During the Bucoda Town Council’s regular monthly meeting on Sept. 9, Mayor Callie Carpenter made the official proclamation changing the South Thurston County community’s name to Boo-Coda for the month of October.
Priding itself as the “world’s tiniest town with the biggest Halloween spirit,” residents and volunteers hold the Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular — a month-long ghoulish celebration held annually featuring multiple events including casket races, a hearse procession parade and participating in the “Thrill the World Dance,” where people around the world dance to Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” simultaneously.
However, the Boo-Coda Haunted House will not be a part of this year’s sinister celebrations, Carpenter said during the meeting. There were multiple reasons, she stated, with the chief among them being the volunteers, many of them getting older, didn’t want to do it again this year.
“I think they’re just tired of doing it. It’s a lot of work and there’s not very many people that are turning up to volunteer to help support it,” Carpenter said.
Additionally, Andrew Schaffran — chief of both the Bucoda Fire Department and South Thurston Fire & EMS — has expressed concerns about the old gymnasium building in which the Haunted House is usually set up. He said it is lacking an overhead sprinkler system.
“I think it’s best that this year we don’t have a Haunted House,” Carpenter added.
Back in June, Carpenter announced the Haunted House was being partially and temporarily broken down to make space inside the old gym building for children to play in and get lunches through the Tenino Food Bank’s summer lunch program.
While taking down some parts of the Haunted House, they realized everything needed to be cleaned.
According to Carpenter, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is stepping in to help pay after she initially reached out to PSE to see if they were interested in helping fund the summer lunch program.
“(PSE) and another company called BrightNight, they are generously going to donate to have the Haunted House, the gym, cleaned. We’re going to get everything out and clean it from top to bottom. Once that’s done, we’ll see what we can do with the building,” Carpenter said. “... It really needs to be cleaned. That is kind of the first priority.”
Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, BrightNight is a power company that focuses on developing custom hybrid energy systems for commercial, industrial and municipal utility companies with clean, dispatchable and renewable options according to its website.
Carpenter stated she was looking into getting grant funding to pay for sprinkler installation as well.
Additionally, she announced that the Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular now had co-chairs — new Bucoda Town Councilor John Wood, who is now heading up organizing the Halloween celebration with George Sharp, longtime Thurston County tourism promoter and rural program manager for the Thurston Economic Development Council’s South Thurston Economic Development Initiative.
While there won’t be a Haunted House this year, Sharp stated he and Wood were adding a number of new events this year.
This includes an entire weekend now pumpkin-themed, to include a pumpkin pie eating contest.
“We’re also going to do pumpkin races, where people decorate pumpkins and put them on four wheels, then race them as well,” Sharp said. “... We’re gonna do a chalk art contest too. We’ve added about six or eight new things that will happen this year.”
There are plans to have actual ghost hunts throughout many of Boo-Coda’s buildings this year too, along with a zombie race and a pet costume parade.
As far as the future of the Haunted House goes, Sharp added he and Wood have been reaching out to local nonprofits to see if they would be interested in running it in the future as a fundraiser for whichever nonprofit decides to run it.
Sharp also said Wood has been the best volunteer he’s worked with so far, and is looking forward to continuing to grow the Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular together with him. Look for a full preview with dates, times and locations of Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular events in the next edition of The Chronicle.
For more information on the Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular, visit its website at https://bucoda.us/boo-coda or follow its official Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BOOCODAWA.
