Tonganoxie High students try out for MTV reality show

? It isn’t every day your e-mail inbox includes a message from producers at MTV, but that was the case for Tonganoxie High School Principal Jamie Carlisle.

In a note that Carlisle nearly deleted, MTV outlined its interest in giving his students the opportunity to live out their dreams on the MTV reality show “Made.”

“It looked like a spam e-mail and I thought it was something that was just sent out,” Carlisle said Thursday. “I asked my wife and son about the show. … I like the concept, I like the whole premise of the show, and so we responded and they’re here.”

Currently in its 10th season, with a series in the United States, Canada, France and Germany, the reality show documents students’ transformation into someone they wish they could be. Whether it’s turning an introverted student into a high school cheer captain or helping an undersized freshman become a star football player, the show uses experts or “coaches” to help students attain their goals.

On Thursday, MTV producers gave THS students just two minutes to make their case.

“I am going to try to be made into a cage fighter,” Lacey Moore said. “At my school I am the girlie cheerleader, and I would just like people to perceive me as something more than that.”

Students filtered into the Chieftain Room one after another.

Elliot Brest, who tried out to be a dancer, said producers asked him to stand up with the camera pointed at him and say “hey, MTV, I want to be made into this” and to say his name and do a couple of dance moves.

The network is in the preliminary stages of casting for the upcoming show that airs on Sunflower Broadband Channel 65.

“For me, personally, the thing that I like is kids are thinking about their future and thinking about their dreams and that really fires me up as an educator,” Carlisle said.