[slidepress gallery=’highschoolmusical’]

St. Thomas students’ normal lunch routines were interrupted by a musical performance in the cafeteria at noon Wednesday.

Sophomores Erika Jarnes and Katie Peterson brainstormed and came up with the idea to perform “Stick to the Status Quo” from the original High School Musical movie in the cafeteria.

“There’s always a bunch of people here at a certain time so we were like ‘We want to freak out as many people as possible,'” Jarnes said. “The cafeteria’s perfect and it matches the song from High School Musical.”

Jarnes spread the word of the performance to friends in clubs she is involved with.

“I sent out e-mails and I was like ‘Hey, who wants to do this? It’s really short.'” she said. “I just asked people in person, asked them if they wanted to do it and just got as many people as possible together to do it.”

Roughly 20 performers surprised their fellow students from multiple different tables in the cafeteria. Jarnes and sophomore Jacob Wakem sang the leads while other students performed a choreographed dance.

The impromptu audience was completely surprised by the show.

“I just thought they were turning the radio on and then I saw people dancing,” freshman Liz Maidl said. “I was surprised; it was really cool.”

Other students appreciated the creativity of the performance.

“I thought it was really cool,” freshman Alexis Rodarmel said. “You come to the cafeteria every single day and to see something out of the norm, it’s just fun, it’s cool, it’s college. I love college for stuff like this.”

The students involved in the performance were pleased with the outcome of the show.

“I feel like people reacted the way I thought they would,” freshman Albert Conteh said. “You usually don’t see this all the time. I was really happy because I’ve always wanted to this in the cafeteria.”

Conteh’s favorite part of the performance was Jarnes’s solo. “It reminded me of a musical so much; very animated. I liked that a lot.”

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu