Like many of their fellow Halloween fanatics, Mike and Dina Kettmann love to watch folks pass by their display, back up and jump out of their cars to take pictures.
This year the Kettmanns have a ghoulish funeral in their front yard, along U.S. 52 north of Bellevue, Iowa. Four life-size pumpkin men carry a casket with a ghoul holding the lid open between rows of "tombstones." A disembodied head bathed in red light oscillates inside a real hearse. It's a scene one doesn't expect to encounter along a federal highway.
Mike Kettmann comes up with a different theme every year, usually not until the Halloween spirit overtakes him about Oct. 1. The rest of the year, his ghoulish props are stored in his garage attic.
That's where Scot Megonigle stores his own ever-growing stash of Halloween paraphernalia, collected over a dozen years. This year, enormous gargoyles tower over the entrance to his home at 830 S. Grandview Ave. in Dubuque. It's a favorite picture-taking spot for families who drive and walk past.
With its huge bat and skeleton angel floating in foam bubbles, Megonigle's float for RPM Drywall
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Brian Rixen's Halloween decorations filled his Maquoketa, Iowa, garage long ago. He has now filled up a big barn and is eyeing a family farm's outbuildings for more space.
He needs hundreds of items to set up his extensive yard and porch displays every year at 210 S. Fifth St. This year, a ghostly burial scene includes a real casket and moving creatures, a ghastly pirate scene features an old row boat and piles of shiny beads and brass and a mad scientist's laboratory contains a genuine organ and an antique hospital gurney.
"Traffic stops a lot here. In a smaller town, kids don't get the chance to see this kind of animated display," said Rixen, who with his wife, Kim, works on the display projects most of the year.
Josh Namowitz enlisted the help of a half-dozen of his Coast Guard buddies to help with Halloween trick or treating. Kids will follow a trail all around his intensely decorated house at 1465 Parkway St. in Dubuque. This year's theme features a zombie graveyard and the men will be dressed accordingly to scare youngsters.
"We do this as a family project every year," said Namowitz, who with his wife, Melissa, have two young children.
But a Barrington Lakes couple claim to have the area's scariest trick-or-treating experience. Carl and Kay Hartung, at 11206 Lakeview Drive, construct a 40-foot tunnel, on a different theme every year, with sound- and motion-activated creatures along the way. They don't have to watch for kids approaching for candy.
"Their screams alert (us)," Carl Hartung said.
Ross and Cathy Salwolke make sure their extensive Halloween display does the community some good. In front of their house at 2750 Burden St. in Dubuque, with its giant spiders, fluttering ghosts and haunted castle/garage, is a place for folks to drop off donated items for the Dubuque Food Pantry.
Mike kettmenn - Mike Kettmann uses his imagination, a few props, and many more pumpkins to make a halloween display in the front yard of his home North of Bellevue, Iowa, every year. This year Kettmann secured a hearse and staged a pumpkin funeral, in the past he has made an Olympic scene, a basketball theme and a scene from a rodeo.
