October 25, 2000
Haunted Hayride scares up funds for senior party
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
At Ranch Rudolf, no can hear you scream.
It's not the vacuum of space that mutes your cries; it's everyone else weighing in with their own shrieks of terror.
As riders on a Haunted Hayride wind through the grounds, ghouls, goblins and a headless horseman are poised to scare them into submission. Guides on the wagon help increase the tension and suspense, leading riders into a haunted shack and through a maze hiding hideous surprises.
"I go on the wagon with them and basically help with the spook factor," said Nan Karczewski, a senior at Central High School. "We also have a haunted hay maze, a psycho playground area, and a chain saw guy who attacks the guide and drags her off."
At every turn on this hayride, there's blood, mayhem and haunting. It is not an adventure for the faint of heart or anyone lacking in the Halloween spirit.
"The people who seem to enjoy it the most are the older patrons," said Ted Hall, who sets the scene for the ride by telling a scary story revealing Ranch Rudolf's dark secrets to riders before they embark.
A member of the forensics and debate teams at Central High School, Hall finds being scary a thrill in itself.
"Frightening people is a bit more fun than other forms of performance," he said. "When you make them jump, their eyes fly open and their mouths drop, it's very satisfying for the storyteller."
Karczewski and Hall are just two of the many seniors at Central High School who created and staff the hayride, putting in time as ghouls, bodies, psychos and monsters. With little formal scheduling or planning, they have transformed Ranch Rudolf into a truly scary place.
A fund-raiser for the Central High School's Senior Party, the Haunted Hayride is open every night between now and Halloween. Since it began Saturday night, the ride is scaring patrons of all ages with its gruesome effectiveness. The first two nights netted the party coffers more than $600 and organizers have great hopes for the remaining week.
The Haunted Hayride is a brainchild of party co-chair Terri Anderson, who organized a haunted mall fund-raiser in an abandoned mall four years ago when she lived in Florida. When she moved to Traverse City a few years ago, she noticed there was not anything like a haunted house in the area. She has been mulling over how to create something ever since.
"This year, I decided I am definitely going to do it," Anderson said. "We just made money hand over fist for our senior party in Florida when we did the haunted mall."
The mother of a senior this year, the pieces began to fall into place as she became active in the parents' group planning the party. She told other parents about this lucrative event and they approved of the idea.
And for the first year that Central and West will have separate senior parties, Anderson also introduced a new tradition: having students participate in the fundraising. For the decades that parents have been sponsoring Central's senior party, they have been solely responsible for fundraising, usually putting the bite on area businesses and other parents.
This year, Anderson pitched her haunted hayride idea to numerous student groups and enrolled them in helping her. One problem: things got rolling only a week ago. But students put their hearts into the project and pulled it all together in that short time, assigning different areas of the ride to different groups for decorating and staffing.
"There was not a lot of planning, it just all kind of came together," Karczewski said.
The Haunted Hayride will be held every night at Ranch Rudolf through October 31 from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children. Sponsors recommend the event for children ages 8 and older, but will let parents decide if a child is mature enough.