The staff and clients at Big Sandy Activities got in on all the Halloween fun.
The town of Big Sandy celebrated Halloween with activities including trick-or-treating, attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching a concert of Halloween music.
Big Sandy celebrates the holiday as a secular celebration but Christian religious observances of the holiday is called All Hallows' Eve, which includes attending church services, praying for the souls of friends, relatives and pets. Soul cakes, a small round cake, were given to "souler" who go from door to door during the day where they sang and prayed. It is believed the giving soul cakes was the origin of the trick and treat tradition.
In Big Sandy the Halloween celebrations started with the Church of God's Family Halloween Party which was held on October 28th. There was approximately 100 people in attendance 70 of them being kids. Grand Prize for the best costume was won by Sarah Sura. She and her son were dressed up like the movie Coco. Sarah had fabulous face makeup making her look exactly like the character in the movie.
Both the Big Sandy Medical Center and Big Sandy Activities dress up for the holiday. As always, both the grade school and the high school students dressed up for Halloween, but this year they took their costumes to the high school where they put on a concert. The high school band and high school choir also participating. Amanda Robertson, Big Sandy music teacher, said the kids asked for a concert at Halloween. "They had fun and they did a great job."
The Big Sandy Library set up the back room of the Library as a kid friendly haunted house. Also on that day there was a Halloween story time where the small children were encouraged to wear costumes.
Don and Patti Pegar handed out 216 free corn dogs to trick or treaters from the Cow Patti Cook Shack. There were nine corn dogs left and Don told Patti he wasn't going to eat any leftover corndogs. So, she just handed them out to nine adults at the end of the evening They have been giving out free dogs since 2014. The first year she handed out hot dogs but corn dogs for the last three years. She plans on improving it next year, although not sure how she could get better, and continue the practice.
High school students from the local churches joined in the trick or treat portion of the night and collected two full boxes of canned good and several bags of food for the local food bank. The Student Council started collected food for the food bank at the Chili feed. With both attempts they have collected 100 pounds of food.
And although it was a chilly night, there was nothing chilly about the community spirit that surpass the celebration normally connected with just collecting candy.
