Revere’s Yearbook hosted their annual tradition of a Halloween costume contest, where students and faculty dressed up to compete and win prizes.
The Halloween costume contest is a tradition created by Yearbook adviser Amy Fagnilli. This was the tenth year of the contest, and she explained how the Yearbook staff prepares for this event so that it runs smoothly.
The students and Fagnilli plan ahead for the contest so that they have time to prepare and make the voting process fair.
“The Yearbook class makes a huge backdrop and that usually takes us at least two full class days,” Fagnilli said.
After the class makes the backdrop, students and staff take their photos for contest submission. Fagnilli explains that once the pictures are in, the staff works to pick the best pictures for the student body to vote on.
“Most of the work actually happens after the contest. . . .We weed through the hundred or more pictures that we get and try to narrow it down to what we think are the best. And then those are the people that are actually in the contest. After that, it’s up to the student body to vote,” Fagnilli said.
As the adviser of Yearbook, Fagnilli makes sure to promote the contest to help create a vibrant Halloween page for the Yearbook.
“Definitely one of the whole goals of the contest is to encourage Halloween at Revere because we really want to put a really awesome Halloween page in the book, and so this is like one of our main motivations,” Fagnilli said.
Joseph Susick, a teacher at Revere for seventeen years, participates in the Halloween costume contest every year that he can. He explains that his love for the holiday is what keeps him competing and winning.
“I just love Halloween. I love costuming. I teach drama, that’s a big part of it. And I like being the master of Halloween,” Susick said.
This year Susick dressed as a hamster, which involved a life sized plastic ball he fit into, he explained the challenges this caused him.
“That ball that I used was suffocating me. So you have the ball and it’s meant to be walked on water. I was getting about six minutes in it,” Susick said.
The elaborate costumes Susick creates each year are what continuously have him winning the teacher prize.
“I just go over the top. I bring the heat.” Susick said.
In previous years Susick went as other creative costumes which he compared to this year’s hamster costume.
“No, it’s not as good as other years. Like, probably Zoltar was the best a couple years back,” Susick said.
Along with Susick, there were three individual winners, and one student group costume won. Two members of the winning group, Olivia Jakab and Kylie Perez, discussed their roles in the planning of their Kung Fu Panda costume.
“We needed a costume that had enough characters for everyone, but also popular enough where people knew who we were,” Perez said.
Both Jakab and Perez wore inflatable animal costumes from the movie (Panda and Tiger). They explained why they chose the inflatables.
“I wanted it to be kind of funny and all out. And people wouldn’t really know who I was,” Jakab said.
To further promote their costume, and bring in lots of votes, the group used social media to spread the word.
“We posted on Instagram. We posted ourselves and really, really campaigned. Like on our personal accounts,” Perez said.
There were a total of 434 voters, who chose three individual winners, a group winner and a teacher winner.
The individual costume winners were Donald Trump (Seth Eldridge), Baby (Nicky Ghiorghie), and Jesus (Paul Torma). The group costume winners of Kung Fu Panda included Shane Yankovitz, Sheza Qasim, Lily Blower, Kylie Perez, Olivia Jakab, Katie Kunkle, Leah Valentine and Kira Perez. Finally, this year’s teacher winner was Susick as a hamster. All winners received various gift cards or candy prizes.
