Two students at Eastern High School in Kentucky couldn’t be more different.
Some may have been surprised when senior basketball star Trey Moses asked freshman Ellie Meredith, who has Down syndrome, to prom.
“It just makes us closer as friends and everything,” Moses said. "We text ... we talk outside of school, and we’ll start hanging out more.”
STORIFY: People love Moses' prom-posal
When Moses and Meredith first met, they were both shy and didn’t say much.
Moses, a Ball State men's basketball signee, volunteers for the peer tutoring program at Eastern and spends gym class with Meredith. Those selected for the program spend one period per day with a special needs student.
He also works with Best Buddies, another school group where he meets different kids and hangs out with them outside of school to build friendships.
Meredith’s bashful nature didn’t last long with her new friend.
“She’s not like most kids with Down Syndrome,” Moses said. “Most kids are shy and once you get to know them, they’ll still continue to be shy. Once you know [Ellie], she’ll just keep talking and talking and talking.”
Darla Meredith, Ellie’s mom, said her daughter didn’t have the best middle school experience, but the welcoming of Eastern and the inclusion it provided made the transition easier to build lasting friendships.
When Ellie told Moses she’d like to go to prom with him, Moses had to get permission from her parents and his own girlfriend. She was on board.
The Taylor Swift-inspired prom proposal was written on a poster board this week by Moses, who presented it to Ellie in front of the gym class they share.
Moses told a classmate to sit Meredith down on one side of the gym while other students sat in another set of bleachers. When he walked in with the poster and flowers, she responded with a “yes” and a hug.
“She was just kind of speechless and didn’t know what to say,” Moses said. “She started turning red.”
Moses said it made him happy to hear the claps and roar of the other students as Ellie's head pressed against the chest of his 6-foot-8 frame.
Darla said they were shocked at first. They didn’t know Moses personally, but had heard a lot about the “superstar at Eastern.”
“We were surprised, to say the least,” Darla said. “You don’t expect high school seniors to have that much thought about a kid with special needs.”
Moses' proposal went viral.
“I was shocked honestly,” Moses said. “I wasn’t going in expecting people to talk to me.”
CNN, along with other local news stations, contacted Moses about the proposal that took over Twitter.
Some have talked to Ellie, and she likes the publicity.
“She doesn’t mind being on the stage,” Darla said. “But in general, she’s a pretty introverted little girl. At first, she was kind of like, ‘What’s this about?’”
Moses said all the the kind words mean a lot to him. But amid all the retweets, favorites and comments, he said he hopes people see his relationship with Ellie and other special needs children, and are inspired to follow in his footsteps.
He looks to continue his extracurricular work at Ball State in the fall, and plans on majoring in special education.
Ball State men’s basketball coach James Whitford said he looks forward to having Moses on the team. He learned of Moses’ passion for working with special needs students during the recruiting process, and said this isn’t a one-time deal.
“Sometimes in our world, people can do a good story where deep down, they kind of have an one eye on how it makes them look,” Whitford said. "I assure you in Trey’s case, he had no eye on himself. He only had the thoughts of Ellie and what this would do for her.”
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