High School Quarterback Keeps Promise to Friend With Down Syndrome
Seven years after Ben Moser and his friend Mary Lapkowicz pledged to go to the prom together, they made good on their vow. (Photo: Lisa Troutman Moser/Facebook)
Seventeen-year-old Mary Lapkowicz has been looking forward to her prom since the fourth grade. That’s when she locked down her date for the big day, pal Ben Moser.
Fast forward seven years and the two followed through on their party pact, pairing up for her milestone dance at the Raddison in Camp Hill, Penn., on May 8, and bringing their “beautiful story,” — as his mother Lisa Troutman Moser calls the friendship — full circle.
(Photo: Lisa Troutman Moser/Facebook)
“He made good on that promise,” Lapkowicz’s brother, Tom Lapkowicz, writes on Facebook. “And in the process put a smile on Mary’s face [and] restored my faith in humanity.”
Even back in elementary school, the teen, who has Down Syndrome, knew Moser was a standup guy. “He was sweet and he was nice,” she told the Patriot-News of Central Pennsylvania. Moser, for his part, said that Lapkowicz was “really cool. She was sweet and easy to get along with.”
The pair was separated in sixth grade, though, when Lapkowicz transferred to the Central Dauphin school district while Moser remained in their Harrisburg school system. They reunited at a game between their schools’ football teams last year (she serves as her team’s equipment manager; he is the quarterback for his school, Susquehanna Township High) — which reminded Moser of the vow he’d made to Lapkowicz more than half a decade ago.
“A lot of grade-school aged kids may have stayed away from my sister…or thought she was weird because she has Downs Syndrome (sic),” writes Tom Lapkowicz. “But not Ben. He always looked out for her.”
(Photo: Lisa Troutman Moser/Facebook)
And he dotes on her to this day. Moser’s promposal was a fittingly uplifting gesture, pun intended. “We got balloons and I wrote ‘prom’ on it,“ Moser told the Patriot-News. "I presented her with the balloons and asked her to go to prom with me.” A thrilled Lapkowicz admits, “I was surprised. I was going to go with some friends.“
Moser’s mom was equally floored by the thoughtful invitation. Sharing photos from the day of the dance, Lisa Troutman Moser writes on Facebook, “Today was probably the proudest I have ever been of my son in his lifetime to date,” she writes. “He has accomplished many things on the football field, on the baseball field, in the classroom, and just in his life. He has grown into a man with a big heart, a deep sense of putting others first, and most of all making people feel special and loved.”
(Photo: Lisa Troutman Moser/Facebook)
