Bleeding Orange: Why One Anokan Chose the Halloween Life
By Rebecca Ebnet-Desens
Like many people in Anoka, Karen George has an orange tint to her blood and thrives on Halloween as a year-long holiday. Growing up in Anoka, she has many fond memories of the festival, including walking down Main Street in the Big Parade of Little People, painting Halloween scenes on business windows, marching with the Anoka High School Band in the Grande Day parade, and represented the city and festival as a Princess from 1979-80. Karen joined the Anoka Halloween Committee in 2006 and has served in many capacities during the ensuing years.
After graduation, while preparing for her first year of college at Concordia College in Morehead, Minnesota, Karen received a call from Susan Hammer. The previous Miss Anoka suggested Karen consider participating in the candidate program for the Miss Anoka.
“I was caught off guard,” said Karen during an oral history interview at the Anoka County Historical Society in 2019. “So I thought about it and talked about it with my parents, and I decided, why not? And so I did sign up for the program.”
Karen joined a pool of 45 other candidates, though she said being away at school made it a different experience than the current candidate program participants.
“It was a different program at that time,” said Karen. “We had a fashion show that was put on by Jenson's. It was held in the basement of city hall in the community room. A lot of ladies attended. I remember going and being fitted for a couple of outfits at Jenson's. That was very exciting.”
The drama of coronation, which produces the iconic photo of surprised glee on a few faces, remains part of every candidate’s memory. For Karen, who received the title of Princess, the memory of it still shines brightly.
“I remember picking a short dress and a long dress, and I believe I purchased the short dress at Jenson's,” said Karen. “I can picture it in my head--it was a business dress with just a sheath beige dress with a black blazer over it. And I remember practicing walking in my high heels. You get very nervous because it's a big deal. There were 45 ladies, we were all backstage, it's very crowded. You're figuring out where you have to go, you're walking behind stage in the dark, and you want make sure that you're not going to trip.”
Similar to the events of today, the pageantry, pomp, and circumstance felt like part of the fun. While all the candidates hoped for a win, the reality of being chosen weighed on their minds as a slim possibility.
“I had no expectation to get a crown--I loved my town, I had a great experience growing up here,” said Karen. “I remember getting the flowers because that was a big deal. I was more entranced by getting a bouquet of flowers handed to me than a crown going on my head.I remember smiling a lot and when I look back on the photos, I’m just really happy, it was a lot of fun. I remember getting my things together and getting in the car. My sister was already off at school, but my brother was working at McDonald's. We get in the car and mom and dad say, ‘Well, let's go show Eric.’ And so I had the crown, I still had the flowers, I had the sash. We march into McDonald's and my brother's behind the counter and he just looks and he goes, ‘No way, no way.’ That was pretty funny, very grounding. My family took it all in stride. I think any ambassador or past royalty person will tell you that it becomes a family affair.”
Karen’s family certainly did get involved in a royally large way. Not only did her parents, Jim and Donna George, help with transportation and setting up the float for parades, Karen’s grandmother, Elvina, would watch from her folding chair, accompanied by her little poodle, and her siblings sometimes came along for the ride.
“The float was a pink and purple float. Quite lovely. It was a long flatbed covered in plastic float fabric. It had a medallion at the back with steps up so the queen would sit at the top part and the two princesses would be down. [One day] we're getting the float set up and figuring it all out and I'm up on the float, and my leg fell down through the float. And my dad goes, ‘Well, we'll have to fix that’. So we went through the parade and we drove it back to the float barn [where] Dad got up there and looked--sure enough, the whole flatbed was the rotting wood--it had seen better days… I'm sure that they went to the committee and said we probably need to do something.
“I remember sitting around the kitchen table brainstorming about why isn't this a Halloween float?” Karen continued. “My dad and I sketched out some options. He was the engineer side of it, figuring out, will it go under a street light when you go down the road? How will it tow? How do you make sure it folds up right to travel correctly? How can it fit with the current cover? We crafted a design that was a trellis (with a pumpkin), and at the top of the trellis in big letters, it said, ‘ANOKA.’ The queen sat inside this pumpkin, and then the princesses were [sitting by] large leaves, so it looked like you were sitting in a pumpkin patch. We brought it to the other families and [the] committee and they liked it. Main Motors was, and still is, a wonderful supporter of the festival. I remember going up into their big maintenance garage they gave us to build the float. My dad had a dump truck that I knew how to drive, so [I] backed up the dump truck and threw all the bad stuff in there. I think the other ladies were pretty surprised to see me driving the dump truck. I believe the float was debuted halfway through the summer at the Aquatennial. We took a prize for the float design at that. And the good news is that ever since, that float has been a Halloween-themed float.”
