Haunted attraction brings youth and adults together for Halloween

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA — An uncommon alliance of high school students, business people, residents of the Himalayan Institute and a local professional Broadway stage lighting manager came together to inflict Halloween horror on both children and adults in the Honesdale area.

On October 25 and November 1, the alliance staged a phenomenal display of bogus, creative and terrifying happenings within the woods of the Himalayan Institute in Bethany as part of Halloween.

The staged event was called “The Haunted Walke Asylum” — the institute of a mad doctor named Walke, played by a real medical doctor from the Rotary Club — and featured monsters, ghouls and assorted creatures who sparked fear and enjoyment for the great numbers of guests who turned out.

“We were expecting about 100 people but we attracted about 350 people,” said Brian Fulp of the Honesdale Rotary Club. “But, our gang took it in stride and lasted the night.”

The group of high school students was from the Honesdale Interact Club, a service club at the school. The Broadway stage manager was part-time Honesdale resident Graeme McDonnell.

Having been one of those who went through the course with my companions, my two grandchildren and their mother, I can attest to the high level of horror, surprise and fright in the darkness of the institute’s woods.

The organizers put us in small groups of about 10, all of us clinging to a long rope led by a veiled attendant with a lantern. As we proceeded through the dark, lights suddenly turned on a horror site and we were assailed by ghouls of horrible imagination. We came upon vivid scenes showing all kinds of unspeakable operations and scenes of torture. All the while, we were assailed by shadowy beings who emerged suddenly from the dark, screaming like fiends. These were mainly the high school students mixed in with some adults for the Rotary and a few residents of the Himalayan Institute.

“The students really got into it,” said Honesdale High School teacher Colette Ballew, who told scary stories around a fire to little children who were excluded from the horror. “If the creative enthusiasm that they featured in their performances was transferred to their classwork, they would all be honor students.”

“What we liked most about the whole wonderful affair was the camaraderie between the adults of the Rotary Club, the high school students from the Interact Club and the Himalayan Institute people,” said Fulp. “This is the kind of community we like to create around Honesdale.”