For Prom, Don't Worry About the Date, Think of the Ride

Sue Shellenbarger:

Eighteen-year-old Nick Wilckens and his five friends want to arrive in style at their senior prom next week. Instead of a predictable black limousine, they plan to clang to the curb in a vintage firetruck. "We're going to be the people who are remembered," Mr. Wilckens says.

His friend, Jared Kosmala, 18, adds, "We want to spray people with hoses. But I don't know if that's going to happen."

In Racine, Wis., where Mr. Wilckens and his friends live, students have a 60-year tradition of taking oddball transportation to the city's big prom party, from homemade parade floats to vintage hearses.

Dina Davis made history in 1987 by arriving with her date on a baby elephant named Louella. "I'm just a normal girl, but I had a crazy prom night," says Ms. Davis of Shorewood, Wis., who works in sales for a food company. Her date borrowed the elephant from a petting zoo where he worked, Ms. Davis says. "Nobody will ever beat it."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 11, 2012 1:12 AM
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