someone some money. As in “I’ll hit Dad up for the money for the prom tickets”.

OK – back to 2011. The girl said yes. But the high school’s headmaster Beth Smith said no. Seems she wasn’t amused. Nor did she think – like 99 percent of us – that this was a most creative way to ask someone to the senior prom. No – the headmaster thought that James Tate had been trespassing, being that it was 1AM and such, and by trespassing, had broken school rules. So she suspended Tate for one day.

If that had been all she did, I wouldn’t be writing about this because it probably wouldn’t have become the story of the moment on Twitter and Facebook – not to mention the mainstream media. No, it seems there are school policies at Shelton High. And, she said, school policy is that if you get suspended – you don’t go to your senior prom. Period the end.

But it’s NOT the end. James Tate has made network television appearances. Shelton’s Mayor thinks maybe the headmaster should revisit her decision. I’m writing about it along with hundreds of other reporters and bloggers. Not to mention all the tweets and comments and Facebook support page “likes”.

Some people think maybe we are all a little bats to make such an issue out of what is really just a school disciplinary matter.

But really, that’s not the point. At least not to me.

First of all, one’s senior prom is an event to be remembered for a lifetime. The right to those memories shouldn’t be cancelled for something that harmed no one. There was no violence. No one was bullied on Facebook or anywhere else. Tate didn’t flunk his finals. He’s going on to college.

And if I had a business which could use such a guy – I’d hire him in a minute!

It seems to me what America needs most these days is creativity and some derring-do. People who can come up with new ideas, new ways of doing things. And yet link them to the old ways so that all of us who aren’t 18 aren’t frightened off by those ideas. Well – finding a creative way to ask a girl to a prom is probably as old as proms themselves. We can all identify. And at a time when Tate could have used any number of digital, new media ways to reach his target – he chose one everyone could appreciate. Except of course Shelton High’s headmaster.

Come on Beth Smith. Give the guy a break. Bend your rules. Let him do the community service he’s volunteered to do. Cut off a lock of his hair maybe.

But reward his creativity – don’t stifle it.

Or maybe just reward a romantic deed in an age that is more about Lady Gaga than Rhett Butler.

And James Tate – when you graduate from Syracuse University – if you need a reference for that first real job – HMU. You know where I live. On Facebook.