Cam High students and staff attended the school’s annual Halloween Costume Contest at lunch in the quad in celebration of Halloween.

Costumes were judged by Cam High teachers Mr. Victor Palazuelos, Mrs. Francesca Gurney, Mr. Scott Martin, and Mr. Charles Fiacco with input from the audiences’ applause. The contest was grouped into four different categories: Best Individual Male, Best Individual Female, Best Couple, Best Group, and Best Staff costumes.

The first category was “Best Individual Male Costume.” Thirteen students displayed their costumes on the stage for the students watching the show. Costumes ranged from a banana to a stereotypical sports coach to Shrek to a witch doctor and more. Senior Daniel Loura won this category, dressed as a witch doctor. “Some of my experiences in Uganda inspired me because I saw a lot of different things there and also it’s just Halloween. It’s a fun time where you can be crazy and do whatever [I want],” said Loura.

The female individuals displayed their costumes to the viewers next. Twelve students in a variety of costumes including a panda, a vampire, Rey from Star Wars, and Kuzco from The Emporer’s New Groove, participated in this category. Katie Rodriguez, senior, dressed as Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, took home first place in this category. “[The process of this costume was] a lot of visits to the thrift store because I built everything myself,” said Rodriguez.

After the individual costume categories, the four pairs of couples went on stage for the Best Couples costume category.

Three out of the four couple costumes referenced either a movie, Suicide Squad and The Sandlot, or television show, Blue’s Clues. The winning pair was Makayla Long and Jakob Anilao who dressed up as Blue and Steve from Blue’s Clues. “We both wanted to do something throwback to remind everybody that we’re the 90’s kids,” said Long.

Competing for the Best Group category were five groups dressed in coordinated costumes: fast food, fruit salad, and characters from The Sandlot and The Fairly Oddparents.

The winning group, seniors Grace Churchill, Annika Degenna, Sydney Bolish, Kaylee Ortega and Morgan Lockwood, dressed up as individual fruits to form a fruit salad. “[Bolish] was going to be an avocado which made me think that we should be fruits, and I thought, ‘well, strawberry is my favorite fruit so I’ll just do that,'” said Lockwood. “During the contest, [Churchill] said that we should call us a fruit salad.”

Six teachers, Mrs. Christine Lawler, Mrs. Tawney Safran, Mrs. Jennifer Raymond, Mrs. Anne Huang, Mrs. Lauri Markson, and Mrs. Carla Davis, competed for the Best Staff costumes.  Their costumes included Elvis Presley, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and Princess Peach. In the end, all six were announced winners of this category.

Finally, winners from each category were then judged by the audience to decide the best overall costume. The overall winner of the Halloween costume contest was Long and Anilao as Blue’s Clues characters. “We were kind of surprised that we [won the overall contest],” said Long. “Honestly it was just really funny that we won.”

All winners received a box of cookies as a prize.

This year’s Halloween costume contest was put together by ASB. The week before, the students had asked teachers to help judge the contest, and those who agreed participated.

The event was hosted by announcers senior Grace Kehoe, ASB Spirit Director, and senior Bryce Skolnick, lunchtime activities commissioner. “It was fun, a lot of people participated- more than I thought would. They had some good costumes,” said Kehoe.

Though the general public enjoyed all the costumes this year, the school had limits for the types of costumes that were allowed on campus. Throughout the announcements during homeroom, it was made clear that the costumes for Halloween should not consist of any weapons or masks that covered the student’s faces and must follow the school’s dress code.

“I thought [the costumes] were outstanding, a lot of work was put into them,” said Martin.