Heavenly Harvest and other Memories about Halloween
Last night was Halloween, and I spent the evening handing out candy at my mother in laws. There were at least several hundred kids on the street. My mind had several flashbacks, two years ago I was waiting on Home Health to show up to help me with taking care of Matt, I was in no mood to be bothered with Halloween. Last night bought back many memories. The last time I went trick or treating I was 12 and I took Sharon out. I got lectured to by adults saying I was too old to go out. The next year my parents wouldn't let us go out anymore. I saw teenagers last night trick or treating, I just gave them the candy, may have been up to something, and some just wanted to have fun. One year I took Rihanna to tailgate Halloween in downtown Beckley. I worked that event for many years as well.
I mentioned "The Heavenly Harvest" in the title because that's what I did every Halloween from 1987 - 1999. "The Heavenly Harvest" was conceived by Fred Passmore and I back in 1987. This was during the time of Bob Larson's radio program where he started to talk to demonic spirits on the air. The program got so bad I pulled it from our radio station in 1990. We were remembering out childhood Halloweens and how fun they were, but everything was getting dangerous and creepy. We wanted to have a place were kids could have fun. People had started taking kids to the malls to trick or treat. During this time, most churches didn't do anything for Halloween, for the most part they ignored it altogether. We thought someone should do something. At the time we were working with Marie Wills at the Ramada Inn, and they had a few stores there and a center court, and we thought wouldn't it be great to have something here for the kids focusing on Christian fun and not the demonic side of Halloween. It was fall so the name Heavenly Harvest was born.
The first year we had more kids than expected, while the kids went trick or treating we had a group to play some gospel music for the adults. "The Sears Family" were our host group for several years, that was because the people in the group had children and we thought it would be fun. After the singing and the trick or treating was done, there was the costume contest. We encouraged positive costumes, no scary ones. Believe me, people were very creative, we had everything from pumpkins to several Wizard of Oz characters and everything in between. There was one time that we gave a prize to a witch, it was the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. It was so well done, we had to give out a prize. The first year we had one hundred kids. We even dressed up. Thanks to Theater West Virginia we had costumes. This event was such a success, we did it every year for a while.
The second year we did it, The Heavenly Harvest was at the Crossroads Mall, it was a success, but there were some issues with the mall staff and the ability to control the event, so the next year, the event was moved to the Raleigh Mall. We worked with Drema Robertson, she was manager there at the time. She had very definite ideas on things to do, one thing she wanted was a puppet show for the kids, so I called Theater West Virginia, and they said they had puppet shows that they did in the schools, so we got them for the Raleigh Mall, and then our standbys "The Sears Family, and there was a costume parade prizes were awarded for the best costumes. The event was EXTREMELY successful. In the 1990's churches started doing things with the kids and it became harder each year to do what we needed.
We used a dance and mine team, a puppet show from Appalachian Bible College, Buzz Keller and the Gospel band. I look back over the years, it was fun, it was busy and I was glad to do it. 1999 was the last year we did "The Heavenly Harvest".
I look back over these things and I miss them. They are part of many treasured memories that I have in life.
I mentioned "The Heavenly Harvest" in the title because that's what I did every Halloween from 1987 - 1999. "The Heavenly Harvest" was conceived by Fred Passmore and I back in 1987. This was during the time of Bob Larson's radio program where he started to talk to demonic spirits on the air. The program got so bad I pulled it from our radio station in 1990. We were remembering out childhood Halloweens and how fun they were, but everything was getting dangerous and creepy. We wanted to have a place were kids could have fun. People had started taking kids to the malls to trick or treat. During this time, most churches didn't do anything for Halloween, for the most part they ignored it altogether. We thought someone should do something. At the time we were working with Marie Wills at the Ramada Inn, and they had a few stores there and a center court, and we thought wouldn't it be great to have something here for the kids focusing on Christian fun and not the demonic side of Halloween. It was fall so the name Heavenly Harvest was born.
The first year we had more kids than expected, while the kids went trick or treating we had a group to play some gospel music for the adults. "The Sears Family" were our host group for several years, that was because the people in the group had children and we thought it would be fun. After the singing and the trick or treating was done, there was the costume contest. We encouraged positive costumes, no scary ones. Believe me, people were very creative, we had everything from pumpkins to several Wizard of Oz characters and everything in between. There was one time that we gave a prize to a witch, it was the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. It was so well done, we had to give out a prize. The first year we had one hundred kids. We even dressed up. Thanks to Theater West Virginia we had costumes. This event was such a success, we did it every year for a while.
The second year we did it, The Heavenly Harvest was at the Crossroads Mall, it was a success, but there were some issues with the mall staff and the ability to control the event, so the next year, the event was moved to the Raleigh Mall. We worked with Drema Robertson, she was manager there at the time. She had very definite ideas on things to do, one thing she wanted was a puppet show for the kids, so I called Theater West Virginia, and they said they had puppet shows that they did in the schools, so we got them for the Raleigh Mall, and then our standbys "The Sears Family, and there was a costume parade prizes were awarded for the best costumes. The event was EXTREMELY successful. In the 1990's churches started doing things with the kids and it became harder each year to do what we needed.
We used a dance and mine team, a puppet show from Appalachian Bible College, Buzz Keller and the Gospel band. I look back over the years, it was fun, it was busy and I was glad to do it. 1999 was the last year we did "The Heavenly Harvest".
I look back over these things and I miss them. They are part of many treasured memories that I have in life.
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