Halloween is notorious for fun times and scary costumes and this year is no exception. Costume sales have been good for local merchants catering to the ghoulish crowd and bars have been packed with patrons dressed in costumes trying to win prizes.

Lynn Lloyd, co-owner of Ridiculous Rags, says her stores’ sales have been through the roof. “It’s been nonstop people. Our sales have increased at least ten fold.”

Lloyd and his partner Nanci McCune shop a five state area looking for vintage clothes and costumes for their store. Lloyd says the 1970’s disco-nerd, John Travolta look is very popular. “Our biggest sellers are the leisure suits and afro wigs.” She has also seen several men in drag costumes created and a dead prom queen or two.

“I think the best costume I’ve seen yet though, is Elvis goes Hawaiian. They bought the Elvis glasses, Hawaiian shirt and lay. It was really funny,” Lloyd said.

Stacy Damman, Assistant Manager for Coach House Halloween Boutique, says her store specializes in a variety of things including masks, wigs, Halloween accessories, children’s costumes and adult sized costumes.

“The popular costumes seem to be our priest and nun costumes and the popular mask is of Judge Ito. We’ve also got a lot of men buying women character costumes like the french maid,” Damman said. “The funniest costume I think is ‘the comical cow’. Every day I assign a costume for each employee to wear and the cow costume is funny because the udders stick out from where their private parts would be.

“The employee walks around the store and before you know it, they’re playing with their udder.”

Over the weekend Ames bars had costume contests and were giving out prizes of cash, kegs, T-shirts and coupons. At Tazzles, a man dressed as a tampon won top male. J.R. Scheffer, owner of Tazzles, said the patron was dressed in all white, with a big string coming off of his head and red spots on his costume. The contest was co-sponsored by Red Dog and Q107. The first place winner won $107.

Also winning prizes were a man dressed as a woman who called himself “the big bitch,” and a man dressed as a dead person. “The dead guy had real, live worms in his mouth. He was just letting them crawl around. I saw him put one in his beer also. It was pretty gross,” Scheffer said.

The top female prize was won by three women dressed as nerds.

At the Dean’s List, the Senior Class Council held a Senior Spook costume contest. There were about 35 prizes offered and winners dressed as a variety of things. Among the winners their was the Phantom of the Opera, the Una-bomber, a pair of ducks, a U-haul delivery guy, a freelance gynecologist, the Village people and a nun with some angles in tow.

People’s Bar and Grill plans on holding a costume contest this evening with the band Great Big Freak hosting. The first place individual winner will receive $100, and the first place group winners will receive two kegs.