Pagent Queen’s FU to bullies

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The prank that someone played on Utah high school junior Michael Conrad earlier this month was so mean it woke up the “mama bear” in his mom.

But a college student who wears the crown of Miss Greater Salt Lake gave Michael sweet revenge.

Michael’s mom, Jennifer Conrad, told Fox 13 that sometime after Labor Day, someone egged their home and left a note that read: “I’m sorry for the mess. But how about I make it up to you by taking you to homecoming?”

It had the name of a friend of Michael’s, a cheerleader, on it. Conrad showed the note to the TV station - someone had left a lipstick smooch on the note, too.

But when Michael - who has Autism and ADHD, Conrad said - asked the cheerleader to the dance she told him she already had a date.

“She felt bad,” Conrad told Fox 13, noting that the girl had nothing to do with the prank.

Michael’s former debate teacher, Jenn Palomino, caught wind of the prank as news of it spread through Taylorsville High School.

“I just thought it was a terrible incident,” Palomino told KSL in Salt Lake City. “I didn’t know that I could do anything to turn it around, to be honest.”

She told a friend, a former pageant queen, who in turn told Talbot about the incident.

“The second I heard about this, I knew I wanted to do something,” Talbot told KSL. “I automatically broke down into tears, because just thinking about the fact that someone would go out of their way to make someone else feel bad is so heartbreaking to me.”

She decided to ask Michael to homecoming - for real.

She wanted to do it at the school so the bullies could know about it.

Talbot is studying ballet and, inspired by an uncle with special needs, is working on a master’s degree in special education at the University of Utah, according to KSL.

“I really wanted to make sure it was at the school,” she told Fox 13. “So that way those people who have been bullying could see something positive was coming from this and that they weren’t winning.”


Videos that Talbot and Palomino posted on social media show that Michael’s classmates didn’t know what was going on when Talbot walked into their history class last week.

She walked to the front of the room where Michael was seated.

“Michael? Hi Michael, I’m Dexonna and I was wondering if I could take you to homecoming?” she asked him.

“Sure,” Michael said.

“You wanna go to homecoming with me?”

“Sure.”

“OK.”

She handed him a poster. “And I hear that Starbursts are one of your favorite treats so I brought you some Starbursts. And then we’ll go to homecoming.”

The students in the room applauded.

“One of my students was recently the target of a bullying incident where some kids decided to make up a fake homecoming proposal. Well jokes on them because today Miss Greater Salt Lake came and asked HIM to homecoming,” Palomino tweeted with her video of the visit.

“Bullying is lame and kindness always wins.”

The two went to homecoming on Saturday. Talbot told the Deseret News she planned a day date, dinner, pictures, “then obviously tear it up on the dance floor.”

“Hoco w the coolest guy out there! Thank you to everyone who made this a reality - Dexanna Talbot