The idea for the contest began earlier this school year in one of the HMS student council meetings. Eighth grader Brody Rangel spoke up and thought it would be a cool idea to have a pumpkin decorating contest.

“We were all just talking about our ideas and what we could do as a Student Council,” Rangel said. “I brought up the pumpkin painting idea because I thought it would be really fun, and because I really like painting pumpkins.”

Heritage Middle School Student Council sponsor Kristy Jones and Rangel then got to work on planning. They came up with a few contest rules and different categories that students could decorate their pumpkin in.

The categories included School Spirit, HMS Teachers, and Favorite Book/Movie Character. Some of the rules were that students were only able to paint, glue, or draw on their pumpkins. The pumpkin was to be a completely blank slate – no pre-decorated pumpkins allowed!

“Nobody attempted to do a pumpkin resembling an HMS teacher,” Jones explained. “What we have done in replacement of that is that HMS teachers voted on their favorite pumpkins in the other two categories, and we let our Student Council members vote on one to win the Student Council’s Choice Award.”

Rangel said that he thinks events and activities like this are a great way to bring students and staff together.

“I like that we do a lot of hands-on activities,” Rangel said. “Next week we are doing stuff for Red Ribbon week to bring drug and bullying awareness to our school. I like to bring up the topic of what we are doing like Red Ribbon week, I will tell my friends and let them know that it is important to participate. I think we get a better bond with the teachers, and we are able to have a real voice in our school to represent Heritage.”

The winning pumpkins were: