Teens thanked for help
with Halloween events
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer
DAVE BENJAMIN Marlboro High School students Elisa Werbler and Douglas Fertig receive a first-place trophy from Roger Kane in recognition of their efforts in Spooktacular, Freehold Borough’s annual slate of Halloween festivities.
The committee that organizes Freehold Borough’s annual Halloween events has thanked students from the Freehold Regional High School District for their participation.
The students were recognized at a recent meeting of the FRHSD Board of Education.
"Each year in Freehold, during the month of October, we host the Spooktacular celebration which runs about a month," said Roger Kane, chairman of the Spooktacular committee. "We have different things. We have our haunted hay rides. We have our pumpkin carving contest. We have scarecrow contests. We have a parade and we have window painting."
Kane presented trophies to the winners of the window painting contest.
"Each year all six of the regional high schools come into Freehold Borough and paint the windows of the different stores," he said. "This year we had over 150 students from all six high schools paint over 85 windows."
Kane said just as there are family traditions, there are traditions in the schools and they are very important.
"In Freehold this is a tradition that goes back over 50 years. This is a tradition that we want to keep going. We are keeping alive a tradition that we are very proud of," said Kane, a former mayor of Freehold Borough.
Receiving the award for first place in the window painting contest were students Elisa Werbler and Douglas Fertig of Marlboro High School. The second-place award went to Ksenia Lukianov and Lindsay Simmons of Freehold Township High School. The third-place award went to Caitlin Johnson and Nicole Bradys of Marlboro High School.
Kane presented an individual award to Megan Phillips of Freehold Borough High School.
"We have a young lady who did some community service," he said. "We put out the word that we needed some floats for our parade. Megan Phillips organized her whole crew and she organized the floats."
Kane said the next step will be to try to organize a challenge for next year’s Halloween activities among all of the schools in the FRHSD and have a contest for the best float.
In other district business, Superintendent of Schools James Wasser said the $69 million construction referendum work which has been ongoing for several years is now in the fine-tuning stage.
"All of the principals have submitted their punch list items and we are now in the process of fine-tuning all the construction that’s been done," he said. "We are closing out the project at this point."
The superintendent said administrators will examine the financial picture and determine if there are other projects that can be done within the budget.
"We are actually way ahead of schedule and we did some extra projects that we did not anticipate," he said. "I looked at the brochure the other day and it said we would be done in the fall of 2003. We’re right on the money."
Wasser thanked staff members and students for their assistance throughout the course of the referendum projects.
"During the course of these three very difficult years, we have been doing construction during the school day," he said. "The kids have been phenomenal at all six high schools, putting up with the noise and the moving around …"