From business founders to marathon runners, the Class of 2012 will bring a host of talented students to Penn. And now incoming Nursing freshman Jaclyn Gage can add another skill to the class roster - bird calling.
Gage recently won second place in Piedmont High School's 43rd-annual Bird-Calling Contest, a well-known competition in which groups of students imitate birds of their choosing.
They perform in costume as part of original skits in hopes of winning a title, a trophy and a spot on "The Late Show with David Letterman."
Gage and the two girls she performed with, along with the first- and third-place winners, traveled from Northern California last week to appear on the show in New York. After engaging in some banter with Letterman, each group flaunted their skills for a cheering studio and nationally-televised audience.
The competition is popular at her high school, Gage said, but she had never tried bird-calling before. While the three girls were performing in "Fiddler on the Roof" last year, they discussed the contest and decided to give it a try.
During the show, they honed "really good accents," Gage said. They wanted to choose a bird that would allow them to put the accents to use in their skit.
"We went through tons of books of calls and chose our favorite one," she said.
They settled on the Black-bellied Sand Grouse, which is native to Kazakhstan.
With the help of a science teacher, the girls listened to the calls and tried to break them into parts. Gage said their experience with musical theater helped them recreate the sounds.
"I sing, so it was pretty easy for us to break them down," she said.
The group practiced for about a month, during meetings at lunch and after school.
This year's competition featured eight acts by 21 students. A Piedmont biology teacher started the contest in 1963 and it quickly grew from a local event to one with national appeal. Winners appeared on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" until the host's retirement, when Letterman began featuring them on his show.
Gage said the "Late Show" experience was "really cool" - especially hanging out in the green room where the Beatles stayed and overhearing fellow guest Sarah Jessica Parker while they got their hair and makeup done.
"Watching ourselves on TV later was so weird," she added.
Gage said she is excited to study nursing at Penn and hopes to minor in theater. She said she doesn't see bird-calling in her future, but had a lot of fun with the experience.
"Now I totally forget that [bird calling] is weird to other people," she said. "To me, it's just a Piedmont tradition."
