The Originals

It started with a flooded museum.

The Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum in Palouse had been closed since the flood of 1996, when the building was under two feet of water. It remained shut down five years later, when two people moved to Palouse from Las Vegas, Gary and Deanna Brunton.

They got involved with Needful Things, the town-benefit thrift store, which began that year (2001), and came to a Palouse Chamber of Commerce meeting.

The subject that night, at the former Family Cafe, was what the group could do to raise money for matching funds for a grant to repair the museum.

The Bruntons were familiar with "Knott's Scary Farm," the long-running transformation of Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif., around Halloween. They suggested they do this in Palouse, using the museum as the focus.

"It had no lights, no electricity, no water," said Janet Barstow, current Haunted Palouse co-chair with Paula Echanove, another original, whom both will hand off the baton this year. "We made $3,000. We thought we had just skinned the fat hog."

The first Haunted Palouse (2002) delivered the matching funds, and the museum reopened in 2003.

It established a pattern of finishing one project in the town with the proceeds, before moving on to funding the next.

WOOD

Just before Haunted Palouse originated, the city tore down a former Wallace Grain & Pea flathouse where the R.V. park is now. From this, Haunted Palouse obtained stacks of long two-by-fours, which organizers used for framing pathways inside the museum.

In the paths, that first time, Barstow and husband Ben were scary clowns in a painted cardboard box.

"Holding flashlights under our chin, it was that kind of primitive," Janet said.

The Barstows were part of a group of 12 people who worked on it the first year and ever since. After this year, 18 editions and $651,724 raised for various community groups and causes as of 2018 – many will hand off the reins to a new generation.

The 12 are the Barstows, Michael and Paula Echanove, Jeff and Linda Snook, Mike Milano, Marv and Annie Pillers, Greg and Bev Pearce and Margo Wekenman.

"I'm gonna be balling that last night I can tell you," said Janet. She grew up in Palouse and moved back to farm the family land with Ben in 1993.

After Haunted Palouse began, the Bruntons moved away.

500 to 1,100

After the first year of more than 500 tickets sold, the second year it was 1,100.

More and more people appeared. One year, they had a man with a chainsaw chasing a girl on the street. Then a headless horseman clopping up the asphalt in the dark. Also on the street, various ghouls.

"We've had the zombies out, gosh, probably five years or so... they go back into city hall if they need a break," said Paula Echanove. "Sometimes community members get dressed up and just come down for a couple hours and spook people."

"Unabashed fun"

In the fourth year, a Palouse resident named Norm Schorzman created a corn maze; planting it, tending it on tough ground where the community center is now, then harvesting it as feed corn.

Later, Shady Lane took hold, started by the Palouse Lions Club – the ride on a farm trailer along the dark dirt road above the river.

"We've had lots of community members – not just from Palouse – get involved and follow through," said Annie Pillers, a member of the Palouse Fire Department and the Whitman County coroner.

Since the start, she has overseen tickets and advertising. Every year, she begins the four nights at the admission line.

"It's a blast to be at the ticket table (in the Banner Bank drive-thru) and watch people having this unabashed fun," Pillers said.

She was involved in building sets in the early years, and sees it all take shape now.

"I know what's inside and it would still scare me," said Pillers. "Every year there's something new and diabolical. It was so much fun because we didn't know we couldn't do it."

Couples

Greg and Bev Pearce are veterans of the museum, and the second floor of the Bank Left building across the street. They will step back from direct involvement this year, too.

"Last weekend we didn't do anything," said Greg Oct. 4. "We went to Portland to see the grandkids."

In the Bank Left building – for which its second floor has long-emptied professional offices – Greg once crouched in the dark as guests stepped through, trying doorknobs to get out. He would rustle newspapers (stored temporarily from the printing museum, after the flood). That would direct the people to find a certain doorknob. Behind it, a clown with another flashlight.

The experience was a template: getting a group of six people to gather in a room and have a scene play out.

"Now there's so many people, it's more of a big scare and move along," Pearce said.

Organizers also put dry ice in vents for it to seep into the street. But it was expensive and had minimal effect.

No official spreadsheet of scares/scenes is kept from year to year.

Handing off the baton

Paula Echanove and husband Michael are two more founders who will step back after this year.

