At the corner of Hope's South Main and 16th Street, in the yard surrounding the Pafford Medical System’s Dispatch center is a four-part tableau of horror.  

The four shifts that work there have each created a Halloween-themed display of mayhem, fright and just-plain eeriness that can be seen by motorists and walkers who dare pass by.  

Explaining the competition, Director of Communications Crystal Gray explained that due to a prior commitment, the pros at the dispatch center could not participate in this past Saturday’s Fair Park drive-through Halloween show.  So instead, the decision was made to have the four shifts, two of them night and two of them day, create the displays around the building. 

“They each had a section of the yard, and they had till Monday to get it decorated, get it finished, and then we would select one winner based on the popularity of their display,” Gray said. 

Display 1, which features skeletons trying to mow the yard, playing twister and cavorting in all sorts of unpredictable ways was by the A day shift supervised by Amanda Baker, who described her team’s display as disturbing but with a touch of levity.  “Our display for my shift is the skeleton world. So we went more of a comical route. We thought, if you can drop by and laugh, then that's what we're trying to do,” Baker said.  A photo of display 1 is below this paragraph:

Display 3 is based on the Stephen King novel and film Pet Sematery. It features the sight of hands coming out of a small grave and a number of pet graves throughout the group’s plot.  Ukiah Phillips, the B Night Dispatcher led her team in creating the scene. 

Display 4 by the A night shift is entitled “The Dead and Breakfast Inn Cemetery” and features a bicycle wreck in which a black cat crossing the path of the cyclist caused a collision with a tree. A paramedic is on the scene but he is too late, if the presence of the grim reaper is any indication. Headstones surround the scene with the names of famous bike manufacturers. Alyssa Clark, a dispatcher for the shift, said of the display, “Most of our items are things we had at home or created ourselves.” 

Contest ends at 5pm Thursday, October 31.
The winning team will receive a free meal and gift cards.