Halloween Carnival

When my sister and I were in school there was always the annual Halloween Carnival. We looked forward to it every year. When we got old enough, we entered into the competition for Halloween Carnival Princess and Halloween Carnival Queen. This photo is of my sister when she was crowned the Halloween Carnival Queen. I can't remember the exact year, but it was in the late 1960's or early 1970's. She was quite young in this photo, because she just turned 55 years old on September 27, 2010! Happy Birthday Queen Gwen.

The crown she is wearing was used at our school for lots of crowning events. I think they had it forever. It was a black velvet base with white silk trim and the tira part was affixed to the front. I am sure it was very expensive back in the day. Note that my sister has on elbow length white gloves and a floor length formal. Being Halloween Queen was a really big deal. My sister has a beautiful smile when you can get her to use it. This photo shows she was using her Mona Lisa smile.

To become Halloween Queen was a huge competition. Our Halloween Carnival was held in the school gym. The bleachers were sectioned off into individual booths. Tables were set up for the front of the booths and the prizes were displayed on the bleachers. These prizes were dontated by community members. Everything that was donated was given points according to a predetermined chart. When someone donated something they gave their points to the Halloween Queen candidate of their choice. When the donation deadline arrived the points were totaled up and the royalty winners were announced.

This was nothing like the school Halloween Carnivals of today. The prizes donated were things like home canned foods, home baked pies or cakes, hand crafted items, fresh grown vegetables out of someone's garden, barely used toys or games, gift certificates from the local businesses for some type of service and things people actually used. None of the cheap little plastic trinkets given out at school carnivals now. The games played to win the prizes were made by the members of the class who operated the carnival booth. There was even a "general store" where you could redeem tickets to buy items. It was awesome.

Share your memories of Halloween Carnivals past by posting a comment.