Halloween tricky for students seeking treats

By Whitney Elliott and Tiffany Maggard

Daily Staff Reporters

Haunted by midterms, LSA freshman Megan Stevenson did not dress in her dream costume this weekend nor will she tomorrow night.

She, like many students, has an exam on Halloween and spent her weekend studying.

"It bums me out that (tomorrow) I'll be taking my test," Stevenson said. "My family always makes the biggest deal about Halloween because it falls on my birthday. My dad has this huge pumpkin that hangs between our house and the neighbors' house."

Stevenson said that she was too busy to even think of any costume possibilities.

"If I had had time, I definitely would have thought of something creative," Stevenson said.

Never too old to dress up, Art and Design sophomore Lauren Pallotta transformed into a fairy princess over the weekend. Like many students, Pallotta chose to celebrate Halloween early this year, avoiding the mid-week holiday.

Because of academic commitments, Pallotta said she wouldn't be able to join in festivities on the actual day but still wanted to celebrate.

"I love Halloween - it gives you an excuse to dress outrageously for an evening," Pallotta said.

Members of K-Grams yesterday collaborated with students in Alice Lloyd Residence Hall to give students from Vetal Elementary School in Detroit an opportunity they may not otherwise have had.

The 150 third through fifth grade students were given the chance to trick-or-treat through the halls of Alice Lloyd and meet some of the University students with whom they have been communicating all year through the K-Grams pen-pals program.

LSA freshman David Lipton, an Alice Lloyd resident who helped organize the event, said the Halloween party was especially beneficial to the Vetal Elementary students because many of them cannot go trick-or-treating due to safety precautions.

LSA junior Ani Shehigian, a member of the K-Grams program, said Vetal students were chosen out of the pool of schools K-Grams works with specifically for this reason."Their school is definitely one that is underprivileged in Detroit, so it gives them an opportunity they never have," she said.

Students were divided into groups for the day based on the type of costume they were wearing, the most popular of which were clowns, witches and the killer from the "Scream" movies.

The children participated in bowling, spider-making, face painting and cookie decorating in addition to being escorted through the halls of Alice Lloyd for trick-or-treating. During a cookie-decorating session, a group of children discussed their experience at the University, citing the bus ride and the food as their favorite parts of the day.

Fifth-grader Martino Williams said his favorite part of the day was "looking into people's dorm rooms."

Nearly 600 University students and community members chose to get their thrills and chills this weekend at the Reserve Officer Training Corps haunted house, ROTC Public Affairs Officer Dan Valdez said.

Swinging corpses and chainsaw-operating morticians spooked students as they wound through a dark maze of tunnels in the basement of North Hall. The building served as a homeopathic hospital in 1899 and the basement, according to records, "presumably" served as the hospital's morgue.

The event, which has been sponsored by the University's ROTC program since 1975, raised $1,700 this year for the Ronald McDonald House, Valdez said.

LSA junior Arti Desai attended the haunted house with her friends for the first time this year.

"Going to a haunted house is the same thing as going on a roller coaster - it's fun to be scared," Desai said.

Associate psychology and neuroscience Prof. Steven Maren said Halloween allows people to explore images of death but in a controllable atmosphere.

"We like to be scared in situations when we can experience these images of death in a safe environment," Maren said. "We all have a fear of dying, and so Halloween is a way to approach that topic and deal with that subject and images of death."

ELLIE WHITE/Daily

Ann Arbor resident Melody Jones plays with a spider she made at a K-Grams Halloween party yesterday at Alice Lloyd Residence Hall.