Halloween fun arrives in LeClaire
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By Mary Louise Speer | Sunday, October 29, 2006 |
LeCLAIRE, Iowa — Ah har har.
The chilling sounds of cackles echoed off the Mississippi River and into the streets of downtown Saturday during the third annual LeClaire Witches Walk.
Fortunately for the residents of this small river town, the other worldly sounds were part of the first Cackle Competition and costumed characters were well fed with cookies and freshly brewed hot chocolate.
Between 400 and 500 people in a rainbow of disguises participated in the parade along Cody Road and the LeClaire levee. A small skunk clutched his parent’s hand and a little witch for an afternoon carried her cauldron on the back of a John Deere riding toy.
“I used to do the whole wicked witch of the West. She was the mean one and that’s me,” LeClaire City Council member Mary Farmer said.
Farmer took the title of Best Cackle in a three-way cackle-off. Winning that honor is due to her experience in hearing hens cackle and musical training, she said. Renee Long of Rapids City, Ill., took the most Spooktacular Cackle honors and Liz Leaf of Moline received an award for Good Cackle.
David Roete of LeClaire took third-place honors in the 18 and older Best Costume category. He might have taken first place but unfortunately his brains had congealed in a pool of blood on top of his head. After the parade, he tried to satisfy his appetite by snacking on a bloody stump of a leg purchased at a garage sale. He figures it will take him about three weeks to consume the plastic prop.
The best part of being in the parade for him and fiancee Jolene Johnson is having a good time. “I’m a little crazy,” he said. “We’re never too old to have fun.”
Manuela Schreiber, 11, of Albany, Ill., got the inspiration for her costume while riding on the bus and thinking about bees, she said. “Basically, I’m the Queen Bee and this is my hive,” she said as she pointed to her skirt. She wore stuffed bees suspended on wires around her waist. “These are bees and they’re flying out from the hive.”
Her brother, Mavrick Schreiber, 9, dressed as a character from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie and carried a crow on his shoulder. “Whenever I walk around, he caws,” he said. “Deciding on my costume took almost a whole year. I thought of a two-headed mummy but making it would have taken a long time.”
Donna Shuck of Milan, Ill., took top honors in the costume competition for a second year in a row. This year she arrayed herself in a mask lined with red plumes as the Angel of Death. Her husband, Quintin Shuck, pretended to be Old and Decrepit and their daughter, Alexandra Shuck, 7, dressed as Cerberus the Hound from Hades.
“I’m a road trip in front with road kill on the back,” son Connor Shuck, 11, said about his costume.
Karissa Kastelic, 7, came as a pink leopard girl and her friend Myranda Roberts, 7, both of Davenport, dressed as a drama queen. Roberts’ favorite part was the sparkling heart eyes on her costume’s skull and crossbones.
Kristin Kastelic, 16, of Davenport, showed off her unique sense of style by coming as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. She designed the costume with a red-and-pink diamond patterned shirt and black hat with white rabbit ears.
“The hardest thing was sewing on all the buttons. There’s 43 just on the shirt,” she said.
Eventually she wants to open a fashion store or costume shop in Tokyo, Japan. “I’ve been wanting to move there since I was seven,” she said.
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
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