Big Halloween Party In Stephentown
by David Flint
“This is the best Halloween ever!” A comment overheard from one of the many youngsters having fun at the Halloween event sponsored Saturday, October 31 by the Stephentown Memorial Library and the Town Youth Commission. [private]
Town Supervisor Larry Eckhardt said it reminded him of the big Halloween parties that the Youth Commission used to put on every year at the Stephentown Elementary School. That event was discontinued some time ago, and with the disappearance of the Block Dance and the dwindling of the Fire Department’s fall Muster, such crowds of kids and adults having a good time together have not been seen in Stephentown for a while. This year. however, the Library, assisted by other Town and school organizations, went all out with their celebration on Halloween afternoon.
At the Fire Hall filled with orange and black balloons and other spooky decorations, there were all sorts of games and activities for the kids, mostly having to do with pumpkins – pumpkin bowling, pumpkin decorating, ring the pumpkin, douse the pumpkin with squirt gun, etc. Seems like there were a lot of pumpkins, and all donated by Kinderhook Creek Farm.
The cleverness and ingenuity of the costumes was astonishing, giving the judges a really tough time to decide which was funniest, scariest and most creative in the various age categories.
After prizes for best costumes and best decorated pumpkins were awarded, the whole crowd moved outside to the Muster Field where dozens of vehicles were lined up for “Trunk or Treat”. Again, the imagination that went into decorating some of the car trunks and tailgates was truly remarkable. The owners of the spooky vehicles were obviously enjoying this as much as the kids. Many in this area live up long winding driveways that could be scary for real on a Halloween night. “It’s wonderful to finally see trick or treaters,” commented one. The amount of candy given out was a dentist’s delight. Whatever candy was left behind at the Fire Hall was to be donated to Operation Gratitude which sends candy to our candy-starved troops overseas.
The children were then escorted safely down Grange Hall Road to the Library where a big white tent had been transformed into a house of horrors. Screams from the tent could be heard over at the funeral home.
The event on Saturday followed a teen dance the previous evening at Berlin High School sponsored and organized by TRACS (Together Reducing Alcohol & drugs in our Community). The teens at the dance were shuttled down to visit the Library’s haunted house on a “haunted bus.”
The haunted house was largely the creation of teens associated with TRACS and Troop 1752 Senior Girl Scouts. Both of these groups had also staffed the games at the Fire Hall “This is astounding,” remarked an impressed adult, “I can’t believe what a wonderful job these kids have done! I’m going to tell all my friends to come next year!”
Library Board member Sue Cass expressed gratitude to all the volunteers who helped out – from TRACS and Girl Scouts, both teens and adults, the Library, the Fire Department, the Seniors and the Historical Society. “We were really pleased with everything, especially the attendance, the enthusiastic participation in trunk or treating and the teen creativity with the haunted house. It was wonderful to see community members from toddlers to seniors and all ages in between enjoying one another’s company on a beautiful autumn day.”[/private]