Beauty pageants aren’t just for women.

The Mr. CALS Competition, which took place Monday at the Jeff and Deb Hansen Agriculture Student Learning Center, kicked off the beginning of CALS week at Iowa State.

The male pageant featuring students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has been hosted each year beginning in 2013 by professional agriculture sorority Sigma Alpha.

The ticket sale proceeds as well as the donated canned food will go toward Food at First, a local food pantry that offers a free meal program.

The pageant began with a welcome from the 2014 Mr. CALS, Drew Mogler, describing his formal duties as Mr. CALS, including handing out cookies throughout the rest of the week.

The contestants received their own introduction to give everyone a feel of their personalities, hobbies and skills. The agriculture men were then judged in three categories: dream date, dress your major and lip-synching. 

Five professors made up the panel of judges.

Contestants were asked to describe their idea of a dream date while wearing outfits that accentuated their plans.

Next, contestants dressed their majors. They explained what their choices in clothing had to do with their respective majors. Some brought extra props or people onstage with them to further their cause.

Outfits ranged from reasonable to questionable, with many cow costumes incorporated.

During a brief intermission, contestants ran through the crowd in an attempt to collect money. The contestants who received the most donations stayed in the competition for the final round, lip-synch.

To introduce the crowd to the round, Mogler did a lip-synch of his own to “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” As a result of a tie, six contestants remained in the round. “Wrecking Ball,” “Milkshake” and “Twist and Shout” were among the songs performed, accompanied by wild dance moves.

Along with the lip-synching, the remaining contestants were asked questions by the judges, such as, “What’s your worst quality?” and “Would you rather be born rich, handsome or intelligent?” This caused the contestants to think fast.

Kegan Wertz, senior in dairy science, won the competition. The new Mr. CALS was also a participant last year.

“I love this. We help with Food at First with the Dairy Science club,” Wertz said of the event. “It’s going to a really good cause and it’s just a lot of fun, you get to meet a lot of people in agriculture and life science, make a lot of friends. I just get to go out here and have a good time.”

Nick Stortz, senior in Agronomy, became the new Mr. Congeniality. 

Throughout the evening, a grand total of $4,039 was raised, with $2,469 raised by the contestants. About $1,500 came from ticket sales. A total of 164 canned food goods were also accumulated for the food pantry.

“We’ve had a great turnout each year, we had about the same attendance as we had in the past, but it’s always fun to see all of the guys and what they can bring,” said Megan Henry, junior in agriculture and life sciences education.