On Oct. 17, girls field hockey held their annual Halloween practice. The players came dressed up in various costumes, where they split into Horns Up Cup teams and competed against each other in various activities. There are four Horns Up Cup teams, which remain the same each year as seniors graduate and rising freshmen fill their spots. Throughout the season, they have several chances to compete and win points. At the end of the season, the team with the most points becomes the champion and gets their name engraved on the Horns Up Cup.

This year, the girls competed in a lip sync battle, a scavenger hunt and several relay races. Each year, the final winner is announced at the end-of-season banquet. Senior Ava Prsha has been on the winning team, “Wolf Pack,” for the past three years.

“I’m hoping we win [this year] because we’ve won every year since I was a freshman,” Prsha said. “Our biggest strength is we’re all competitive and athletic.”

Senior and varsity captain Jenna Eickmeier has been on the field hockey team all four years. This year, she dressed up as a farmer with her friend and teammate, senior Hannah Zaiser who was a pig.

“Making up the dance was the best part,” Eickmeier said. “We danced to “Waka Waka” by Shakira. We were trying to watch the Just Dance version of it but we had to improvise a bit.”

On Oct. 23, the library hosted a pumpkin painting event during Ac Lab and encouraged students to participate. On one side of the library, students who signed up beforehand could paint pumpkins of various sizes and shapes with fun colors. On the other side of the library, Best Buddies, a program that connects people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), offered the same opportunity for its club members to interact with one another and paint pumpkins together.

Freshman Sid Furnish also participated in the Best Buddies pumpkin painting. The Best Buddies members were painting characters from Inside Out, and Furnish chose to paint anger.

“I’ve known about the Best Buddies program and I heard about [the] pumpkin painting, so I decided to sign up,” Furnish said. “[My favorite part] is working with my friend. It’s fun to talk and paint even though it was a little hard because we had small pumpkins.”

Some students like senior Gianna Lionelli came to pumpkin painting with her friends. Many students, like Lionelli, decided to paint movie characters for their pumpkins.

“I [made] a minion because of the new “Minions” movie that just came out and my favorite color is yellow,” Gianna Lionelli said. “This is dedicated to [senior] Sally Peters, because my sophomore year of high school, her idea was to dress up as minions for Halloween, which was perfect.”

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, West High hosted the annual Trunk or Treat in the North Parking Lot from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. This annual event allows clubs and sports to set up their trunks for elementary and West High feeder school students to participate.

Trunk or Treat offers an opportunity for West High clubs and sports teams to give out candy to younger students while also spreading information about programs. Varsity girls golf coach Gretchen Gregory and members of the girls golf team set up a trunk for Trunk or Treat.

“The girls golf team came out in wonderful costumes to give some candy out,” Gregory said. “We also had a Putt-Putt without the putter so [kids] can try to kick the ball into the hole.”

Like every year, Longhorn Council is in charge of organizing the Trunk or Treat event. This year, it took about a month to set up and facilitate different clubs and sports teams.

“Trunk or Treat shows elementary schoolers how fun high school is. School spirit is also a major part [of Trunk or Treat] because of all the clubs,” sophomore Adam Thomas said. “[The purpose of] Trunk or Treat is to make kids feel happy and ready for Halloween.”

In September, actors across campus gathered together to audition for the fall play “Clue: On Stage.” Over the course of two months, the selected cast and crew spent weeks rehearsing lines and transitions, the outcome of which became the show that will be featured in the auditorium on Nov. 1, 2 and 3.

The play is a rendition of the board game and 1985 movie “Clue”. Actor and sophomore Joe McCurdy, who played Mr. Green was able to apply his expertise.

“I think performing my character had a steep learning curve. I’ve never played someone much older than I am and I had to reevaluate nearly everything I do onstage to respect my character’s age,” McCurdy said. “Over time I got more comfortable playing him, especially after I’d memorized and had the ability to experiment more and get more physical.”

Like McCurdy’s portrayal of an older character, junior Juliana Rodgers was tasked to play Mrs. Peacock, the wife of a senator who is also perceived as mature and elderly.

“This was my first time playing an older person, so it was really fun to try to find the voice, posture, and reactions that [Mrs. Peacock] would have at her age versus 16-year-old me,” Rodgers said. “My favorite part of rehearsing for the play was definitely being surrounded by such talented and wonderful people. Everyone genuinely cares for one another, no matter if you’re cast or crew. It’s been so amazing to see everyone’s passion throughout the process.”

On Oct. 20, Longhorn Line held a Halloween dance camp for kids in grades Kindergarten through fifth grade. The camp lasted from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. including various games, activities and a Halloween-themed dance routine.

The members of the Longhorn Line dance team were paired up and assigned to different grade levels. The practice before the Halloween camp, the dancers created the Halloween-themed dances that the kids would learn and perform. Senior Lydia Moellering partnered up with sophomore Valerie Vang and dressed up as characters from “101 Dalmatians.”

“Everyone gets split up into groups, and we come up with a Halloween themed dance for whatever grade we get put with. I got put with [the] fourth graders with [Vang], and we came up with a dance to “Calling All the Monsters.” It was a lot of fun. We played ships and sailors, but instead of that we did a Halloween version. We also did technical drills with the kids,” Moellering said.

Vang got the opportunity to meet new people through the experience of teaching dance to her younger peers. As a first-year member of the dance team, this was her first time helping out at the Halloween dance camp.

“For the most part, I got to meet and socialize with a lot of younger kids, which was really nice. Everyone dressed up in costumes, [which] was really cute. I loved seeing the kids [dress up as well] and a lot of the kids [told me they] liked my costume,” Vang said. “We learned the spirit sideline. It’s a dance that everyone learns and whenever they play it, the kids run to go do the dance, and that was really fun to [watch].”