Teens are finding new and innovative ways to ask each other to prom.
With the help of two friends, Jefferson City High School junior Madison Bond covered every inch of her boyfriend's truck with 1,300 Post-It notes.
"Prom? Prom? Prom? Prom? Prom? Prom?" read the notes.
"It took us two hours to write "Prom?' on every one of them," said Bond, who is dating New Bloomfield High School junior Alex Cuneio.
Inside the cab of his pickup, she left a large sign with a candy bar that said "Yes" and a smaller one covered in Band-Aids that said "No."
"A week later, I came home to a trail of the same sticky notes from my basement, up two flights of stairs, into my bedroom. Another sign said, "Look Up.' So I did and the "Yes' sign was taped to my ceiling with a rose!" she said.
Sloan Pleus - who lives in a home that overlooks the Missouri River - had a similar experience.
After a slumber party with seven of her friends last Sunday, Pleus - a junior at JCHS - found herself jostled awake by two of them. Every morning, she heads to the kitchen to have some breakfast. But on this morning, she wasn't quite ready yet. Although several of her friends had already headed to work, Pleus prefers a cautious approach to the day's beginning.
"I'm not a morning person. They kept trying to get me to go upstairs," she said. "They kept saying, "Why don't we walk upstairs? Let's look at the pretty sunrise.'"
When Pleus finally heeded their pleas, she looked out the window at the winding river, streams and barren fields down below. In 4-foot tall red letters, her boyfriend Joey Burkett had spelled out "Prom?" with some of his friends.
"He had left a pair of binoculars for me in the kitchen. It was so cute!" she said.
Although the prom invitations weren't unexpected - Bond has been dating Cuneio and Pleus has been dating Burkett for months - the creative approach was appreciated by everyone who saw the effort.
"It just shows they put a lot of thought into asking you, and that they tried to make it really special," Pleus said. "Joey really went above and beyond."
Pleus said teenagers increasingly are looking for more creative ways to ask one another out.
A few days ago near the high school, an eager paramour tucked dozens of cups into chain-link fence to spell out a prom invitation to his prospective date. Another young man whose family owns an airplane took his date up in the air to look at the ground below where a message was etched.
In today's environment of easy access to digital photography and social media, sharing the happy news is easier and more instantaneous than ever.
"It's so much fun to see the pictures and watch the videos," Pleus said. "And sometimes, we witness them at school."
Jefferson City High School's prom is scheduled today at Capitol Plaza Hotel; Helias High School's prom took place April 28.