It's Saturday night in main street Te Puke and The Capitol looks like a Christmas tree – the cinema's banks of lights are blinking, twinkling, flashing, and flickering, beckoning punters to the latest on screen offerings.

But by far the biggest and best show in town, at least tonight, is happening right across the road. It's the Academy Awards – the themed Te Puke High School senior ball. It's half an hour before show time and already the techno dance music's pumping, the crowd outside the War Memorial Hall is jittery, and the energy is high.

'This is Te Puke,” says a bloke in the crowd. 'This is how we roll.” Then the biggest, meanest, blackest V8 slides up to the red carpet into the War Memorial Hall – the engine gurgling and grunting. Two of Te Puke High's finest emerge and start working the cameras – they are in character and in the moment.

The crowd of about a thousand goes off – screaming, yelling, and clapping. It's the show before the main show. And it would be worth a paid ticket.

'It's all about the ride, all about the arrival, how you get to the ball,” explains Rachel Caldwell – the teacher in charge who's been working all year to make this special event happen. 'It's not necessarily the flashest car – we have had fire engines, shopping trollies, and someone even abseiled into the ball.”

It's a designated ‘special event' because that's what the traffic sign at the entrance to Jellicoe Street says.

The main street of the town is closed off so some enterprising, elegant, and sophisticated kids on the brink of adulthood can show off their rides, strut their stuff up the red carpet, and then dance the night away. And a sizeable chunk of an appreciative and proud Te Puke has climbed off the couch to come see ‘the rides' and ‘the arrivals'. Where else does this happen?

'Te Puke mate, this is who we are,” says that bloke. 'We care.”

A couple of young dudes, as slick and cool as Barker mannequins, arrive on the back of two throaty motorbikes – no helmets, so hair unmussed. There's a spontaneous burnout, and the crowd goes up again.

And when the smoke clears, a vintage American taxi sidles up, and two traditional and elegant belles alight – the girls are glistening and iridescent in their sequined gowns and faux fur stoles and they set off a chorus of ‘Oooh, aren't they beautiful' from the crowd. Style has endured and is good.

Then there was one of those moments. A kid in a very chic but skimpiest of dresses has a shoe malfunction. What to do? How do you tie a lace in a less than mini mini, on the red carpet, and retain your dignity?

Principal Alan Liddle and his board of governors are at the top of the red carpet to deliver handshakes and hugs. 'This is a treasured night for the town. The school is seen by this town as their school and that's fantastic.”

The cavalcade of ‘rides', of ‘arrivals' stretches a few hundred metres down the road … there's the three big guys in the tiny Honda, there was the tiny lass in her father's big borrowed logging truck, or was it a container truck?

There are enough trucks for a convoy. There were the two couples at a barbeque table on a trailer being drawn by a tractor. There were cool cars, hot cars, borrowed cars, blue cars. The Weekend Sun had been promised a spectacle. The kids of Te Puke High delivered, and at the same time gave a warm insight into how a caring community ticks.

'It's a time for them to shine,” said a very young but profound Nevaya who'd come to see her cousin. Shine like the lights on the Capitol across the road. Or shine like the huge moon that rose over Te Puke Saturday night and ordered away the rain clouds. Did the ball committee organise that too?

'My cousin will look beautiful,” says Nevaya. 'And I absolutely want to do this one day.” Nevaya is bound for Te Puke High and, one day, will shine.

Robyn Rickard works in the office at Te Puke High. 'I see these kids every day in their uniforms and suddenly there's this spectacular transformation. Kids one day, sophisticated young ladies and gentlemen the next. So, so proud.” As is the rest of Te Puke.

Sure, there are the mums and dads and relatives of kids attending the ball who pack Jellicoe Street, but there were also many who went for the spectacle. One woman in the crowd discovered another reason for moving from Papamoa to Te Puke.

'There's something special happening here. The way the town turns out is fantastic. Says something about the community I have moved to.”

And the fallen soldiers whose names are etched at the entrance to the Memorial Hall in Te Puke, would be very, very proud that their ultimate sacrifice enabled these young men and women to celebrate their rite of passage on Saturday night – and the 1,000 or so Te Puke people who turned to celebrate with them.

The Te Puke High senior ball ‘arrival' – book it in for next year.