Of course, rebuilding a float takes time and plenty of effort. During the transition time, Karen and her royal partners used cars on parade routes.
“I remember the Father Hennepin Days Parade in Champlin,” said Karen. “It was a large, old- style convertible and it was gold or a light-yellow color. The car conked out during the parade. All three of us girls looked at each other and said, ‘Well, I guess we're walking.’ And we walked the parade route. Things happen and you make the most of it, and you go out there and smile and make friends.”
Unlike the royalty today, who own a selection of outfits for different occasions, Karen and her cohorts lived simply while touring the state.
“I remember the three of us going to Minnesota Fabrics out of the Coon Rapids Family Mall,” said Karen. “We had to pick out a pattern of a formal dress to wear to parades and coronations. We went through the books together and we landed on a column dress with a little cape. You need something durable, and it was the 70s, so it was out of Qiana knit. That thing will never decompose. And at the end of parade season, it probably could have walked on its own.”
Literally the crowning glory to the experience of representing your hometown for a year is the crown. Now a part of the collection at the Historical Society, Karen’s sparkling memorabilia will continue to shine for generations (along with the indestructible Qiana knit dress!).
“The crown came to me in a green, egg shaped, zippered case that was—looked like green crocodile, and it had felt letters glued on it that said, ‘Anoka Princess’, and inside it was purple lined and had a little spot where the crown could be protected,” said Karen. “In there, I had some bobby pins, my gloves —because you had to wear the long gloves when you were on the parade route, and your sash — you always wore a sash. Nowadays, the ladies wear name tags for a more professional appearance.”
One of the benefits of introspection and analysis of the past 40 years since being crowned is the vantage point of that perspective. For Karen, this felt like a revelation.
“I think the experience I got at the time in my life was pivotal,” said Karen. “I had gone off to college, I wanted to be a business woman and conquer the world. I was taking beginning level accounting classes and I was failing halfway through—failing! Yet this other part of my life was just taking off, that people engagement and experience. Listening to other people's stories and seeing the fabric of community and how it gets built and remains strong. This was all mashed up in my freshman year of college. I would say it was pivotal because of what I was experiencing, all the other changes in my life: living away from home, becoming independent, figuring out what I wanted to do in life, working for the radio station on campus, changing my career focus to public relations and marketing. It's been a fabulous career and one that has come full circle where I'm now doing that in the fabric of my own community now at QCTV, previous to that, the Anoka-Hennepin School District. It just really helped me clarify that I wanted to be in a job, a career, that built community. And I can say when I look back over my nearly 40-year career now that that's what I did. And having that impact is very satisfying.”
That living, working, and growing up (and with) a community feels like the thread connecting the residents of Anoka to Halloween.
“Anoka Halloween isn't a holiday, it's a lifestyle,” said Karen. “It's that culture. Wherever you plug yourself into a community, you're carrying it for a period of time. Somebody's going to come behind you and somebody's gone on before you. It's what I love about community work and community involvement. Anoka Halloween has sustained itself and been relevant to our community because we have remained true to our traditions and to [being] family focused. Meaning, it's about the children, it's about this magical holiday where you can dress up and be someone or something different for a day, or a week, or a month, in the case of Anoka. What I love about the Anoka traditions is we've never lost sight that this as a chance to keep children occupied in a positive way. Let's not tip over the outhouses and let the cows [out]. We can have some shenanigans and fun, but let's not be detrimental to our own town. And when you look at the month long activities that this has moved into; it's a kid's preschool costume contest, it's candy, it's a coloring contest, it's pumpkin carving, it's pumpkin weigh off, it's a Light Up the Night parade where the lights drop down Main Street and hear that ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of young and old alike. It is Orange Tie Ball and raising money for the scholarships that go to our Ambassadors, to our youth citizenship honorees that have been going on for decades. To walking out onto the field on a very cold night in October at Pumpkin Bowl and having a moment in the sun seeing all those orange jackets of the people dedicated to this festival in this community. That's what it is…and so when you morph to what's going on here at the history center, you are touchstone to 1919, when there were news articles and stories that people told about how bad the shenanigans got. When I came on as president in 2008, I came here and I looked through [those] files. I wanted to touch the past to understand why we're doing this a hundred years later.”
This is an excerpt from the Halloween Centennial book published by Anoka Halloween. For ordering information, please visit anokahalloween.com