Laughter 101 - 'Hemi'-powered comic returns home
By Josh Yoder
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HICKORY - When he graduated from Fred T. Foard High School in 1990, Jon Reep was named “Class Clown” by his fellow students.
Sixteen years later, he’s living up to the title.
Reep, 34, is a nationally touring comedian. He’s best known for being the redheaded redneck in Dodge Ram commercials, the one who leans his head out the window of a beat-up car to yell, “That thing got a Hemi?”
Reep returned to his high school stomping grounds Tuesday to perform his stand-up routine for students there.
He wasn’t your average motivational speaker.
Reep dashed into the gym wearing his old letter jacket and jersey - in his day, he played football for the Tigers.
“I know I’m the last guy that some of these teachers think would come back and lecture,” Reep said.
Then he launched into an animated story about putting out a grease fire with his letter jacket.
For about an hour, students listened and laughed while Reep talked about his high school experience, and how he realized his dream to became a professional comedian.
He talked about the joys of school lunches: “You can’t get that pizza anywhere else. Domino’s and Papa John’s, they don’t have that crap.”
He reminisced about his glory days playing football: “We had a perfect season. Zero and 10.”
He ribbed a few of his old teachers and told about the time he wrote down the lyrics to a Guns ‘N’ Roses song and turned it in as a journal entry in English class.
After Reep’s routine, students swarmed the comedian, snapping pictures with their camera phones and getting autographs on notebooks and T-shirts.
May Chung, 16, had Reep sign one of her schoolbooks - J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Reep crossed out the author’s name and scribbled his own.
“He was hilarious,” Chung said.
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