Date: Fri 25-Oct-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A1

Quick Words:

scarecrow-Anderheggen-Williams

Full Text:

(winners announced for NMS Scarecrow Sculpture Contest, 10/25/96)

Newtown's Notorious Crow Contras

(with photos)

BY SHANNON HICKS

On Monday morning, October 21, the front office at the Bee Publishing Company

on Church Hill Road in Newtown was dotted with envelopes of all sizes and

colors. Residents from all corners of town had been dropping off their ballots

for the first annual Sculpted Scarecrow Contest in the newspaper office's mail

slot since early Sunday morning and the results were stunning. After one day

of voting, over seventy envelopes containing ballots had been turned in.

The contest was the brainstorm of middle school Discovery teacher John Vouros

and art teachers Claudia Clancy and Sue Ward. The teachers had been spending

much of the previous month working on a scarecrow project, teaching their

students about the uses, origin and history of the field adornments.

The culmination of the project was set up on the front lawn along Queen Street

in Newtown Sunday morning. Working in groups of two and three students each,

nearly thirty scarecrows of all shapes, sizes and descriptions were

constructed.

Traditional to modern, whimsical to frightening, the scarecrows had been

created larger-than-life. Many stood well over six feet tall. There was a tall

dark figure created in the likeness of a character that represents all evil in

the J.R.R. Tolkein book series, Lord of the Rings .

Another clever creation was a bee keeper-style figure, complete with a smoker,

a bee hive, a veil hat and a honeycomb. Once the sun came out on Tuesday, real

bees were attracted to the scarecrow's honeycomb.

There were a few dual scarecrows, including one imaginative work with a male

named Montague depicted on one side, a female Capulet on the opposite side.

Someone has been reading their Romeo & Juliet .

There was a Superman hanging from one tree, another scarecrow wearing a

T-shirt with an "Anti-Crow" design on its front, a scarecrow created entirely

from home cleaning implements (a broom, dishwashing gloves, a vacuum cleaner,

etc), and a very Minimalist-style piece with a number of brightly-colored

paper plates spinning on a plastic. The object of a scarecrow, after all, is

to move with the wind to scare away birds. It does not necessarily have to

look like a traditional scarecrow in order to work.

In the end, it was a six-foot tall headless horseman scarecrow, complete with

a jack o' lantern head held in its right hand, that captured the largest

number of votes. Created by Mike Williams and Dan Anderheggen, the scarecrow

was done in papier mache.

Unfortunately, with the rains on Sunday and Monday, the right arm had weakened

and was no longer able to hold the pumpkin, but the headless figure remained

menacing nevertheless. In a corn field, it would still do its job of

frightening away birds and other small creatures.

Voting was held over the weekend to decide the winner of the scarecrow

contest. Initially scheduled to be on the lawn Saturday and Sunday, Saturday's

steady downpour postponed the mounting of the scarecrows until early Sunday

morning, which in turn extended the voting period until Monday. The scarecrows

will remain on the front lawn through the end of the week. Votes were still

being dropped off as late as Wednesday morning.

In all, over 100 envelopes were collected. Many of the envelopes contained

multiple ballots, with some containing up to ten in a single envelope. Empty

envelopes and ballots were left at the school, and voters were asked to turn

in their envelopes to the office of The Newtown Bee once they had voted. The

ballots were then brought to the middle school once all had been collected.

The public was asked to choose the three scarecrows they most favored, and

with each ballot, to donate $1. A total of $188 was raised during the contest.

The top three vote-grabbers were named the contest's winners. The groups who

created the winning scarecrows had been told they would then divide the money

that came in with the votes, with the money being be donated to charities of

the students' choice.

Mike Williams and Dan Anderheggen, the first place winners, will be donating

their money to Socko's Haunted Yard. An annual haunted house event in Newtown,

the money raised through admission charges and refreshment stands at Socko's

Yard in turn benefits Newtown Youth Services.

Kristen Carleton and Erin Mulrane were the second place winners. Theirs was

the bee keeper scarecrow, and the girls decided to donate their money to the

battered women's shelter at Danbury Women's Center.

Third place went to Pat Curran, Greg Maxon and Todd Palo, who had come up with

a werewolf scarecrow that was walking a dog. Although a specific group had not

been immediately named, their donation will help fund research on Alzheimer's

disease.