Sarah Trujillo, Gilpin County.   Another Halloween comes and goes and Gilpin County School hosts another successful Halloween carnival. On November 2, families from all over Gilpin and neighboring counties gathered in the gym of Gilpin County School to play carnival games and add to their piles of Halloween candy. Kids and parents were dressed up in everything from blown up panda costumes to princesses and enjoyed an annual event.

As you walked around the gym, you would find all sorts of booths, that in exchange for a few tickets, gave you the opportunity to win a cool prize to take home. There were also booths that revolved around jumping in bouncy castles or shooting zombies. There were also the traditional booths like the cake walk, a play on musical chairs where the prize is a cake, the jail, where kids could exchange tickets to get their friends and family put into the jail, and the very scary haunted house. Each of these booths were run by some sort of club, sport, or class in the school and gave each of them a chance to fundraise for their cause. They also had a trick or treat street where teachers and first responders volunteered to hand out candy to the trick or treaters in return for a canned good.

The Halloween carnival is a tradition where families get to spend time together in a spooky and fun setting and Gilpin graduates get to come back and see their old classmates. Everything from carnival games, to a scary haunted house, and delicious food and candy made the night spectacular for those who attended. So put it on your calendar and prepare to have the best costume at the carnival next year.

(Originally published in the November 8, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)