Following the Halloween Costume Contest at Hometown Country and the Business Trick-or-Treating on Main Street in Lusk, many of the local families took the Halloween festivities to the fairgrounds where they continued with the annual 4-H Halloween Carnival and Spookhouse. Held in the auditorium section of the main building, the room was packed wall to wall as scarecrows, Harry Potter, princesses, and more made their way from one game to the next. 

The one-stop-shop carnival and spookhouse, accompanied by purchasable soup and pie dinner in the kitchen, is the main 4-H Club fundraiser as pointed out by Kelli Chichester, 4-H Coordinator, “So this is our largest annual fundraiser for our 4-H Program. It benefits all the kids, keeps the program running, and sponsors all the trips”. Chichester explains further that the spookhouse and carnival aids the 4-H activities to run tuition free for parents and guardians.

The 4-H Carnival and Spookhouse has been around for over three decades. Games have changed over the course of the years with new ones being added including the fish game and a photo stand in recent years. Still, the cake walk and corn filled sandbox are the place to be and only those who dare enter the spookhouse located in the far back corner of the room. While debating with his friends on the next game to play, Archer Widrick proudly proclaimed that his favorite part of this year’s festival was, “The fish”. The game, which no carnival is ever complete without, is the traditional ring toss to win the fish. Of the same group, Arianna Atis pointed out that her favorite part was, “The haunted house”, while Raven Dinorog opted for, “The cake walk”. 

Wearing a costume earned participants two free tokens to any game where many of the prizes included candy. While much appreciated by the youngsters on the receiving end, it’s not exactly the old-style way many of us remember getting candy on Halloween. When asked her opinion of the carnival, Megan Matthews replied, “I feel like we should do trick-or-treating because it’s traditional and when I look back to my childhood, we went trick-or-treating”. Others also felt her nostalgic sentiment, hitting door to door before and after the carnival. 

While this is one of the few years Niobrara County didn’t have snow for Halloween, it was still fairly chilly, making inside festivities a welcome, “It’s warmer for one,” stated Lacey Brott when asked her opinion of the carnival, “I’m not saying that candy isn’t safe in Lusk, but you don’t have to worry about that and it benefits the community in a good way”.  

The 4-H Carnival and Spookhouse ran from 5:30 until roughly 8:00 in the evening the night of Halloween leaving the last kernel of corn to be picked up until next year. “It’s great for the community, the food is great, and the pie is good. Everyone is having fun,” rounded out Chichester.