Halloween is usually seen as the spooky holiday that gives people an excuse to scare their neighbors or eat an excessive amount of candy. Despite the popular take on the day, many people at Kelly Walsh High School have veered form the status quo and have developed their own unique traditions.

Every October, members of the Kelly Walsh Student Council go door to door around the neighborhood in costume and “Trick-or-Treat” for cans.

Jolene Whitley, a KWHS counselor and a student council advisor, said, “This is a fun canned food drive that the KW student council does to help support our local food banks. We also help support Food for Thought which is a project that helps provide food for those students in Natrona County who may be in need of a little extra during the weekends or holiday season.”

Katy Sheley, a KWHS science teacher, along with a number of other science teachers in the building also established some traditions of their own.

“We have some pretty cool demonstrations that we like to do for Halloween. One of the demos that we do involves an exploding pumpkin using acetylene gas. We also do a demo that we did at the beginning of the year called Elephant Toothpaste, but we do it out of a carved pumpkin’s mouth making it look like it is vomiting,” said Sheley.

Instead of celebrating Halloween, many indigenous cultures celebrate Día de los Muertos on November 2^nd. Día de los Meurtos is not known for being a scary holiday, but a solemn one where people commemorate their lost loved ones.

Desiree Higgins, a KWHS Spanish teacher, said, “In my class, we do many activities where the students learn about Día de los Muertos. The students do many cultural activities such as decorating skulls and having a food cultures day where they bring authentic food from Mexico.” Higgins also added that each year Spanish Club meets to decorate sugar skulls for an altar.

Higgins said, “This year we will be putting the decorated sugar skulls on an altar for Frida Kahlo.” Higgins invites students to join the fun on October 29^th before and after school in rooms 167 and 168.

Whether it’s collecting cans, blowing up pumpkins, or decorating sugar skulls, many people have found their own distinct traditions that that are ushered in as soon as the first leaf of autumn falls to the ground.