The Pumpkin Decoration Contest is Almost Here - Vote Chapelle!

The Halloween season is here, which means it is time for the Pumpkin Decoration Contest! The contest is hosted by Raising Canes and includes schools in the area that compete for a grand prize of $1,200. Every school submits its own themes and works tremendously hard for first place. Residents in the area vote daily for their school of choice. So, remember to vote for Chapelle! 

In previous years, Chips have had a multitude of creatively themed pumpkins. These themes include Scooby Doo, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Beauty and The Beast, Jurassic Park, and many more. For the Chips to pick a theme, they all come up with different options and vote for the best one. The themes they came up with this year were: Animal Crossing, Ghost Busters, Tim Burton, and Disney’s Haunted Mansion. 

Tim Burton won! They will be creating a collection of decorative pumpkins according to different movies and features created by Tim Burton! Tim Burton has played a part in creating the beloved spooky movies you know and love, some of which include: Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, and Corpse Bride.

For the competition four artists have been chosen to design a pumpkin. They each work on a pumpkin that is themed to the different movies directed by Tim Burton. 

After speaking with some of the artists, here is what they had to say:

“I’m working on the poster for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which will be put into a pumpkin that shows all the movies he’s made that aren’t their own pumpkin.” -Christina Pierce ‘28

“I’m typically helping out on whichever pumpkins need work.” -Demi Kostopoulos ‘26

“The pumpkin I’m painting is for Corpse Bride.” -Alyssa Parfait ‘28

It takes a long period of time to finish painting and decorating multiple pumpkins. The art chips spend every day trying to make the pumpkins stand out and look their best for the competition: 

“We work on them usually up until the day before they’re due. We’ve been working on them for the past three weeks and we usually get four artists to finish them.” -Mrs. Bachemin

The art chips are pretty confident in winning the competition, but the judging will be altered this year. Mrs. Bachemin expresses her positivity in this competition and the change in the ruling, “I think we’re going to win. This year the judging is done differently.  They’re now having first place be decided by a professional judge. Second and third place will be decided by popular vote, the same as last year.”

Last year the robotics chips built mechanisms for Freddy Fazbear’s head making the jaw open and the head swivel. For this year's competition, they will build the hands for Edward Scissor Hands! The goal is for at least two fingers to move but hopefully, they can get the whole hand moving!

For Chapelle to take first place this year, they need your help! On October 8th, voting will go live for everyone in the archdiocese. The art chips would be delighted to successfully win this contest! To support their hard work, be sure to chip in your vote for Archbishop Chapelle’s fantastic Tim Burton pumpkins.