Sloane Samberson
staff writer
@sloane_avery
In the chilled, pitch-black halls of New Tech High@Coppell you could hear bellowing screams, bone-chilling shrieks and echoing ghoulish laughter. This could have only meant one thing: New Tech’s annual haunted house was back.
On Thursday, New Tech held its third annual haunted house. Teen leadership facilitator Jennifer Greever headed all haunted house affairs, including the annual Fall Festival and Pumpkin Chunkin’ previous to the haunted house.
The haunted house was designed by high school learners for middle school learners and up. The planning process of the haunted house took place over a period of four weeks prior to the day of set up.
“We transform the main hallway and seven classrooms into the haunted house,” Greever said. “The 14 learners in Teen Leadership put on the event and are responsible for all aspects.”
The New Tech volunteer committee recruited other learners to help with set up/tear down, acting and other roles. In total, there were 40 learners helping with the haunted house.
“It was kind of tiring and a bit chaotic at first,” New Tech sophomore Ariel Kranz said. “I was in charge of the Rave Room where eerie dub-step was playing and Mr. Hufford chased people out of the haunted house. It turned out really nicely.”
Students were dressed up as mental patients, clowns, creepy children and spirits. The haunted house had an essence of “American Horror Story: Asylum and Freak Show”. The realisticness of it added to the overall effectiveness of the scare factor.
“The room with clowns was the scariest,” New Tech junior Joseph Tanner said. “They were covered in fake blood and the insanity in their acting was so believable.”
New Tech freshman Aidan Chowdhury, was in charge of creating the clown room.
“Putting it together was the scariest thing,” joked Chowdhury. “It took us forever to create, a lot of blood sweat and dedication. I think the clown room was the scariest since I created it.”
The New Tech Haunted House started as a way to raise money to send the entire staff to a summer conference, but has carried on out of interest from the community.
Greever plans to continue the tradition by heading the haunted house again. Learners can look forward to an even scarier and more successful haunted house next Halloween season.
