Landon discusses his college options. His father wants him to attend an Ivy League university, but Landon hopes only that his grades are high enough for him to be accepted at the University of North Carolina, where his father attended. Worth Carter devises a scheme to improve Landon's college application: run for student body president. Although reluctant, Landon schemes with his best friend, Eric Hunter, a sports standout, to secure the athletes' vote for Landon. Thus Landon wins the election.
One task that falls to Landon in his new position is that he must decorate for, attend, and clean up after the Homecoming Dance. In order to avoid being the only student body president in history to not bring a date to the dance, Landon ponders his options. Still pining for his junior-year girlfriend, Angela Clark, who now dates a 20-year-old mechanic named Lew, Landon discovers that most of the girls he knows already have dates for the dance. Landon's pressure intensifies in light of the fact that a fellow student council member, treasurer Carey Dennison, is also without a date and is likely asking any remaining available girls. Landon comes across Jamie Sullivan's picture in his yearbook, and although he is initially repulsed by the idea of asking her to the dance, he realizes she may be his only option and that, to stave off Dennison, Landon must act quickly. He runs to Jamie's house and nervously asks her to be his date. She is surprised, but she agrees, with one caveat: Landon must promise not to fall in love with her.
