On Friday, Oct. 27, La Crosse Area Cru, an interdenominational Christian organization at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, hosted a Halloween event. At 7 p.m. that evening music played from a barn outside of Galesville, Wisconsin. The barn was located miles away from UWL’s campus, but the space was filled with UWL students dressed in their Halloween best.
Costumes ranged from Ken and Barbie to cowboys and rodeo clowns as students gathered for a night of fun and dancing at Barn Bash.
Noah Looney, a third-year student at UWL and one of Cru’s community leaders, spoke about the event.
“Every year we come together as a community team and try to figure out what we want to do as a best way to get believers and nonbelievers to come together and grow in community,” Looney said. “Our thought behind it was we want to give people a place to come and hang out and dress up for Halloween without having to go out and party and have a safe place to come and stay.”
Sophie Albrecht, who was attending the event for the third year in a row, spoke highly of her night at Barn Bash.
“The energy here is really great,” she said. “It’s a fun place for college students to unwind and be themselves and be goofy.”
The Barn Bash event has been around for years. “We’ve been doing this the past four years, maybe more, and it’s super fun dance party vibes. I love it,” Looney said.
The barn was filled with people dancing to the music, but dancing was not the only activity of the night.
“We have a costume contest later,” Looney said. “We give out traveling trophies. The winners get to keep the trophy all year, and they bring it back next year and give it out to the next person. It’s pretty sweet.”
The costume contest was divided into three sections: individual, duo and group categories. Everyone who competed introduced themselves and their costume and then performed a short skit or action to help themselves stand out in the competition.
Dora the Explorer took first place for the individual category, and an astronaut and alien claimed the top spot for the duo costume. The group competition was won by Gru and the minions, who went all out with their costumes.
“There’s people that have minions face paint on. Their entire body is painted yellow. That’s a lot of commitment,” Looney said.
The minion’s face paint was paired with bald caps. “They are full-on minions with bald caps painted yellow and everything,” Albrecht said.
Some other favorite costumes of the night included the pickleball team, the Lorax and the Once-ler.
Faith Radtke, who was dressed as the Once-ler, said that they got the idea for the costume from TikTok.
However, not everyone planned their costumes ahead of time. Elizabeth Robbins dressed as a 1950s poodle girl. She said, “I went to Goodwill at 5 o’clock and two hours later, here we are.”
Albrecht, who came as Jessie from Toy Story, also shopped for her costume at Goodwill. “We went to Goodwill, and they just happened to have this costume in my size for seven bucks with a matching hat in the next aisle,” she said.
Radke’s favorite part of Halloween is the costumes, but there are so many other Halloween activities to enjoy. Albrecht loves carving pumpkins while Elijah Simmons said warm apple cider on the stovetop is a must.
Robbins said that her favorite part of Halloween is the Barn Bash, and her friend Jackson Lescamela agreed with her. “It’s energetic, festive, and fun,” he said. “It’s a real hoot!”
If you’re interested in joining Cru, the organization meets every Thursday in the Graff Main Hall auditorium at 8 p.m.
