It’s 9 a.m. on Career Day at Dunn Elementary. Most of the speakers will visit with the upper grades later, but for this first speaker, lunch tables, benches and schedules for all the grades have been temporarily cleared so the kids can sit cross-legged on the cafeteria floor. 
They squirm, restless and giddy as the principal announces a special guest will kick off career day and eagerly wait for her to cue a video on the cafeteria’s large wall projector.
“You have what we call P-O-tential. Potential, Son!” says Lionel Richie to the man in the clip.
Katy Perry says, “You’re the best soul singer we have this season.”
“I’m telling you, your kids, your family, they’re going to be so proud of you,” says Richie. “I cannot wait for them to see daddy on TV because I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
The students cheer, applaud and laugh when, in the clip, Ryan Seacrest leans back on an unstable prop and almost falls before the video is turned off.
Odell Bunton Jr. has made his way to the front corner and the principal introduces him. He’s a father to three students at Dunn and a nighttime security guard at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, but most of the kids don’t even know about that job. They’re excited to see him because they just watched his audition for “American Idol.”
The 28-year-old singer was one of three vocalists this season who was awarded a platinum ticket from the judges. It was the highest honor during auditions and it meant he got to skip the first round of eliminations and watch. He told the kids he made it to the top 20 out of 80,000 applicants.
Bunton is a 2014 graduate from Sam Houston High School in Arlington. He’s also a former Dunn Elementary Dragon. Twenty years ago, he was sitting in the same cafeteria as his student audience.
“I was just like you in your seat,” said Bunton. “I’m looking at so many great people, and you’re going to do so many great things.”
Bunton said he started singing at age six, when his mom gave him and his three siblings voice lessons.
“If you find something you’re good at and that you love to do, just do it,” said Bunton, who told the kids he knew at six that he wanted to pursue singing.
Bunton left “American Idol” in mid-April when the number of contestants was narrowed to 14 and he and five others didn’t make the cut.
Right away Maverick City Music called. He’d performed one of their songs on the show and they asked him to record a single on their “Maverick City Reimagined” cover album. He did, in a weekend.
“We may not always understand things, but we’re growing,” Bunton told the students. “An ending is not the end of the journey.”
Bunton ended his time by singing a booming, acapella version of a gospel song, while some of the kids swayed along. He bowed and walked off to screams of applause and perhaps left permission for other Dunn kids to follow their dreams.
