What is tradition?

Tradition is joy, laughter, and memories. It is when the seniors of Lewis Mills High School craft costumes – individually, or with their friends.

Tradition. Tradition is when Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs march through the halls singing the tune to “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho.” Tradition is when all of “Andy’s toys” awaken to form a real life “Toy Story.” Tradition is when characters from Mario Kart race after one another throughout the corridors of LSM.

On Oct. 31, Lewis S. Mills High School opened its doors yet again to the student body. Yet on that day, it did not resemble a school, but a Walmart. Ten twelfth-grade students arrived at school early Tuesday morning and hung a Walmart banner above the entrance. They greeted everyone with a warm smile, a smiley face sticker, and a simple slogan, “Welcome to Walmart.” Even this surreal scene doesn’t portray just how erratic this one day a year can become, thanks to the Senior Halloween tradition.

This year there seemed to be fewer solo costume participants. DoodleBob by Valerie Neuhausser depicted SpongeBob’s alter ego, and the robotic, yet bearded fortune teller Zoltar who was channeled by Zachary Tsiongas, were easily ones to be remembered.

“It was a lot of work,” stated Tsiongas, “But it was well worth it.”

Tsiongas spent many long hours in a successful attempt to complete his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in his class’s Senior Halloween. On this day, students parade around the building showing off their costumes and acting their parts.

Aside from the absence of solo costumes, there were plenty of group costumes to exceed and overwhelm the expectations of many teachers and students. Student counselor Lucio Demarco dressed as Waldo from “Where’s Waldo?” along with the other student counselors, and said that this year “was a much more conservative and tasteful approach to Halloween. I feel like it made a really nice example for underclassmen.” It was truly remarkable to hear student after student say how this year’s costumes were far better than last year’s or the year prior, several noted.

This day isn’t solely for seniors to participate, though. All students and teachers become involved whether they want to or not. Just to arrive at their next class on time, pupils of Mills had to dodge police men and a slew of female boxers throwing fists left and right throughout the four hectic minutes between classes.

Each and every year everyone wonders how they will beat the year prior. And yet, most times, they do whether they expect to or not. This year’s solo costume winner was Doodlebob, the winning duo costume was Forest Gump and Lieutenant Dan, and the winning group costume was Toy Story.

Sophie Zipoli, who portrayed Little Bow Peep in the Toy Story group costume, stated that “With such a large group of people, it was definitely an interesting process trying to get organized and figure out what our group should dress up as.” Once her group found their idea, Zipoli said, “it was fun to make our costumes. It was a really fun day, and Toy Story was wasn’t expecting to win so that was a really cool surprise.”