Comedy fundraiser, Celina Record

Comedy fundraiser to benefit Prosper High School Speech and Debate students Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Apr 13, 2016 A pair of standup comedians and a police officer walk into a high school auditorium … What sounds like the start of a bad joke will actually occur Saturday night when Prosper High School’s Speech and Debate Booster Club presents “Prosper Laughs Comedy Night.” The family-friendly show (in other words, the jokes will be clean) is open to the public. Funds raised during the event will help four members of the school’s Speech and Debate program travel in June to Utah where they will compete in the National Speech and Debate Association championships. “Prosper Laughs Comedy Night” will feature headliner Dean Lewis, a Dallas-based comic whose television credits include “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and season five of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.” Also taking the stage will be comedian Lance Davis, a native of Fort Worth. However, the show’s opening act will likely be the local audience’s favorite performer. Leon Goodman is an officer with Prosper ISD’s school police force who will make his standup comedy debut at “Prosper Laughs Comedy Night.” Goodman’s law enforcement career spans two decades and includes stints with the Grayson County Sherriff’s Office and the Sherman Police Department. He has been with the Prosper ISD Police for nearly four years and patrols the campuses at Reynolds Middle School and Rucker, Folsom and Light Farms Elementary schools. Goodman said his coworkers spoke with the show’s organizers and encouraged them to give him a spot in the show’s lineup. “Apparently they think I do comedy, so … I’ll just go out there and give it my best,” he said. “I’ve got some jokes that I tell and people tend to laugh, so I’m gonna use some of those.” Robey Holland, who teaches Speech and Debate classes at the high school, said he figures much of the audience will be comprised of local parents who want to see perform “the guy who helps their elementary school kid cross in the crosswalk in the morning on the way to school.” Comedy-newbie Goodman may prove to be a tough act for standup veteran Lewis to follow. A graduate of North Mesquite High School in Mesquite, Lewis has been in show business for more than 20 years. Formerly a regular player on KDGE 102.1 FM’s “The Jagger Show,” he won an Emmy Award in 2008 for a local television show on which he performed called “DFW 10.” These days, Lewis performs primarily corporate gigs – shows meant to entertain employees of large companies during conventions and as part of team-building exercises. He also teaches a pair of standup comedy and joke-writing workshops to the public at a media-focused technical school in Dallas. “Most people think comedy is the easiest form of entertainment. You just get up onstage and talk about your mom and tell a story about your dog,” he said. “There’s so much more to it than that.” Standup comedy, Lewis said, “is best when it’s something that emotionally affects you first, not something you think is funny first, because your sense of humor can be quirky … but your emotions are universal.” When writing jokes, Lewis said he starts “with simple things that happen all the time, and then I start to develop that material. Because it’s frustrating to me or emotional, it’s probably that most people have the same emotion, so it’s more likely to be relatable.” Holland said his Speech and Debate class students at Prosper likely “really appreciate standup comedy and the work those [comedians] do. “I think they understand some of the difficulty of trying to get material that you’ve prepared delivered well and to communicate that in such a way that it’s palatable to an audience,” he said.