By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
The courtyard outside the Mesquite Fine Arts Center was transformed into a truly frightful “covenstead” for a great gathering of witches on Friday night, Oct. 21. It was the perfect place for the second annual Witches Ball put on by the Virgin Valley Artists Association (VVAA).
A multitude of witches and their warlocks lined up outside the Center to join the Ball on Friday evening, before the sun had even gone down. They each received a ticket to enter and were able to register for the costume contest. Then the witches and sorcerers entered the macabre party space. Around 100 people attended the event which is held as a fundraiser for the VVAA. And as darkness fell, the party reached a cackling, fevered pitch!
The entire area was decorated like a haunted medieval castle complete with ghostly apparitions, huge spiders’ webs with monstrous inhabitants, skulls, skeletons in cages, potions, cauldrons, black ravens and more.
There was plenty of entertainment for the evening. The Grant Gunn band kept the assemblage entertained with music throughout the night. Magician extraordinaire Lynn Craven performed magic tricks which amazed even this crowd – so steeped in the magical arts as they were. The very appreciative audience utterly enjoyed an excellent performance by the young members of the Virgin Valley Youth Players group. There was even a Tarot card reader on site who was kept busy throughout the evening reading fortunes.
An excellent meal was served buffet-style including barbecue sandwiches with all of the fixings from the Eureka resort. There was also an amazingly eerie, yet surprisingly delicious cake made by area resident Brenda Slocumb who by day is also the local coordinator for Friends of Gold Butte.
Toward the end of the evening came the answer to the question everyone was asking: Which witch was the winner?
Throughout the party, members of the crowd had been tasked to cast their ballots for who should win the costume contest for the evening. They voted on their favorites in four different categories. As the final act of the evening, VVAA President Dottie Golden announced the winners.
The Best of Show award went to Steve Dudrow who wore an amusingly gender-bending witch costume.
In the Best Couple category, Aida and Dustin Bryant were the clear winners for their amazingly detailed Dia de los Muertos-themed makeup and costumes. Aida confessed that it had taken about four hours to carefully, and artfully, apply the meticulous makeup to the two of them.
The Scariest Costume award went to Rita Fulmer who came as a most gruesome zombie.
And winning in the Most Creative category was Chris Micoz who was made up and dressed as an amazingly convincing witch.
Then the annual gruesome gathering was concluded for another year. All the attendees flew off into the night on their broomsticks.
Dottie Golden said that this year’s Witches’ Ball had been in planning for several months now. She had gone to great lengths in making the designs to best even last year’s very successful premiere event.
“I just want to thank our volunteers and our sponsors,” Golden said. “It could never have been done without them. I am especially grateful to the small army of people who showed up this morning to help me set things up. It was more work than just one person could have ever done.”
In addition to seeing to all the details of the party, Golden also acted as its Master of Ceremonies throughout the evening. It was a role that she found profoundly uncomfortable.
“I am a potter, not an MC!” she joked.