"Michael and I are teaching some younger people what we've done," said Paula.

What does that mean, for her and Michael?

"It means that we are old," she said, with a laugh. "We want to be able to go somewhere in October. Our anniversary is the 19th and for 17 years we haven't celebrated it. We don't do anything else in October. I don't say that begrudgingly. We always put our heart and soul into it, because we believed in it and wanted it to succeed. We have loved it, and do love it. It's bittersweet for sure."

In recent years, on go nights, Paula dresses up and walks on the street, taking handwarmers around to various volunteers, for which boxes are kept back in the museum.

The handwarmers, for at least 10 years, have been donated by a resident who first walked into the Green Frog one day with a box of them and dropped it on the counter.

Paula Echanove co-owned and operated the Green Frog from 2005-18.

Growing up Haunted Palouse

The minimum age for entrance to Haunted Palouse is 12.

Paula remembers years when young twin boys Fritz and Beck Fulfs would walk through the museum when the pathways were being built, saying they could hardly wait until they were old enough to go to Haunted Palouse.

They are now freshman in high school, in the robotics group working in the old fire station.

Hauntineering

As Haunted Palouse quickly became a major calendar item for its participants, the leaders were adamant not to hold the first meeting each year until after Palouse Days, the long-held community celebration the second weekend of September.

The museum group meets right after it, on the premises, for about two hours.

The next meeting is four or five days later.

"Then it gets real," said Paula.

The ideas flow in the backs of minds throughout the year.

"Ben, he spends all year thinking about this stuff," said Janet Barstow, her and Ben the only farmers among the originals. "He'll come off the tractor and say, hey we could do this...!"

Ben pulls scrap iron from the farm and other things such as pulleys and wheels, a fan, and one year a metal catwalk from an old combine.

"Ben Barstow's living proof that farm chemicals are bad for you," said Mayor Echanove. "He'll bring in a pile of combine parts and make magic out of them."

The initial ideas happen whenever. Then they are brought in for scrutiny.

"There's so much back and forth, analyzing every idea. Is it gonna be safe? Is it gonna be scary? Is it gonna be stupid?" said Janet. "It's not a place for egos, I can tell you. Someone brings in an idea they think is great, then somebody says 'yeah, but."

Soon they are taping pathways on the floor.

Sophistication grew, and simplicity along with it. One year, guests were let into the museum to find a superintendent saying this building is condemned, what are you doing here? Then he turned to check a disturbance in a dark corner of the ceiling of the small foyer. A giant spider leg came down and yanked the man up and out of the room.

Supt. Barstow was gone. Welcome to Haunted Palouse.

New LEADERS

Taking overall leadership next year are Alexa Beckett-Bonner and Nicole Flansburg.

They step into a four-night event which broke $70,000 net in 2018.

In 2005, it passed $20,000. In 2007, it cleared $35,000.

In 2009, admission went up to $15. In 2016, it went to $20. This year it goes to $25, the last two raises attempts to control the lines.

The Mayor

The four-term Palouse mayor, who is not running again in November, was in office just over a year when he became one of the Haunted Palouse founders.

"Volunteers are the lifeblood of Palouse," said Michael Echanove. "They pull off things like this."

He was at that Chamber meeting at the Family Cafe the night it was born.

"I hate to say this, but I rolled my eyes," Echanove said. "I was kind of a naysayer."

What was it like in the first years?

"It was damn cold," he said. "-7 on the street for three years. I was outside for two of them wearing a skeleton outfit."

He waved to cars, glancing up to see the dropping temperature on the bank sign.

Linda Snook was with him, dressed as the devil.

In the first years, workers took a 15-minute intermission. That helped people get warm. Soon, with the size of the crowds, organizers created a system to keep it always running from the 7 p.m. opening to its generally midnight close.

What's been the biggest challenge over the years?

"Crowds were never a problem. It was more like, let's quit advertising this thing already," said Echanove.

In 17 years, the mayor has been in many scenarios.

"One year I had my head in an oven," he said. "Tammy Howard would beat my head with a wooden spoon.

"Talk about something that developed a life of its own."

from the outside

Walt Reid is from Tacoma, a retired 41-year Weyerhauser employee whose wife Kathy Casey (Schell) is from Palouse, the retainer of family land and a farmhouse. Her grandfather bought the land in 1914.

