By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Families dressed incognito took over Lowe-Volk Park Saturday night for the Crawford Park District’s annual Halloween Family Fun Night.
The 10th annual running of the event brought in an estimated 500 people to get down Crawford Park District-style featuring pumpkin coloring, a bonfire, hay rides, two different night hikes, and face painting among a myriad of activities.
The pathway to the woods at Lowe-Volk Park was aglow by orange candlelight as visitors ventured onto either a scary or non-scary hike. The scary hike featured decorations of things that go bump in the night such as skeletons and spiders; while the non-scary hike was just a regular night hike where the only thing spooky was the boys and ghouls in costume.
Inside the Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center goodie bags filled with Halloween treats were passed out. As the visitors made their way around the main lobby of the Nature Center they were greeted with slithery reptiles and amphibians with volunteers allowing them to pet the snakes, frogs, and turtles. While some were getting to experience the animals at the Nature Center others were being 
transformed into animals as volunteers were painting faces of a few non-costumed attendees.
Dressed as pirates Bell Austin attended the event with her mom Jamie and Jillian Dulaney. Austin explained what her favorite part of the event was.
“We come out every year, and I really can’t pick a favorite thing about it, as everything is great,” Austin said.
In the adjacent room to the main entrance arts and crafts was the name of the game as pumpkin coloring took up most of the room.
Dressed as a Storm Trooper complete with laser cannon from the Star Wars films Parker Brown attended the event with his dad, Jason Brown. Parker explained why he was dressed as a Storm Trooper.
“I dressed as a Storm Trooper because I really like the Star Wars movies,” Parker said. “”Return of the Jedi” is probably my favorite of the movies.”
Sue Powell brought granddaughters Addy Powell and Kaitlyn McKee to the event.
Addy dressed as Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” and Kaitlyn dressed as a raccoon. Both were in agreement that the pumpkin coloring up to that point had been their favorite part of the evening.
The event wasn’t all Halloween oriented as the Lowe-Volk Park Astronomy Club were raffling off two telescopes, an astronomy book, as well as a meal for two at the Texas Roadhouse.