LASD HAPS ABOUT CAMPUS

Where can you see a Bacon Queen waving to the crowd, while a life-sized radio plays tunes alongside giant crayons, candy Skittles and a Teletubby lurking in the background?

Attend any one of LASD elementary schools' Halloween parades and you will feel like you've entered some crazy, colorful dream from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

It's hauntingly happy Halloween time, and area schools welcomed everyone from the spookiest to the silliest to the blacktop to take a bow on Wednesday.

While teachers, along with parent volunteers, host classroom parties for students, every Halloween school principal plans a musical parade that has all students strutting out on campus blacktops to show off their imaginations through creative costumes.

And anything goes!! While some kids pick animals, cartoon and movie characters to emulate, some go for the goofy, coming as ketchup bottles or Legos. Some kids like to craft their own costumes, transforming cardboard boxes into robots and radios, computers and playing cards.

Even principals and teachers get in on the act, dressing as everything from pirates and princesses to bananas and beagles. Covington teachers united together to transform themselves into "Super Teachers" this year, which included all teachers wearing matching masks and capes. And fifth-grade "Super Teachers" Mrs. Portillo and Mrs. Welch led the pack of paraders on the school's route on Wednesday.

LASD parents line the schools' black tops and clap along with the music, snapping pictures of their children and nodding in unison at all the wonderfully wacky, creative costumes. For example, Loyola Principal Kimberly Attell got into the act, donning a Musketeer-type outfit, and invited each class to parade around on the black top in a circle so each child could show off his/her costume and give out high-fives while passing each other in the ring.

Almond goes all out and even holds a festive carnival for parents and students at the elementary school each year. And Santa Rita just hosted its annual Witches' Delight fund-raiser last Friday in which the whole community came out to enjoy rides, play games and have fun dressing up for the whole night.

Students said they look forward to the parade each year because "it's so much fun!" seeing what their peers are wearing. So whether you're a mummy or a yummy candy, Halloween school parades make up a tradition that never tires.