On October 11, the Lake Linganore community held a Haunted Trail where both students and adults were able to scare others.
Students from various different schools and age groups united to have fun together. Even elementary schoolers were allowed to participate, as long as they had an adult come along with them. This provided the opportunity for those adults to be included in the fun as well.
This haunted trail was open for only one day, from 4:30 to 9:50 p.m.
For scare actors, while those setting up props participated from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. they were only required to show up at 4:30 p.m. This event was a community effort that accepted volunteers to take charge of the event. Those volunteers would help organize and plan the event, along with supervising it and planning how to get the information out to the neighborhood.
At around 6:00 p.m. that evening, the scare actors’ job began.
The students whose job it was to scare visitors to the haunted trail were well-prepared for their duty. They ate pizza, candy and snacks and were served drinks. Afterward, they were given an opportunity to walk the trail to get a brief understanding of it.
The scare actors then settled in an area of the trail at 5:50 p.m., which would be their station to scare elementary students for the first two hours. They were able to take short breaks in between.
In these first two scare hours, actors had to temper their scares to the younger audience and could not scare to their fullest. At 8:40 p.m. the middle and high schoolers and many adults were allowed to scare to their hearts content and it lasted until 9:50 p.m.
As this was a neighborhood-created haunted trail, the actors were not provided costumes; they had to come with their own scary costumes on their own. The costumes were either hand-made or bought. One student who took pride in creating their costume themselves was Linganore High School (LHS) freshman Caia Lucas.
“I did all of the makeup myself.” Lucas said. “I tea-stained most of the costume pieces, and the parasol was my great grandmothers from the 18th century.”
When it comes to organizing the trail, the neighborhood accepts volunteers to take charge and organize the event. Lake Linganore resident Julia Parreco was responsible for running the trail this year.
When it came to setting up props, Parreco said the student participants collaborated well with each other and listened to the instructions well. The trail did not have many props, so what they did have was spread out throughout the trail.
“I start my yearly process at the beginning of each year, so in January, I start trying to figure out a date and time and what would work best for the community,” Parecco said. “It’s not until later in the year that we’re able to finalize it [the trail date] because we want to try and move it around.”
When selecting a date, the neighborhood does not want the trail to fall on the same day as Homecoming or any other big events, so they have to move it around a lot before they are able to hold the meetings for volunteer students to execute their plans.
“It’s pretty much a kid-run event,” said Parreco.
Despite the trail being run by the neighborhood, many parts of the trail are operated by kids and teenagers.
The participants like the process of this haunted trail. They enjoy being able to dress up and have fun with their friends while scaring many people, allowing them to have a good time all the while scaring people and allowing them to have fun as well. In addition to all the fun, they also receive service hours and a free dinner.
“It was really awesome, and all the scare actors did amazing,” said Maeve Lucas, a Linganore High School freshman who walked through the trail. “The festivities were quite wonderful, and so was the canned food drive.”
The Food drive was where residents who are coming to experience the Haunted Trail would bring canned food items so that they could donate them to help fill the local food pantry.
Parreco called the Lake Linganore haunted trail a fun experience.
“I love it,” Parreco said. “[It is] My favorite event that we do here at Lake Linganore.”
The trail has been running since before 2018 and will continue again next year. Future scare actors and visitors will have another chance to participate in 2026.
