Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Pocahontas County High School’s ProStart students are putting the spook in spook-tacular with their annual haunted house in the school’s auditorium.
What began as a simple event with Halloween specific treats for students has turned into a full scale haunted house with jump scares and themed rooms that will make all who enter jump right out of their shoes.
“We switched from snacks to a full-on haunted house,” ProStart teacher Teresa Mullen said.
What began with two dividing walls in her classroom, has branched out to include the hallway and entire back section of the auditorium.
Second year students selected a portion of the auditorium and were given $50 to purchase items for their theme. The hallway will be sectioned off and several of the rooms behind the stage will have different themes including clowns, an asylum and an escape room.
High school students will enter – if they dare – on Halloween, Thursday, October 31, and Mullen said they plan to open the haunted house to the public on Friday, November 1, after school.
“The kids go all out,” Mullen said. “It’s quite elaborate. [Bill] Brown and [Abe] Rittenhouse are usually our guinea pigs. We push them through first to test everything.”
All the work going into the haunted house the week before and the week of doesn’t mean the students are getting a break from class work. Instead, they did double the work prior to this project in order to stay on course.
The ProStart program has stayed busy this semester.
In the month of October, they made four different kinds of soup for the Empty Bowls fundraiser and catered the county literature fair. They also made soup last week to sell to teachers for lunch.
Up next is preparing a luncheon for the Pocahontas County Veterans Honor Corps during the Veterans Day event November 7.
Then, of course, there are the competitions.
“We’ve already been on one trip,” Mullen said. “We went to the Culinary Bootcamp. We’re well underway – moving right along.”