With spring just around the corner, students have begun to think  about this year’s annual Bird Calling Contest, a contest that represents Piedmont through its quirky appeal and ongoing tradition.

Shannon Overturf, the administrative assistant at Millennium High School, is keeping the tradition going by stepping up to take past leader Ken Brown’s spot in leading the Bird Calling Contest.

“Mr. Daniels and Mr. Mapes approached me one day about leading the contest,” Overturf said. “It sounded like if nobody else did, last year may have been the last year.”

Overturf said the bird calling contest is a unique tradition and decided to take on the role of leading it to keep the tradition alive.

“It’s a contest that carries on from generation to generation,”  Overturf said.

Overturf said that along with the other obligations the leader of the contest takes on, she has the responsibility of finding a new TV show for the winners, a change that this 51st year of bird calling brings.

“Because David Letterman is no longer hosting, I have to find a new program, which Kim Taylor is helping me with,” Overturf said.

Whether or not students have made it on the Late Night Show, almost all PHS students who have entered the contest have had good things to say about it.

Sophomore Will Reicher participated in the bird calling contest last year and although he did not place, he said that he had a positive, fun experience.

“Yeah it would have been nice to place, but as a freshman, my biggest goal was to just get people to enjoy my skit and laugh,” Reicher said.

Reicher said the Bird Calling Contest is great because it’s a sense of competition doing something most people don’t normally do.

For last year’s Bird Calling Contest champions, seniors Maret Sotkiewicz and Tyler Ellis, competition was neither something that was on their minds nor a main motivation.

“Tyler and I wrote our script three days before,” Sotkiewicz said. “We were just doing it to laugh and have fun.”

Sotkiewicz said that she and Ellis were absolutely shocked when they heard their names called as winners.

“When we were waiting for the winners to be announced everyone lined up,” Sotkiewicz said. “They called second runner up and we clapped and then they called first runner and we clapped and then they called our names and we clapped and then we were like, ‘wait what?’”

Both Sotkiewicz and Reicher said that they think it is important for students who are preparing on participating this year to just have fun with it.

Reicher said that’s it’s very important to be okay with making a fool out of yourself, and that it was actually fun feeling so ridiculous.

“Don’t take it too seriously,” Sotkiewicz said. “It’s a great experience just to do it.”