by John Dowd, Editor
According to Hamilton City Administration, this year’s Hamilton Halloween Homes decorating contest was another great success. Hamilton Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf and Hamilton City Deputy Clerk Cynthia Fleming spoke about the event.
The contest has been growing in popularity every year, and according to Farrenkopf, a lot more people are also always asking where they can find the houses.
The contest allows residents in the community to enter their homes in the contest, striving to have the best decorated house for Halloween. The city also does a Christmas home decorating contest, which sparked the original idea to do one for Halloween. They have held the Christmas contest since 2021. According to Fleming, this was the third year for the Halloween contest.
Hamilton Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf with the Grand Prize winner Vanessa Godard and her son at 109 Cottonwood Court. Photo courtesy City of Hamilton.
Farrenkopf said that the participants go all out and create massively elaborate decoration set-ups. “Skeletons crawling on the roofs, lighting everywhere, cauldrons and smoke machines and more,” he said. “It’s just all very elaborate.”
“It really is a fun community activity people can rally around,” said Fleming. She explained that this year they only allowed 11 entries. They also limited participants to new entries because they have so many homes that want to participate. “It’s a lot to go around to all the houses,” said Fleming. “It’s an incredible amount of work.” These decisions also gave others a chance to win.
“It was really a lot of fun,” said Farrenkopf. He drives the bus every year in which he and the Hamilton City Council members and others ride in to see all the homes. Then, the council will vote on several categories, including Most Spooktacular, Most Effort, Most Creative and the Overall Grand Prize. That last one is usually evident, said Fleming, but not always. The overall winner gets $100 of Halloween candy. Other category winners get yard signs to show off their win to those driving by and to trick-or-treaters. The city always does the judging before Halloween so everyone walking through can see who won what. This can become very competitive, and showing off that sign can be a big deal. According to her, some areas will get hundreds of trick-or-treaters.
The home at 109 Cottonwood Court, which won the Grand Prize.
This year, the overall winner of the Grand Prize was Vanessa Godard, at 109 Cottonwood Court. The winner of Most Creative was Norman and Carol James, at 108 Ironwood Court. The Most Spooktacular prize was taken by Megan Nemitz at 617 N 5th Street. Finally, Most Effort was awarded to David and Cassi Youngblood, at 104 Sancherry.
The city posts photos of the winners on their Facebook page and there is a list on the City of Hamilton website, with addresses of all those who participated under the latest news tab. City administrators encourage the community to try to catch the houses this year before they take the decorations down.
The home of David and Cassi Youngblood at 104 Sancherry, which won Most Effort. Photos courtesy City of Hamilton.
Speaking on the night, Farrenkopf said, “It was just a really nice night to be out with the council and the staff and to try to bring some festivity to the city of Hamilton.”
“There were so many really amazing displays,” said Fleming. She added that it’s always hard to choose the winners because “everyone does such a good job.”