Mark would arrange for a horse-drawn carriage ride on an ideal date.

Rico would surprise his date with flowers and dance the night away at a club.

Jaime would end the night with a beachside picnic dinner.

Justin would bring his mother along.

Only one could be named Mr. Suave 2007.

The Mr. Suave Pageant Friday night let four Eastern students strut across the Buzzard Auditorium stage in the battle to see who was the “suavest.”

The evening began with a brief introduction to the four contestants and continued with a casual wear/ideal date segment and finished with a formal wear/Q and A session. All men were also judged on overall smoothness.

The competition was organized by Esperanza, a colony of Sigma Lambda Gamma, which is a Latina-based multicultural membership sorority.

Tanya Guzman, a graduate assistant in the Gateway Program, was one of the three judges and said she was excited to be part of the show.

“I didn’t know what to expect for the ideal date part, but I thought the idea was a lot better than a swimsuit competition; it was fun to see how the guys would be creative,” she said.

Mark Valencia, junior athletic training major, walked away with the lilac-colored Mr. Suave cane and polo shirt, but the women awed at the smoothness of each man throughout the night.

Valencia let the audience know he was the vice president of the lacrosse club with plans to be an athletic trainer for Major League Baseball or basketball.

Freshman business management major Jaime Munoz showed off his eyes and let the audience know some of his best qualities.

“If I barely know you, or we just met, we’ll click like that,” he said.

Ricardo “Rico” Guerra a sophomore communications major, opened the “ideal date” skit part of the show by acting out his date with the help of PowerPoint images on a screen behind him and stand-in date sophomore foreign language major Rosa Varela.

Guerra twirled his date as he walked her to the “car,” two chairs placed in the center of the stage. He spun her again before he helped her into the “car” and exhibited his smoothness further by pushing her chair in at the pretend restaurant and giving her compliments.

Three of the men decided to have more traditionally romantic ideal dates.

Sophomore special education major Justin Gross took his date in a different direction.

Host of the show, Gabriella Garcia, read the script Gross had written as he acted out his date.

“Mother will accompany them because they are under-aged,” she read between giggles. The date continued with household chores like washing the dishes, paper-boat making and research at a library.

The audience shrieked with laughter as Gross asked his “mother” if she would please drive them to McDonald’s.

“Don’t be modest; Mom’s paying,” he told his date.

It ended with a hug and “was made official” when Gross went home and changed his relationship status on Facebook from “single” to “in a relationship.”

Garcia said originally the members of Esperanza wanted to sponsor a Latina beauty pageant.

“This was supposed to be a Latina pageant,” she said. “But all the Latina girls were already members [of Esperanza], so we decided to make it a male pageant.”

The pageant was changed and designed to support a positive male image on campus and recruit women interested in becoming a part of the colony.

“We’re not picky right now,” Garcia said. “Well, we are picky, but we won’t discriminate,” she corrected herself with a smile.

More than 40 people attended the event. Approximately one in four were female.

“I think this was a good way to support Latino Heritage Month,” said Jeanette Castellanos, a freshman political science major, “And it was, of course, hilarious.”

President of Esperanza, Solymar Gomez, a junior Spanish education major, said the organization hopes to make the pageant an annual event.

First runner up, Ricardo Guerra pretends to drive a car for the “Ideal Date” portion of Mr. Suave 2007, Friday night in the Buzzard Auditorium. Mark Valencia won Mr. Suave 2007. Karla Browning/The Daily Eastern News

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