Shippensburg University students got into the Halloween spirit Sunday night with some traditional pumpkin carving in McFeely’s Coffeehouse.

Gear manager for the Activities Program Board (APB) Kelsi Cnarr orchestrated the event. Cnarr was pleased with the debut of the pumpkin carving event, as well as the number of people who came out to participate.

“We do a lot of other events like this but this is the first pumpkin carving [event],” Cnarr said. “It’s had a great turnout so far so we’ll probably do it from here on out.”

After participants signed in at the door and received their pumpkin carving materials, they made their way to a table crowded with pumpkins of various shapes and sizes. Once the participants selected their pumpkins, they took a seat at one of the many plastic-covered tables and got to work.

APB provided all of the materials including pumpkins, carving tools, design stencils and paper towels for cleanup.

“The pumpkin carving supplies we ordered off of Amazon and the pumpkins we got from a local grocery store called BB’s,” Cnarr said.

“We took all of their pumpkins so we ended up having to go to Wal-Mart to get the rest of them,” Cnarr said.

Participants could be found scattered throughout McFeely’s, gutting and scraping out the stringy, orange insides of their pumpkins. Once the messy part was over, participants crouched close to their pumpkins, tediously carving out detailed Halloween images such as ghoul-like faces and creepy owls.

Senior Trent Montgomery was no stranger to the art of pumpkin carving.

“I’ve carved pumpkins since I was a little kid,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery believed his evening of chiseling away at a pumpkin was well spent.

“It turned out to be a lot of fun. I recommend students come out to these events,” Montgomery said.

Pumpkin carving participants were given the opportunity to enter a contest judged by Cnarr and other event coordinators. When participants were finished carving their pumpkins, they could place their pumpkin on a Halloween-decorated table for a picture that would later be judged for the contest. The first, second and third-place winners received gift cards of varying amounts.

However, all pumpkin carving participants left McFeely’s as winners, as they got to take their newly carved pumpkins home to show off to friends and family. The event coordinators also handed out little baggies for students to collect pumpkin seeds along with an instruction sheet on how to bake the seeds to eat as a tasty snack.

Participants included not just SU students, but a few parents and children as well.

Montgomery pointed out that pumpkin carving is not sanctioned to either the young or the old.

“Who doesn’t love carving pumpkins?”

Although Halloween is officially over, participants’ porches will be illuminated by their freshly carved pumpkins for weeks to come.

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