Clay Aiken Sets East Students' Dream in Motion
By JoAnne Young - Lincoln Journal Star
April 26, 2005

What started as a normal school day turned into a manic Monday morning for Lincoln East High School seniors Britney and Bethany Wekesser and some of their classmates.

The Oprah Winfrey Wildest Dreams bus pulled up to East mid-morning and a camera crew [Shaun Cloud, Cinematographer, and Andy Hambleton, Sound Technician] walked into Jetz Jacobson's third-period Spanish class.

Jacobson thought the video and sound crew was there to tape a documentary when they asked the entire class to come down to the commons area, just beyond the school's front doors. As they walked down the hall, the junior said, [Shaun Cloud] taped them. Once in the commons area, Principal Mary Beth Lehmanowsky began chatting with the students, who were joined by another class.

The camera crew went outside and the students were anticipating seeing Oprah walk through the door. All of a sudden, the camera crew started running toward them, Jacobson said. "In walks Clay Aiken and I just lost it," she said.

Aiken, the 2003 American Idol runner up with the windswept hair and all-American-boy looks, was there to ask the twin girls to come to Chicago for a taping of the show.

"They started jumping up and down. One of them, I think it was Bethany, lost her shoes. They were screaming," Jacobson said.

As long as he was there, Jacobson said, the students wanted to hear him sing a song. "I asked him to sing, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,' and he sang it," she said. "I love Clay Aiken. He's an awesome singer. He should have won American Idol ."

After the impromptu concert, the crew filmed Britney and Bethany going into the bus. And the students were handed signs to hold up, saying, "We love you Britney and Bethany," and "You're our American Idol ."
Jacobson said the crew returned and had her retape her request for a song "about six times."

Winfrey has been making dreams come true this year, "searching the globe for some fun, exciting, and over-the-top dreams to fulfill," according to her Web site.

Jacobson said she was told someone at the school wrote a letter nominating the Wekesser sisters, who are honor roll students. Winfrey's publicist from Harpo Productions, Carly Ubersox, wasn't talking, other than to confirm that the bus stopped at East with Clay Aiken aboard. She said she'd have more information when the show that the sisters will appear on is taped. It should air sometime in May, she said.

The sisters' mother, Karen Wekesser, said the girls called her Monday morning at work and said, "You just won't believe what happened."

"I don't know anything other than something big just happened," Karen Wekesser said, adding she had been told not to talk about it. She said she believed the sisters were to go to Chicago next week. The mother said her daughters were big Oprah fans and had followed Clay Aikens' career on American Idol and after.

Jacobson was glad she was in the Spanish class with Bethany. "It's just crazy that someone from ‘Oprah' would come to Lincoln, Nebraska, and come to East High," she said. "I was baffled."