Prom night at Utah’s Payson High School will be one for the ages.
As students plan for the final prom there before the school relocates at the end of this year, they will have some help from “Footloose” star Kevin Bacon, who is making a special trip to the school on April 20 to mark the event.
The hit movie is now 40 years old and was filmed in part at the school. Students and teachers have spent the year doing everything they could think of to get on Bacon’s radar screen.
On Friday, they found out it worked, according to Today.
Bacon called into the school, where students waited in the gym for the news they hoped to hear.
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“I have been so impressed with everything that’s been going on there with this crazy idea to get me to come back,” he said. “I’ve been amazed at the work that all of you have been putting into this, with the musical and the flash mobs and the re-creations.”
LET’S DANCE: Actor Kevin Bacon announced he’ll be at Payson High’s prom to celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Footloose.”
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“It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me, not to mention the fact that you tied in SixDegrees.org, our foundation, and are trying to figure out ways to give back to your community. It’s really inspirational, so thank you. Thank you,” he said, referring to his foundation that is working to help those in need.
“And I’m gonna come. I gotta come,” he said.
Students at Payson High School, where “Footloose” was filmed, are on an all-out mission to have star Kevin Bacon attend their prom.
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“Let’s dance! We’re gonna do it! This is awesome!” student Rubie Raff said in response.
“We’re gonna party really hard, Kevin,” Kaleb Dymock said.
“Thank you guys. Let’s dance,” Bacon said.
Bacon’s charity, SixDegrees, was already planning to be at the school that day to help students assemble humanitarian kits for local charities in Utah, according to Deseret News.
The movie, which tells the saga of a rebellious city kid transforming a school with a ban on dancing to rock music, has become a part of the school, with stills from it plastered in the halls, according to Deseret News.
The locker Bacon used in the film is marked with a plaque reading, “Congrats! You’ve got Kevin Bacon’s locker!”
“It’s something we are kind of reminded of a good amount,” Dymock, a junior and student council member, said.
“For this year, we kind of put like every event toward Kevin Bacon in a way. So like everything that we’ve done … we’ve kind of just made sure that it connects to Kevin Bacon,” student council member and senior Emily Faux said. “
It all began with a community screening of the film on the football field.
“If we’re going to bring him back for ‘Footloose,’ we should probably see it,” Dymock said.
Bacon has said in the past that it was a film he was glad he made.
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“I think that it was a great gift to be part of that movie,” he said in 2022, according to Today. “I certainly took it very seriously when I was doing it and I love that people will still come up and say that they just showed it to their kids,” he said.
