Children, staff and students gathered with smiles today around the specially carved pumpkins lined up outside M.D. Anderson Library at the third annual Great Pumpkin Event.
"We wanted to do something fun – something to engage students with the library in a non-traditional way," Carolyn Meanley, library development coordinator, said earlier this week. "We, the staff, wanted to enjoy it, too."
Dana Rooks, dean of libraries, formally started the contest parading in as a royal queen. She was accompanied by her "guards" and announced the winners.
The categories this year were best school spirit, scariest, most unique, best celebrity impersonation, most bookish and dean’s choice.
The Great Pumpkin Event was initially created three years ago to promote a good-spirited Halloween and create a way for the library to interact with the UH community, the Daily Cougar reported in 2005.
Some of the winners, such as mechanical engineering junior Ivette Rangel, were surprised and pleased with the judges’ decisions.
Rangel carved the face of the skeleton character Jack from Tim Burton’s animated film The Nightmare before Christmas that won "Best Celebrity Impersonation."
"I was completely shocked," she said. "He’s my favorite cartoon character, so I enjoyed working with it. (Since) I’m an engineering major, we don’t get to do all this creative stuff, and this was a chance for me to be creative."
Rangel did not celebrate by herself – her friend, biochemistry senior Angelica Torres, won the scariest pumpkin category.
"When I was little, I use to always draw this scary face just for fun," Torres said. "I had it in my mind and drew it."
Not everyone was a winner, though. Photography and digital media freshman Alejandra Trevino and her friends entered together for the most unique category, but didn’t bring home the prize
"It was a huge collaboration of all of our different talents," she said.
University Libraries donors judged the contest.
