Hundreds attend Halloween festival for Scott City parks

Witches, vampires, princesses, superheroes and other characters of all ages could be found at the Scott City Park on Saturday during the Scott City Interactive Parks Program Halloween Carnival. SCIPP is part of the local Kiwanis Club.

Derick Huskstep, SCIPP board member, said this is the third year for this event and it will continue in the future. It drew 485 children and parents to the park.

"We try to figure out different fun ways to pass out candy each year during the carnival," said carnival board president Paul Schock. "This year is a candy treasure hunt theme. We have about 300 pounds of candy this year."

Forty volunteers and members the fire and police department and police departments were present. It took the committee about 100 hours of planning for this event. Schock said "the community has been very supportive of SCIPP, including the businesses and churches."

The carnival presented 36 booths, contests, hay rides and activities. The first contest was for best costumes. There were four age categories and prizes were given to the best girl, best boy, scariest and overall best costumes. Gale Bohannon, a judge, said "It was really hard. We had three judges in case of a tie. All the costumes were wonderful."

Another popular event was the Mummy Relay. Huskstep described it as consisting of four teams of three children. They had to wrap one child with a complete roll of toilet paper who then had to run down and get another roll of toilet paper. The first group to do this with all three members won.

Heather Hilsgen, 7, Chasity Wissman, 8, from Scott City and Brayden Strange, 9, from Cape Girardeau, were on the winning relay team. Wissman said she liked the contest because she "loved doing it with a team."

A Zombie Walk, codirected by Dorothy Dees and Diane Scholl, was sponsored by the local Scott City Food Pantry. Each of the participants made a $5 donation to the food pantry. "The five dollars goes a long way," Dees said. "When we go to the food bank we can purchase a laundry basket full of food."

The fire department was present with a small truck on display. They had drawings for prizes like carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors. Smokey Bear made an appearance as well.

The Simmons family from Benton, Mo., sponsored Little Red Fire Engine rides. Alivia Woods, 6, from Scott City said the ride was "fun. I liked making the circles and the tooting horn."

Cheyenne Rhodes, 9, who was dressed as a charm school witch, said she was having fun and that her favorite part of the carnival was the doughnut eating contest.

Pertinent address:

City Park, Scott City, Mo.