City holds annual Fall-o-Ween Festival

By PAMELA GRANT
Cove Leader-Press 

Hundreds of kids dressed in a variety of creative costumes congregated Saturday evening, eagerly gathering goodies and treats from various local businesses at the annual Fall-o-Ween Festival, held at S. C. Lee Junior High School. 
The annual event is usually held by the City of Copperas Cove’s Tourism Department at City Park, but due to the weather the event was moved indoors. Although some of the activities were nixed, the hundreds of families who attended were still treated to an evening filled with fun and, most importantly, free candy.
This year’s event featured safe trick-or-treating, several bounce houses, vendors, games, and food trucks. 
“It’s always a fun time for kids to get out and everybody enjoys the trick-or-treating, and seeing the community, and showing off their costumes,” said Brianna McGuine, the city’s tourism and information coordinator. “It’s fun and it just brings the community together. It’s the kickoff of all the holidays that are coming up…it’s honestly wonderful having all this support from the community, and getting everyone together is always fun.”
McGuine said that having the businesses come to the event makes it even more fun. 
In addition to being a safer, more comfortable way for children to go trick-or-treating, she said it’s a good way for people to get to know the groups and businesses within their community a little better, especially the newer businesses. She added that Best Western and Raising Cane’s were their two top donors.
Raising Cane’s hosted the costume contest this year. Shaun Smith, the General Manager for Raising Cane’s, made sure that everyone who entered the costume contest would be able to receive a free meal from Raising Cane’s.
“It was an opportunity for us to give back to the kids and everyone who wants to be involved,” said Smith. “It’s just what Cane’s does. We like to be involved in everything and anything we can to be able to give back to the community that gives back to us.”
In addition to food items, they also gave board games, gift baskets, Raising Cane’s shirts and hats, and more as contest prizes for the top competitors in each category.
In addition to the costume contest, this year’s event featured six food trucks selling treats like deep fried Snickers and Oreos, and dinner items like turkey legs, hot dogs, and barbecue. There were also vendors selling trinkets, food items, and more. 
For many, though, the most exciting part was all the groups handing out free candy. Thirty local businesses attended the event, doling out candy to the hundreds of eager children. 
“I live here in Copperas Cove, and I attended the event last year. We thought it would be a great opportunity to get out into the community by handing out candy to all of the kids and showing what Gateway has to offer,” said Fredrick Fluker who represented Gateway Mortgage. “It’s been great. The turnout has been amazing. Everyone seems to be very receptive, and there’s a lot of prizes and goodies.”
Aside from the candy and prizes, the kids also enjoyed the games and bounce houses as well as the opportunity to show off their costumes and talk about their favorite characters.
“I wanted to have a super scary costume,” said Emma Miller (5). Miller dressed as a zombie version of Snow White. 
Miller wasn’t the only one who dressed up in a scary costume. Marcus Ball (12) attended the event as the son of Freddy Krueger complete with a mask that opened and closed to show off a mouth full of vicious looking teeth.
“I like his shirt, I like his claws, and I found this scarecrow mask,” said Ball about his costume. He said his favorite thing about the event was getting to scare some people with his costume. He also liked being able to collect a bunch of candy. “I think I’ll eat all of the candy before I get home,” said Ball.
Marcus attended the event with his mother, Sue Ball. 
“We’ve been having a great time. I was really excited that they moved it indoors,” said Sue Ball. “He’s been getting great reactions to his costume.”