First ever Hall-OU-Ween Spooktacular successful

Being an artist Amy Smith is dedicated to her creation no matter what, even if it’s turning herself into the scariest Bride of Darkness possible.

The long, black bridal gown and black lace veil she found at Walmart worked perfectly. It was the makeup that was giving her fits.

“The makeup wasn’t white enough,” Smith said.

So she looked to her own paint box of acrylics to give herself just the right ghostly pallor. It took her two hours.

Smith was dressing up for the Ohio University Southern Ironton campus Hall-OU-Ween Spooktacular Saturday.

Fellow art students Megan Cox, with her daughter, Rowan, in the role of Queen Elsie, Kenna Kelley and Debbie Virgin were busy turning the hallways at the Mains Rotunda into a Haunted Hall filled with zombies, skeletons and Dracula coming out of his coffin and ending in a graveyard filling the courtyard.

“They asked us if we come up with a haunted house, except this is too small,” Kelley said. “So we made it a haunted hallway.”

All the ghouls and spirits from beyond came from the storage house of Virgin, who scours Halloween stores after the holiday to stock up.

Before getting into her costume Virgin was busy setting up the life-size Dracula who periodically would come out of his red satin-line coffin to howl at spectators.

Out in the parking lot, costumed children were lining up to take part in a Trunk or Treat. This was the first time for OUS to host this kind of Halloween event.