Walt has come to Palouse in October for the past seven years to join the work for Haunted Palouse.

"The commitment is unbelievable. They truly enjoy it," said Reid of the founders. "I feel very fortunate to be included, basically from the outside. I'm the outsider for sure, but I don't feel that way."

On go nights, Reid has manned the entry at the firehouse and – hidden at the museum – worked ropes to move a ceiling up and down.

"Janet (Barstow)'s got to be the most organized person I've ever met," Reid said. "All the shifts, who does what, she's got it all planned out."

At the end of each night, the workers in the museum gather for food and drink.

"A decompression meeting," Bev Pearce said. "You get done at midnight, it can last until (1 a.m.) or after. There's a camaraderie that's developed. I think that's the part I will miss the most."

They also wait to hear the night's attendance numbers from Annie Pillers. A pool has started to guess the total.

"I hope that we've left a legacy, and the others will pick it up and continue it," said Bev Pearce. "If not, that's okay."

As part of the transition for 2020, the Garfield/Palouse High School robotics team – the Vikotics – have joined the museum for this year.

"They'll run their girlfriends over to get out"

Mike Milano, another of the originals, will continue to work in the firehouse next year, also as a part-time mentor for Sciborgs robotics.

Milano was there for that very first meeting and built props in the first years, and for opening night 2002, took his place in a "surgical theater" in the Bank Left building. He would jump out at a certain time.

"We realized some people get scared enough they'll run over their girlfriends to get out," Milano said. "So we had to dial it back a little."

More lessons were learned in the firehouse.

"You have to give people a chance to catch their breath," Milano said. "We had a big football-player kid run through two walls to get out of there."

The next year they added plywood sheeting to reinforce the walls.

The age-12 rule also was not in place at the start. It was left to the discrepancy of parents, and some kids had to be escorted out.

"It took my wife 10 years before she would go in," Milano said. "I could hear her laughing all the way through."

He estimates that 10 percent of the town takes part each year in Haunted Palouse, in one form or another.

"It's a great gathering of people interested in helping the community," said Milano, a former city councilman. "I describe it as a trauma-bonding experience. It's pretty amazing this event in a small town could raise so much money."

The budget and materials for Haunted Palouse were always kept tight.

"It's surprising what you can do with a lot of chicken wire and foam," Milano said.

Food in the firehouse is similar to the museum; crockpots and cookies and donated pop. Other arrangements are made, too.

"I've delivered a Lions Club burger to a witch in a scare. A few times," said Milano.

burning mortgage

The Palouse Community Center will be paid off this year – two years ahead of schedule, much of that due to Haunted Palouse money.

"I believe we're planning a mortgage-burning party next summer," said Bev Pearce. "... Other than my children, Haunted Palouse has been the biggest thing I've been a part of. To raise $600,000 for all in the community... I think it's pretty remarkable."

Pearce came to Palouse 28 years ago from Portland. She soon met Paula Echanove when a Girl Scout co-leader was needed.

foundation

Next year's co-chair Nicole Flansburg went to Haunted Palouse in its first year, as a WSU senior, with future husband Aaron, who grew up on a farm outside town.

Later, as a resident herself first getting involved, Nicole still remembered the staring eyes of a jack-in-the-box as she left a room in the Bank Left building – Ben Barstow.

"They find what works and just exploit it," Flansburg said, whose 12-year-old daughter painted backgrounds this year and will be an extra in the firehouse. "I think these people are incredible. They've laid such a solid foundation, anytime I make a phone call, people say yeah, Haunted Palouse, sure, how can I help you...? It's a lot of fun and it's so well-meaning. You walk down the street and see five or six things Haunted Palouse is responsible for funding."

Closing

This year the Barstows did a little less for Haunted Palouse, not just because of the transition, but it's been a particularly late harvest for garbanzo beans.

"We're all in our 60s now," said Janet. "We were in our 40s then."

When did they first think about Haunted Palouse changing hands?

"It was always gonna be when the community center was paid off for many of us," Janet said.

In future years, will the originals just be people in line, going through the attractions?

"No, they're too scary," said Barstow. "I'll make soup and cookies."

Author Bio

Garth Meyer, Former reporter

Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.

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