Five hours before prom starts, the common room of the Mt. Edgecumbe High School girl’s dorm is filled with the smell of hairspray and roses, and sounds of girls chatting, hairdryers buzzing, and music playing from a speaker in the center of the room.
Like many high schools around the country, Mt. Edgecumbe throws a prom for its students shortly before graduation. But the state-run boarding school in Sitka has a unique program to help out its many students from villages across Alaska: the Prom Prince and Princess program.
For the past 14 or so years, Alaska Airlines employees — known as “glam faeries” in this instance — fly to town to help the teens get ready for their big night. They do hair, nails, and makeup, provide jewelry, shoes, corsages and boutonnieres, and even do alterations on the many donated suits and dresses.
“I love doing hair and makeup,” says Lisa Lynch, one of the many volunteers helping in the crowded room. “I have a full face of makeup and a tiara on, even though I’m not going to prom, I thought it’d be fun, and I’m curling hair right now. I was doing some makeup and I was also playing music. So a very important job.”
Lynch’s mom, also doing hair nearby, is an Alaska Airlines employee, and Lynch decided to tag along. She remembers her own prom, getting ready at home in Anchorage with her mom, cousins and friends nearby.
“That was really important to me, because I enjoy that part of hanging out with my friends [and] doing each other’s hair and makeup, my mom helping and making dinner and everything for us. So I’m happy to be able to do this for other kids whose families can’t be here to help them like that.”
Alonza Topcock just finished her turn in the makeup chair. She’s a senior from Teller, Alaska. She says her prom look is inspired by the 2001 Mariah Carey cult classic “Glitter.”
“I wanted shimmer and I wanted glitter, and that’s exactly what they gave me,” she says. “You can show them inspo pics, and they’ll do their best to recreate it. I’m planning on getting my hair curled and maybe a half up, half down [hairdo]. And then they’re also going to help me with some body glitter.”
Topkok is going to wear a beaded black and gold strapless gown with high heels speckled with metal and flowers. She says she’s going “all out” for her final prom.
“Well, it’s senior year. You kind of have to,” she says.
It means a lot to Topkok that people volunteer their time and donate clothes, makeup, and jewelry when she and her friends don’t have their family members nearby to help out.
“I would have had my mom do my hair, like she’s [done] for every other dance, and I know she would have loved to be here to do it,” she says. “But these ladies are so amazing, and it’s very meaningful that they took their time to do this.”
The Mt. Edgecumbe High School prom is open to all class years. Angelina John is a freshman from Kwigillingok. She says she’s excited for her first prom before she heads home for the summer.
“We call our hometown ‘Kwig’ and I go there for summer, for berry picking, fishing, and preparing for the winter,” she says.
John is wearing her hair half up and half down, with a natural makeup look. Her dark burgundy nails with flowers and wave designs are painted to match her floor-length strapless purple gown.
“Getting ready and putting on a dress, it feels like a birthday party, but like it’s not your birthday,” she says.
But John isn’t the only one excited — and maybe slightly nervous — to get glammed up for prom.
Freshman Andrew Adams, from Mentasta Lake, is hovering at the entrance to the common room with his friends Calvin Jennings and Kacin Byayuk. They’re hoping to get their eyebrows trimmed, and maybe some haircuts, before they suit up for the dance, but they say they’re slightly intimidated to walk into the room full of girls getting glammed up.
Adams went to a middle school prom a couple of years ago, but this is his first high school prom. He says he asked two girls to dance at the eighth grade dance and he plans to continue with that tradition.
Despite some nerves, Adams and his friends eventually ask one of the volunteers to help them get ready. Refreshed and ready to head out, they say they’re feeling handsome and ready for the night to come.
