After singing a song while playing his guitar and showing off his strength by lifting balloons, senior Robert Lamb was crowned this year’s Mr. Annandale.

“I feel relieved now that its over, I didn’t think I was going to win honestly, when I didn’t get one of those [category sashes] I didn’t think so,” Lamb said.

Throughout the competition, there were different categories in which other contestants could have placed as well.

Senior Michael Velasquez was crowned Mr. Elegance; senior Luvius Thanh was given the title of Mr. Muscle; junior Alhassan Sessay was chosen as Mr. Talent as well as Mr. Fan Favorite and junior Nana Forson was crowned Mr. Spirit. Mr. Intelligence was awarded to senior Akim Bangura.

The panel of teacher judges included technology teacher Phillip Harris, Latin teacher Norm Ash, English teacher Kathleen Mathis, social studies teacher John Hawes and safety and security assistant Carl Klein. The judges chose the winner of the competition from the 13 contestants who participated.

Acts such as singing and dancing were popular among the juniors and seniors.

To determine the winner of the competition, judges rated each contestant for each category from a one to a ten which was then combined to determine their final scores which decided the overall winner.

The audience was laughing throughout most of the categories which was the general atmosphere during the competition.

“The talent I did was from African culture to make people laugh. I will probably come to watch from college next year,” Bangura said.

Others saw it as an opportunity to participate in something that they usually would not see themselves doing.

“Mr. Annandale is about giving kids an opportunity to come on stage and share their talent with others and as a result, hopefully cause someone to step out of their comfort zone and share their talent as well,” junior Nana Forson said.

For his talent portion, Forson played the guitar with two backup singers, and eventually invited one of the judges, Mathis, on the stage.

The 13 candidates as well as the other people involved have put lots of dedication and effort into this annual event.

“There was a lot more diversity among the candidates this year which was really nice to see variety of acts,” leadership advisor Carmen Bartley said.