Giving New Meaning To "Senior" Prom
They'd been looking forward to this for months. Both the seniors and the senior citizens.
For years, the kids from Washington High School in Washington, Mo., have been inviting the senior citizens from the community to join them at prom, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports.
Meghan Woods couldn't imagine prom any other way.
"I love it! I did it last year and it was so fun," Megan said.
And she's not just saying that?
"No, I actually love it, like this is what I look forward to every year," she said.
And at prom, she was pretty aggressive about getting onto the dance floor. "Sir, next dance would you be up to dance with me?" she asked.
Normally, the high school girls ask the senior gentlemen to dance.
And, of course, vice-versa.
They come from nursing homes, assisted-living centers - even neighboring towns.
Seventy-year-old Reba Wittenborn left her husband home to teach the boys a thing or two about dancing.
"They just go back and forth and you got to show them who's boss, push them around a little bit," Wittenborn said.
She said it is much more fun than her prom ever was.
Others, like Prom King Charlie Frazier never even got to go to their prom.
"I probably didn't even have a suit I could wear or anything like that, and while I couldn't do it that many years ago, this is … oh gosh, with what I'm doing now you can't top that."
"Do you ladies know that I drive a red mustang?" Frazier asked a group of young ladies.
"Oooh," they swooned. "Do you? Oh man."
Together they laughed and partied until the wee hour of … 9:30 p.m.
When you see young and old mixing like this, you realize how much we normally segregate ourselves by age - and how much we're missing out on.
