Chad Koenen

Publisher

I don’t know if there were more than a handful of times my family purchased an actual Halloween costume for me for Halloween. There were a few purchased costumes, like a football player with shoulder pads none-the-less and some ninja costume with a sword, but most of my costumes growing up were of the homemade kind (at least that’s the way I remember it). 

One particular costume I remember was when my parents dressed me up as Batman with a homemade costume. In order to achieve the look I wore all black with a black stocking hat with two ears on top (you know the bat look right, even though most people thought I was a bank robber). Back when I was younger, which seems like an eternity ago, homemade costumes were fairly common. When Halloween was done those homemade costumes could be broken down into sweatshirts for school or sticking hats with ears for the winter months. 

In fact, there were a lot of sideways looks when you showed up to the community Halloween party, or at school for your classroom party, with a store bought costume. You know the look, like where does your family get off paying all that money for a costume look. 

Of course when you make your own costume you typically had the 2-3 minute explanation of what the costume was suppose to look like—if you needed a longer explanation you knew your costume looked nothing like your intended purpose. 

A few weeks ago, given the supply chain concerns, we started looking at Halloween costumes for our kids. Today it is just easier, and in many ways less expensive, to simply buy a Halloween costume as opposed to taking the time to make your own. While Dani is pretty crafty I am not sure any costume I laid my hands on would make it out the door without falling apart, much less surviving a night of trick or treating. 

While the store bought costumes look like their intended purchase, it is sad to think that most kids won’t ever have a memory to share with their kids someday about their Halloween costume gone bad. After all, I still enjoy looking at old pictures of garbage bags that were utilized as a cape and ski masks that doubled as a Darth Vader costume.

New addition to the staff

If you were in the Dispatch office last week, you likely noticed a new face behind our desk. Tucker Henderson started working at the NY Mills Dispatch last week as our new receptionist/reporter. Tucker has been writing a semi-monthly column for the Dispatch for quite some time and will now join our staff in an expanded role.

In addition to helping to man the office, Tucker will be writing a few stories each week and covering some of the events that happen in our own back yard. A good example of this was the NY Mills students visiting the fire hall and the fire department visiting the school as part of fire prevention week.

What is perhaps most exciting is that we will now offer extended office hours at the NY Mills Dispatch. We will now be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. Over the years we have received a few comments about having additional office hours to give people more time to stop by the office to drop off story ideas, pay bills and just visit about the happenings going on in the greater NY Mills area. We are excited to be able to have that opportunity. 

In a time when businesses are facing a severe labor shortage we are not only happy to be able to fill an opening on our staff, but have someone with Tucker’s capabilities and ability to write articles in a clear and interesting way. 

If you happen to be in the area make sure to stop and tell Tucker hi, and as always, if you have a story idea or two make sure to give us a call at 385-7720 or stop by our office during our office hours to let us know. We are always looking for interesting ideas, information about awards people may have received and just what is going on in our own back yard.