Northwood’s Trail of Terror is making a comeback after a two-year hiatus. Planned by Northwood’s student council in collaboration with volunteers from the student body, the annual event was cancelled last year due to COVID, and in 2019 due to low participation. In the past, the Halloween-inspired event has taken place in late October, where visitors come to be scared as they walk along Northwood property on the rightfully named “Trail of Terror.”
Gio Cacciato, the junior class officer of fundraising, along with the rest of the junior class officers, has overseen the planning process. The current senior class is the only grade that has has ever been able to experience the event while attending Northwood, and this has motivated Cacciato to make this year’s Trail of Terror the best yet.
“What makes me especially passionate about the Trail of Terror is the fact that our class [class of 2023] has never been able to experience the event while attending Northwood High School,” Cacciato said.
This year, a whopping seventy students signed up to volunteer, attending weekly meetings on Thursdays to help plan the event. Among the student volunteers is senior Andrew Kimbrel who has attended the trail twice in the past and is volunteering for the first time this year.
“I think the Trail of Terror is a great way to incorporate Halloween and some holiday fun at Northwood,” Kimbrel said. “It’s also just a lot of fun to make costumes and plan out the trail,”
Students split into “scare groups” and are given an area of the trail to plan out, tasked with deciding how to scare guests, complete with props and costumes, and finding people to fill individual roles such as scarers, technicians, and tour guides.
“It’s mainly student-run, so it’s really nice to see how smoothly and well it runs without adults around,” lover of “all things spooky,” junior Willow Denuo, said.
With the guidance of the student council members, the student volunteers are responsible for planning and running the trail.
Declan Leigh, a senior volunteer who has never been to the Trail in the past, admitted that the pandemic also creates some planning challenges.
“When it comes to COVID, we have to be mindful of the safety of [how] we scare, so we are getting creative with how we go about it.” Leigh said.
Creativity is integral to the planning process–in order to give visitors a real scare, they have to think outside the box.
“We don’t just want to go ‘boo!’, we want to immerse them and truly spook them,” Leigh added.
The Trail will be open to visitors on Oct. 28.
