Fall Festival draws 2,000 to Fort Sill

By Jeff Crawley, Fort Sill CannoneerOctober 23, 2014

Pumkin thumpin'
1 / 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Stefan, age 2, thumps a pumpkin as his mom, Danielle Hernandez, holds it, while his dad, Daniel, and his brother, Skyler, 1, peruse the pumpkin patch during the FMWR Fall Festival Oct. 18, 2014. Four-hundred pumpkins were given away during the festiv... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Starter run
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Zombie grab
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FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 23, 2014) -- Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area here turned into a veritable zombieland as Fort Sill's Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation hosted its Second Annual Fall Festival Oct. 18.

About 2,000 people turned out for the festivities which included a 5k zombie obstacle course trail run, pumpkin patch, zombie movie marathon and zombie paintball hunt.

"The zombie theme was perfect because its Halloween and 'The Walking Dead' is huge and everyone seems to be in the zombie craze," said Mark Houseman, LETRA program manager. "It fit for what we wanted to do out here with the whole campground."

New this year was pumpkin chucking, an expanded pumpkin patch and more hayrides, Houseman said.

Festivities began about 9 a.m. with a 5k zombie obstacle course trail run, which drew about 125 runners including children.

"We wanted a run, but not just where you're running from zombies -- so we added another challenge to it with the obstacles, Houseman said. "At LETRA you can transition from asphalt to hills.

The 10 obstacles included hay bales to be climbed over, tires which runners had to negotiate, a water bridge, a spiderweb cargo net, a mud pit and railroad ties, said Jeff Jerles, LETRA assistant manager.

The runners wore flag-football flags which zombies at the obstacles tried to snatch.

Zombie Joseph James explained his role in the run: "I'm going to frighten the runners and try and take their flags so they become infected."

At noon, families lined up to get in the pumpkin patch. Every hour 100 pumpkins were given away during the four-hour event. Country Mart store donated 150 pumpkins and gave Fort Sill a discount rate on 250 more pumpkins, Houseman said.

Sheldon Palmer, age 3, looked over the pumpkins with her parents Rod and Cathy Palmer of Lawton, searching for the perfect gourd.

Army wife April Mahan stood in the pumpkin line with her four children. She said they came to the fall festival because they wanted to hang out by the lake and take advantage of the many activities.

The other events include rock climbing wall, paddleboats, miniature golf, water-balloon launch and a paintball shooting range -- all free for the day.

About 60 volunteers including Soldiers from Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers (BOSS) and Advanced Individual Training students helped make the festival a success, Houseman said.

The entire Patriot Launcher Station Enhanced Operator/ Maintainer class No. 01-15 volunteered at the festival. Class members Anjelo Pina and Michael McMahan manned the pumpkin chucking catapult.

"The catapult has a 350-pound weight which will launch the pumpkins up to 150 feet," Pina said.

McMahan noted they were uniquely qualified to work the catapult.

"Artillery started in the medieval times where they would catapult bales of hay or other things," he said. "That led up to cannons which led up to my field (air defense artillery)."

Sponsors at the festival included Chick-Fil-A, which provided a spinning wheel for free food coupons, Sprint telephone and the Trail of Fears Haunted Scream Park.

At 5 p.m. a free deadicated zombie movie marathon began inside the LETRA Lodge, with complimentary popcorn. The offerings were "Zombieland," "World War Z" and the "Resident Evil" series.

About 7:30 p.m. in the LETRA darkness, on deadend streets a zombie paintball hunt kicked off with participants shooting at unarmed zombies.

The zombies did have spray paint that was visible under UV light to paint the shooters. Unscathed shooters received raffle tickets for drawings for paintball accessories.

Houseman is already making plans for next year's fall festival.

"Hopefully, we can do it bigger and better and scarier next year," he said.