Before every Mr. Linganore show, contestants participate in three competitions during lunch. Competitions include cake decorating during the first lunch shift, writing sweetheart letters during second, and building gumdrop towers during third lunch.

During third lunch shift, contestants received two bags of gumdrops and 250 toothpicks to build their towers in 15 minutes. The towers needed to be the tallest to win and had to be stable enough so they didn’t fall over.

Some of the highest towers of the competition belonged to Alex Ismael, Ryan Leyh, Noah Price, and Dominic Barbagallo.   

Most towers were taller than they had been in previous years and only one fell over. Jake Santis won the Gumdrop Tower Competition with a measurement of 24 inches.

Most had not practiced beforehand.

“I practiced ahead of time with my escort Caroline Etherton. We knew what we were doing. I’m currently interning at an architect office, so I think I also had an advantage,” Ismael said.

For some contestants, timing was the main issue. 

“If I had to do it again, I would take less time building a base. If I got the base done quicker, I think I could’ve made it taller,” Leyh said.

The participants had very different ways of approaching the challenge. Some built traditional box or triangle shapes, while others were very creative with their structure. Ismael built a very intricate hexagonal shaped tower, and Price built a tower that had a twisted shape.