Monsters on Main Street set for Monday

MORRILTON — Monsters and zombies will be invading downtown Morrilton again on Halloween.

Monsters on Main Street will take place from 4-6 p.m. Monday, culminating with a costume contest. The annual event also includes entertainment, food, a zombie walk, children’s games and, of course, candy

for trick-or-treaters. Food for monsters of all sizes — gooey dogs, aka hot dogs, and drinks — will be sold in Pocket Park.

Sarah Croswell, executive director of Main Street Morrilton, said the Halloween celebration is “a big citywide event” held in the historic district.

Downtown merchants set up in front of their businesses with candy, and Croswell said other businesses and civic organizations are invited to participate.

Beginning at 4 p.m., Scary-oke will be held at the Rialto Community Arts Center.

“There’s a drop-down screen, and participants come in and request a song, and we pull up a YouTube karaoke version. They can see the words, and the audience can see the words.

“When you’ve got Spiderman and Darth Vader up there singing Elvis’ ‘Hunka, Hunka of Burning Love,’ it adds a comic element,” she said, laughing.

The Morrilton High School theater group, Troupe 3131, will hold a zombie walk.

“They organize and do the costuming,” Croswell said. “They did it last year, and it was a really big hit; people really liked it. They did a really good job.”

She said the experience goes hand in hand with the growing popularity of television shows such as The Walking Dead.

Adding to the supernatural theme, a palm reader and fortune teller, Darlene Cree, will be set up in Pocket Park. Croswell said the retiree is “a jewel of our community.”

Susan Buser, a new Morrilton resident and a member of the Main Street Board, is coordinating entertainment for the event.

“We haven’t even lived here a year,” Buser said. She and her husband, Robert, have two children, 13 and 9, who attend Sacred Heart Catholic School.

It will be Buser’s second Monsters on Main Street experience, though.

“Last year, we actually came to the event just because we were looking at property,” she said, adding that she decided to take her children to Monsters on Main Street. “I said, ‘Whoever is doing this, this is a great thing for kids,’ and now I’m on the Main Street Board.”

She said entertainment will begin at 5 p.m. and include performances by Grand Master Han’s Martial Arts and Straight Up Martial Arts & Kickboxing, both of Morrilton; the Morrilton Junior High dance team; and Mirage, belly dancers, of Russellville.

Croswell said children’s games will take place in the parking lot directly behind the Pocket Park.

The Main Street organization has some new blood, if you will.

“This year, we started a Junior Main Street Board for high school youth, and they are taking a big part in the organizing and planning of [the children’s games],” she said.

“The Junior Main Street Board was one of those goals Main Street Morrilton wanted to achieve so they could bring in, obviously, more help, but basically to train up young adults to take over,” Croswell said. “Small towns have a group of worker bees — they age out eventually. You need that next generation to be interested and invested. Before [students] go off into the big world, they’ve, hopefully, made memories. … It keeps that connection going down the generational line.”

The children’s games will include an obstacle course, a fishing game, a football toss, a beanbag toss and a haystack pull, which is for “really young kids,” she said. For those not familiar with a haystack pull, Croswell said pencils — some sharpened, some not — are stuck in hay bales, and the children pull one out.

“If it’s sharpened, they get a piece of candy. If not, they get the pencil and a piece of candy.”

At 6 p.m., there will be a costume contest at the Rialto Community Arts Center, and prizes will be given.

“We’ll have age divisions, as well as types — scary or Superman, or homemade versus store-bought; we really try to do as many divisions as we can,” she said.

The whole event is all about having a frightfully good time, organizers said.

For information, call Croswell at (501) 404-8604.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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