By Chandler Tuten

During the Halloween season there are multiple fun activities all throughout Loudoun County, including the annual Halloween parade, the Temple Hall corn maze, and Shocktober.   During the Halloween season there are multiple fun activities all throughout Loudoun County, including the annual Halloween parade, the Temple Hall corn maze, and Shocktober.

All of these activities are family friendly and can give everyone a good laugh, smile, or scare.

61st Annual Halloween Parade

On October 31, the town of Leesburg had its 61st annual Halloween parade that went past Ida Lee Park through King Street  making its way to  Safeway.

According to The Kiwanis Club of Leesburg, Virginia.this parade is one of the oldest Halloween parades in the United States.  Downtown Leesburg was filled with people from all over Loudoun County to watch.

This year, the parade contained many creative floats and vehicles that passed out loads of candy to kids in their Halloween costumes.  Featured in the parade were, politicians including Democrat Mark Herring who is running for Attorney General and Republican Ed Gillespie who is running for Governor, and the marching band.

Cole Francisco, a saxophone player in the band said he was “super duper” excited to perform in this year’s parade. When junior Justin Wyker went he said, “It was a great parade with many creative floats, it was better than last year’s parade.

Every year the Halloween parade is filled with people and this year was no different but there is more to the parade than just kids getting candy. The Kiwanis used the parade to  help raise awareness for the homeless in Loudoun County.

Spectators were encouraged to bring food donations for Loudoun Hunger Relief to help those homeless families eat.  This year the parade was able to bring in lots of food and donated lots of money to help those families in need.

The Temple Hall ‘Maize’ 

The Temple Hall corn maze opened September 29th and closed November 9th.  This year the corn maze offered many fun activities including giant yellow jumping pillows, live music from local bands, pig races, and areas where you could shoot targets with paintball guns.

There was also areas where you could watch corn and pumpkins soar through the air as they are shot from cannons.   The corn maze, a whopping 24 acres with many twists and turns and dead ends is definitely a challenge.

“I was lost for 30 minutes running around trying to figure out where I was, finally I just ran through the corn until I found my way out.” Said Mikey Ortega.

But while some people got lost others enjoyed the maze, such as junior, Brayden van Leliveld, “I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the maze while being with my friends.”

Once you finish finding your way out of the corn maze there was a nice store you could visit to buy pumpkins and other Halloween and fall type goods.

The Haunted House of Leesburg

This year Shocktober brought the scare, with the Paxton Manor haunted house and Carnival of Souls. In the carnival, there are many clowns that are meant to give you nightmares.  It is in the basement of the haunted house and it is filled with clowns coming around corners and hiding low on the ground and then popping out in front of you. “It’s really creepy and really easy to scare people.” said sophomore Anna Klevenhagen who works at Shocktober.

“It was so scary, I didn’t know what was going to come next,” said junior Scott Mullen. Getting through the haunted house is about 20-25 minutes of heart pounding terror. But if you worked in the haunted house, the event can be more fun than scary.  When junior Nathan Kelly volunteered at Shocktober during his freshman year, he said,  “I really enjoyed scaring people, it was fun.”

Although Shocktober is meant to scare people, it does more than that. All the money raised through the event go to the nonprofit: The Arc of Loudoun at Paxton Campus which helps people with disabilities living in Loudoun County. This year Shocktober was able to raise a lot of money for that cause.