Backstreet Boy Nick Carter performed a 40-minute concert for students of Wilmot High School, which won a contest by donating more than 10 tons of food for the needy.
“I’m a small-town kind of guy,” said Carter, who was born in Jamestown, N.Y., and grew up in upstate New York and in a small Florida town.
The Backstreet Boys ignited the recent teen pop craze when they stormed the U.S. charts in 1998 with their self-titled debut, a smash album that was followed by other multiplatinum discs.
Carter, 22, recently released his debut solo album, “Now or Never.”
He sang eight songs during the concert Wednesday for some 1,000 students and staff.
The contest was sponsored by WXSS 103.7 FM in Milwaukee. The station co-sponsors the annual food drive of America’s Second Harvest of Wisconsin.
Wilmot High School beat out 10 other area schools.
Sophomore Clair Caldwell returned home with a souvenir – a strip of a sweat-stained towel that Carter had tossed into the crowd.
“We ripped it so more people could have a piece,” Caldwell said.