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Loyola Marymount University first-year student Lauren Froderman was the big winner of Fox Broadcasting’s “So You Think You Can Dance” television show contest on Thursday night (Aug. 12) and along with it the $250,000 first prize. She will defer admission until January so that she can join the show’s touring troupe this fall, but remains committed to LMU. “Lauren’s plans have not changed,” said her father, Troy Froderman, in a telephone interview from Phoenix, where Lauren attended Greenway High School. “We are very excited about her going to LMU and obviously we are ecstatic about Lauren winning last night.” She was flying home on Friday from Los Angeles, before jumping into rehearsals for the 40-city, two-month national tour, which begins Sept. 19 in New Orleans. She will also become “the new face of Gatorade” which sponsors the show, according to Fox. Lauren had a 4.25 GPA and ranked in the top 10 percent of her class. She plans to be a teacher and has been accepted as a Liberal Studies (elementary education) major, which prepares students for careers as schoolteachers. The major enables students to complete a bachelor’s degree and receive a California preliminary multiple-subject teaching credential within four years. LMU awarded Lauren an academic merit Arrupe Scholarship. It is named in the honor of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, a long time Superior General of the Society of Jesus. As followers of the show know, Lauren began dancing at age 3, at the insistence of her mother, and kept at it until around 11 or 12 when she, “fell in love with it and I just have been falling more and more in love with dancing each day.” Lauren was the last woman contestant among the finalists. The show is in its seventh season and runs for 10 weeks each summer. It features dancers, who are selected in auditions around the country. They perform in an extended elimination competition in front of judges that is broadcast over most of the episodes, with the home audience eventually being asked to vote on their favorites for finalists, and then for the winner. In an interview with her local newspaper done on the eve of her win, Lauren described her ambitions, the competition, why she likes Phoenix more than Los Angeles, and what it is like to be a finalist. |
