Halloween is usually high on the list of everyone’s favorite holidays, and this year at Southwest Minnesota State the annual ResHalloween was bigger than ever. The campus boasted 12 different haunted houses spread across 18 different residential halls and all three floors of Sweetland.

This year the Residence Hall Association (RHA) decided to forgo the usual super scary house or two and instead make them all appropriate for kindergarten through eighth grad-aged children.  Since the event is free and open to the public, ResHalloween attracts much attention from the community as a safe and fun place to let little ones show off their costumes and get some candy.

SMSU’s own art club painted pretty pumpkins and took pictures of costumes at West Commons. Sweetland had a color themed floor on the first floor, a superhero themed floor on the second, and a pumpkin patch on the third. While Ocean Blvd and Armstrong had an “I Spy” theme going, Buckingham, Selene, Camaraderie, and Clapper have a Carnival theme, and Titan and Sirius had a similar Fun House theme.

A couple other houses got witchy: El Dorado and Kamasutra did a Journey through Hogwarts, and Lincoln Center and Charisma brought families to Oz with a Wizard of Oz themed house. Aquarius took people to a galaxy far, far away with a thrilling Star Wars theme. Manchester caused a city wide spook with HalloweenTown and Lakota and Chez Nous followed up with a Halloween Extravaganza. Porter and Sybaris went a different route with College Gone Country and had a good time doing it.

SMSU’s ResHalloween 2012 was a success by any definition. Candy flowed and children’s screams rang in the air. Fun was had all around.