Every year, the MacDuffie School celebrates Halloween, which is an annual holiday on Oct. 31. Halloween is a holiday with cultural nature, which is celebrated to honor the harvest and prepare for “the dark half of the year.”

The Halloween celebration at the MacDuffie School included events such as the Haunted House, sophomore Halloween Dance, and Costume Contest.

One event that was organized by the boarding department on Oct. 26 was the annual Haunted House overseen by Lucy Tew.

“Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, for a number of reasons: I have always been fascinated by folklore and fairy tales from various cultures on the mythology of All Hallows’ Eve,” said Tew.

The annual Haunted House is usually set up in the study hall and the locker room area on the weekend before Halloween. Boarders, as well as the boarding department, can get involved by both scaring people and helping to set up decorations.

“We got teachers and boarding students to help, and we ended up having an incredible time,” said Tew. “It’s been a little different every year – we never use the same path or the same scares twice, which allows us to surprise our audience every year.”

One more event that took place was the Halloween costume contest assembly. Students and faculty participated in different categories such as “the scariest costume”, “best group costume”, “best faculty costume”, etc.

Lucy Tew said, “I also worked with the leadership team of The Muse to put together the annual Halloween costume contest, which is always very fun. I love seeing everybody get dressed up.”

However, sophomore Sasha Middleton expressed a different opinion. She stated that this year the Halloween assembly was not what she expected.
“I believe that the Halloween assembly should be more fun and exciting like hands-on more like last year,” she said.

The last event was the sophomore Halloween Dance. Usually, the Halloween dance is hosted by the sophomore class and takes place on the Friday after Halloween. However, this year due to the cancellation of the school on Friday, Nov. 1st, the Halloween Dance was postponed to Nov. 8th.

Mariel Baez, the president of the sophomore class said, “This year the sophomore class is hosting the Halloween Dance! (Funny since it’s been a week since Halloween).”

“What happened at the dance matched my expectations of what happened. It was a pretty good time,” added Baez at the end of her interview.

Talking about future Halloween activities, specifically the Haunted House, Lucy Tew said, “In the future, I’m hoping we can get even more people on the scare team, and maybe expand our footprint a little – make our haunted house a little roomier.”

“I think the school should encourage more students to participate within the school in general, but especially those who actually celebrate Halloween during Halloween,” added Mariel, when been asked about the future flow of the celebration of the Halloween in the MacDuffie school.