Plans already in the works for 2023
Story by Paul South
Submitted Photos
It was a dark and rainy October night.
Traveling by boat, young trick-or-treaters in costumes and life jackets, catch candy bars and bubblegum in nets usually reserved for snagging catfish and bass.
Meanwhile, their parents bob for miniature bottles of booze or sip salty margaritas.
Instead of chasing bones, Dachshunds are dressed in skeleton costumes. Halloween revelers of all ages chat and giggle and get acquainted with lakeside neighbors they may never have met.
Piers and their people, each with a theme, rock Halloween with their own individual party.
For one spooky evening – Halloween 2.0, if you will – a sliver of the seemingly divided world comes together.
Welcome to Boo Bash.
The inaugural autumn event is the brainchild of Kelli Lasseter, Sonya Hubbard and a band of lakefront merry pranksters. The seed of an idea – probably a pumpkin seed – took root in a summer conversation on a pontoon boat and sprouted on social media.
“We were talking about how fun it might be, since the water levels are going to be higher, to have a pier-to-pier trick-or-treat event,” Lasseter says. “So, the next morning I put the idea on Facebook and well, it just took off from there.”
Boo Bash isn’t a philanthropic or business venture – though some lakefront businesses were involved. Boo Bash was all about old-fashioned fun with a twist.
Lasseter moved to Logan Martin from a Leeds neighborhood where Halloween was “huge.” But until Boo Bash, lake life didn’t mean a steady stream of little ghosts, goblins, princesses and pirates. But it turned out Boo Bash was about more than decorated docks and trick-or-treat.
“The weekend of the event was incredible. People hosted Boo Bash-themed gatherings for family, friends, and in some cases, the entire community. Our wonderful local businesses offered Boo Bash specials for people of all ages. The whole weekend was filled with so much joy. It’s kinda overwhelming to think about now,” Lasseter says.
“Overwhelmingly people said the thing they loved most about the event was that it brought people closer together and it fostered community on Logan Martin Lake. I couldn’t agree more.”
Despite soggy skies, enough homeowners to fill a haunted Transylvanian castle festooned their piers for All Hallows Eve.
“We estimate 45 – 50 host piers participated the day of the event. We had 73 sign-ups, but some had to withdraw in advance of the event due to illness, weather and low water levels,” Lasseter says.
Two restaurants and six marinas, 30 to 40 boats and one personal watercraft braved the elements to welcome between 100 and 130 “dock-or-treaters” of all ages. Between five and 10 furry, four-legged friends joined the fun.
“It was just incredible to see the amount of time, effort and resources everyone put into making Boo Bash such a great event. The people of Logan Martin Lake are very special, and their commitment to Boo Bash is just one example of many that shows how much this community cares about others,” Lasseter said.
Some of the dock decorators – including Angie Murchison’s family and Carl and Marcia “Mar” (cq) Wallace – jumped into the festivities with both feet – or in the case of two members of the Murchison family, four feet.
The Wallaces, with the help of Tim and Shannon Atchenson, won “Best Pier” by viewer’s choice. Other viewer’s choice awards included Mar Wallace and Peggy Boyd for “Halloween Spirit,” and Pier 59 and Angie Murchison for “Cheesiest Pier.” All participating piers received “Honorable Mentions.”
The two family dachshunds, Petey and Beanie, joined by a pack of blow-up skeleton wiener dogs, got in on the fun and inspired their kid-friendly theme – Howl-O-Weenie. One of the family pets had a small cowboy saddled up on her back.
But a neighbor and the Murchison’s two grandsons, ages six and two, sparked the family’s involvement. The Murchisons have called the lake their home for 25 years. Friends made up the family’s “Boo Crew.”
“When you live on the lake, there are unique things that come with living on the lake,” Murchison says. “I wanted (my grandsons) to experience this coming by boat to trick or treat … I wanted to do it for them … It was so, so fun.”
A side note: the Murchisons live on a dead-end road. In their quarter-century on the lake, Halloween 2022 was first the time trick-or-treaters ever visited the family.
In a time when the country is still battling COVID-19, a political divide and a culture where folks may not even know their neighbors, events like Boo Bash are important. Emergence from two years of coronavirus cloister helped fuel Boo Bash buzz. Social distancing was still in play.
“Actually, I had a new neighbor, and because she saw us participating, she actually joined in at the last minute. So that kind of made me feel like I could reach out and have something in common with her, something to talk about so I could get to know her a little bit,” Murchison says. She had another positive connection with a neighbor through the Boo Bash Facebook page.
The Wallaces hosted Hall-O Rita, celebrating the season serving the Mexican adult beverage for grownups and candy for the kids. Sixty adults, 30 kids and three dogs visited the Wallace boathouse.
A retired engineer, Wallace pens the popular “Lake Ramblings” blog about people, places and events on Logan Martin.
Thanks to social media, Wallace says, Boo Bash took on “a life of its own.”
“It appealed to a lot of different demographics. It was a common goal kind of thing, happening in a season where generally speaking, there’s not a lot going on and lo and behold, it involved children. It just blew up.”
The Murchisons and their “Boo Crew” are already planning their theme for Boo Bash 2023. As for 2022’s event, Angie Murchison summed it up this way:
“It was a great way to enjoy the holiday season in a way that only relates to the lake.”
Only time will tell what Boo Bash 2022 meant to the lake community, Wallace says. But it touches on a need in a 50-mile-long lake community that loves a reason to come together.
“But that being said, my prediction is we’re going to look back and see this as the start of something really, really big … I think next year is going to be unreal.”
Wallace’s takeaway from the first Boo Bash highlights perhaps the greatest treat of all for Logan Martin friends and neighbors.
“I think if you give the lake community an opportunity to come together face to face, they’ll take it every time,” he says. “Everybody that came to our dock, they were just bursting with smiles.”
