Sequoyah School Scares Up Annual Pumpkin Festival

All this week, students at Pasadena’s Sequoyah School will be putting the finishing touches on a haunted house, practicing ghost stories and boning up on their skeleton paintings.

It’s all part of the 1990 version of the school’s 8th Annual Pumpkin Festival, which celebrates not only Halloween but also the creativity of children.

Saturday’s festival, which is open to the public, features games and other events for children of all ages, with an emphasis on introducing them to new ideas and experiences.

Included in the activities will be a corn-husking contest, a costume parade (children can select disguises or accessories from a costume shop on the premises), a ghost-story hour, a dragon-painting mural, food-decorating booths for young children, a professional face painter and games such as “Pumpkin Land” (an obstacle course) and “Beetle in a Haystack.”

For adults, there will be a jazz band, barbecued ribs and a $10-a-ticket lottery with donated prizes ranging from a year’s membership in a local health club to getting someone to come your house to show you how to program your videocassette recorder.

One new event this year will be a concert for nose-flugelers, said festival chairwoman Nancy Kyes. The nose-flugel is a type of kazoo played through the nose. A nose-flugel concert, for anyone who cares to participate, will be held at 2 p.m. as part of the festival.

The Sequoyah School, which has been operating for 35 years, is a private kindergarten-

through-eighth-grade school that emphasizes open learning, which means that children are grouped according to ability and social readiness rather than by age, Kyes said.

The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday on the grounds of the school, at the corner of Pasadena Avenue and California Boulevard in Pasadena. Admission is free, and festival-goers are encouraged to come in costume.

Game tickets will be sold for 25 cents each, and barbecue plates will be about $5, Kyes said.

Proceeds will benefit the school.