Fall Fest Delivers Fun and Frights

Fall Fest kicked off on October 28th this year as a morale-boosting day of celebration for students. According to Will Hudson, associate Dean of Student Affairs and director of engagement here at Clarke, “Fall Fest is meant to be a fall version of Clarke Fest, which is held in the spring. We kind of combined different activities on campus.” Activities on campus included the Staff Assembly’s annual trick-or-treat events for all ages, students, and student families, a petting zoo — zebra included — a haunted hallway, and a food truck. CSA was partnered with Staff Assembly and Engagement to organize the activities.  The main goal? Give Students something to look forward to during the toughest time of the semester.

Witches of Wellness Table/ All Photos are owned by Clarke University Marketing

Though there was a touch of gloomy weather, the petting zoo was quite popular. Sanctioned off into its own pen was the zebra, who was quite content to interact with people. In the next pen, there were baby cows, a llama, as well as goats, sheep, and some pigs rooting around in the dirt. The baby calf had a bit of a squabble with one of the goats, and it was quite humorous how the calf effortlessly overpowered the kid in ahorn fight. On the night of the event, the SAC was packed with people of all ages from the community; additionally, Brew & Gold was kept open at 4:00 and later. Arranged in a circle around the dining area were themed booths that were passing out candy, popcorn, and did special activities to accumulate the honor of The Great Pumpkin: Being labeled the winning favorite booth! In the middle of the booths was a table with pumpkin outlines on small pieces of paper where trick-or-treaters can place their vote for the best booth. The winner was the Witches of Wellness run by the Social Sciences Department.

In addition to trick-or-treating, there were two extra booths: glitter tattoos and hair tinsel with student support member Samantha Hicks, and Jaycee Page with pumpkin painting. T.J. Regul, a family-friendly Quad-City magician, also held a booth where he made balloon butterflies for children. Cat Smith, one of the lead supervisors behind the haunted hallway, says this about the inspiration for Fall Fest: “So they have the Clarke Fest for students in spring, and that’s been a tradition since before I even got here to Clarke, but we wanted to do something different this fall. Sometimes there are not always big events until the end of the spring semester. Why don’t we have something in the fall that provides joy to students in our Clarke Community, where everyone can go and have fun and celebrate?”

The Haunted Hallway, supervised by Cat Smith and Eve Nottrott, spanned from the stairs in the SAC to right past the Lacrosse Office. It was split into two experiences, one dubbed “Light Frights” for the families attending, and one taking place later, said to be the scarier experience. Many actors hid within the walls of the hallway, which appear to be the remains of a party gone poorly, the sight of many missing persons, and one mask enthusiast’s preferred display space. Creepy clowns with impressive flexibility roam the halls of the dilapidated school, spooking students with impressive décor.

Samantha Fowler, a student attending the event, was kind enough to share her experience in the Haunted Hallway: “Starting off, they set the mood well by keeping it dark, and it was very quiet. And then they had a man crawl at us from the corner. They had a few really good jump scares, and overall, it was very well decorated, and the lighting was great…” 

Anthony King, the lead organizer of Fall Fest, had an ideal turnout of 80 people, and it seemed this expectation was met and exceeded. Fall Fest was open not only to students but also to their families, and King hopes this will become an annual tradition that interests the local community surrounding Clarke in the future. He says, “Typically, after midterms, that’s when it [student engagement] usually starts to die down. Homecoming week usually happens a little earlier in the year. And we always see a decline in student engagement, and that’s what Cat was saying, we want to have students excited about something that can hopefully become an annual tradition... I started to plan this stuff back in the spring, letting students know back in the spring and throughout the summertime, so that now it’s actually working out.”

Overall, Fall Fest appeared to be a grand time for all. The Haunted Hallway stretched from the front door to the SAC Café, and the trick-or-treat tables were absolutely swarmed. All other booths, including pumpkin painting, glitter tattoos, hair tinsel, and the comedian with the balloons, were just as busy. There were as many kids petting the animals as there were animals in the petting zoo. If anyone missed this event and wants to experience it for themselves, it would be in their best interest to make Anthony King’s dream come true and make Fall Fest an annual event.