From the San Antonio Express-News; Texas. August 11, 1999.
Teen trades ranch work for appearance on TV
Jeanette McNamee; Express-News Staff Writer
When Hollywood came calling for aspiring actor Jared Padalecki, the Madison High School senior was working on a ranch in Blanco, far from the bright lights of a television or movie studio.
Padalecki, 17, of San Antonio was one of two teens selected nationwide as a winner of Seventeen Magazine and Fox-TV’s “Claim to Fame Contest.” Patricia Pendleton of Putnam, Conn., was the second winner.
A tall, Matt Damon look-alike, Padalecki won an expense-paid trip to Santa Monica, Calif., to appear as a presenter on the 1999 Teen Choice Awards. The show was taped Aug. 1 and will be aired locally 7-9 p.m. Thursday on KABB- TV.
Winning the contest meant a welcome break for Padalecki from a couple of hot weeks spent building fences, digging holes and cutting trees on a Blanco ranch owned by Spurs chairman Peter Holt.
Padalecki was one of approximately 20,000 teens nationwide who entered the contest by submitting a videotape of themselves to their local Planet Hollywood restaurant. Each contestant had 30 seconds to tell why he or she would be a good presenter. That was not a problem for Padalecki, who had been in numerous speech tournaments and taken drama classes since he was in the sixth grade.
He and his parents, Jerry and Sherri Padalecki, flew to California on July 29 for a five-day stay. Although the show was taped in Santa Monica, they stayed in Beverly Hills.
The Teen Choice Awards recognizes popular teen stars in film, television, music, sports and fashion as chosen by teens across the country who completed ballots found in Seventeen magazine’s June and July issues or accessed the magazine’s web site to vote for their favorites.
An estimated 1,000 teens were on hand for the filming of the show.
“I thought I was just going to sit backstage and maybe just go on stage a couple of times,” Padalecki said. “But, actually, they let me help backstage. They also had me handing awards (which looked like surfboards) to presenters and even sometimes giving them to the people who won.”
“They introduced me on the show, too. I don’t know if they’re going to keep it or if they’re going to cut it.”
He got to meet such celebrities as Freddie Prinze Jr., Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Brandy and Tara Lipinski.
But the most important part of the trip for the outgoing, personable Padalecki was the chance to meet agents such as Rich Beddingfield, manager/agent for Freddie Prinze Jr.
“We’re going to keep in touch, and he (Beddingfield) is going to try and send me some audition material,” a hopeful Padalecki said. “It’s kind of tough living in San Antonio when the main acting cities, of course, are New York and L.A. So, instead of flying you back and forth, they send you the material and ask you to put yourself on tape and then you send the tape back to them, and they review it.”
His parents are very supportive of his acting aspirations, he said.
“But it’s a pretty tough business in acting, and they want me to have something as a backup. But if it all works out, they’d be ecstatic.”
He’s hopeful the audition tapes he sends to Beddingfield will lead to appearances in some TV shows or movies.
His mother said she and her husband share their son’s enthusiasm for his acting goals.
“We think it’s wonderful,” she said. “He’s been interested in it (acting) a long time. He was always a ham when he was little.”
She is a teacher at […] High School and Jerry Padalecki is an accountant with […] Corp.
After graduating from Madison High School, Padalecki hopes to find acting roles in Los Angeles.
“I want to see how this next year in high school goes before deciding on college,” he said. “If something happens during the year, like I get to be on a TV show or I send an audition tape and they like me and want to put me in a movie, then I’ll go into acting. If I can do it, there’s nothing else I want to do in the world.”
If he finds acting jobs in L.A., he might attend the University of California at Los Angeles to major in theater or communications.
“Or, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll probably go to the University of Texas at Austin and major in engineering or computer science.”
Padalecki has taken speech and drama classes for several years, first at Wood Middle School and then at Madison, where he’s won awards in speech and drama competition.
He praises Madison’s drama teacher, Mike Harrison.
“Mr. Harrison always told me I was real talented. But he also said it helps what you do in your lifetime. It helps the experiences you have and the way you see things,” Padalecki said.
In addition to his success in drama and speech, he is an all-around ‘A’ student and a National Merit Scholar. He takes honors classes and is in the gifted and talented program at Madison. He also enjoys basketball and football.
His brother Jeff, 20, is a student at St. Mary’s University, and his sister Megan, 14, is a freshman at Madison.
