Spooky weather couldn’t stop the Sophomore Owls and Sophomore Eagles from keeping in the Halloween spirit for their annual Halloween event. On Friday, Oct. 28, instead of hosting their annual Haunted Trail Walk, the organizations were forced to cancel the walk due to inclement weather and move their Halloween festivities to the second floor of the university’s New Balance Student Recreation Center.
With eerie decorations and music, the groups held multiple activities including pumpkin carving, toilet paper mummy wrap competitions and other games. Campus Activities & Student Engagement (CASE) also held their annual Halloween on the first floor of the recreation center that night, which presented a perfect opportunity for both events to collaborate.
“We saw that Campus Activities and Student Engagement was throwing an event downstairs,” Sophomore Owls President Joe Bowden said. With the help of CASE, the Owls and Eagles were able to pool together resources to hold multiple auxiliary activities.
While the Haunted Trail Walk could not be held this year, the two groups have been holding the event for the past 10 years. The groups have traditionally held the walk on the trails behind the New Balance Student Recreation Center and invited participants to walk through the trails to get spooked and to have fun.
The trails are led by student organizers, who lead participants through various spooky scenarios equipped with lighting, sounds effects and people in scary costumes. The event is the organization’s chem-free alternative activity that gives students an opportunity to participate in Halloween fun. Last year, the walk drew almost 600 participants. This event is one of many that Bowden said the Owls and Eagles use to “try and get out name out on campus and let the freshman know who we are.”
The Sophomore Eagles and Owls are honors organizations dedicated to community service around UMaine and in surrounding communities. One of the groups’ primary interests is helping to positively influence first-year University of Maine students as they transition to university life. One of the ways they do this is through the Black Bear Leader Program, which is essentially a buddy program intended for the Eagles and Owls to act as mentors to freshmen who may be having trouble acclimating or need someone to look up to.
“We are trying to revitalize the program,” Bowden said. One of the ways in which the groups intend to do this is by getting their name out on campus.
