'Parktoberfest' set for Monday, Sept. 25, at University Park in Grand Forks

Sep. 22—GRAND FORKS — The Grand Forks Park District will host a new community event, "Parktoberfest," from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at University Park.

Described as a "fall festival in the park," the free event will feature live music, s'mores, pumpkin-painting, horse-drawn hayrides, food trucks, bounce houses, games and the final movie in this year's "Movie in the Park" series, Disney's "Hocus Pocus," starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker.

"Put on your flannels and come celebrate our most beautiful season," said Lynne Roche, recreation and special events manager for the park district. "We're really excited about this event."

The folks at The Patch on the Point in rural East Grand Forks are bringing pumpkins for kids to paint; the cost is $1 per pumpkin. All painting supplies will be provided by the park district.

Point Paradise Stables, located at The Patch on the Point, will bring horses for the hayrides, Roche said.

Herlof Huso, a home-schooled student from Aneta, North Dakota, will sing at the event, she said.

"I hear he is awesome," she said.

Representatives of the Blue Zones Project Grand Forks, a community well-being improvement initiative, are also expected to participate.

Everyone is encouraged to stay for the outdoor movie, "Hocus Pocus," which will begin at dusk, around 7:15 p.m. The movie is a tale about three villainous, comedic witches who are inadvertently resurrected by a teenage boy in Salem, Massachusetts, on Halloween night.

Roche has been shocked by how much attention "Parktoberfest" has already attracted on the park district's Facebook page, she said. "I put it out there, kind of threw it together last minute, but about 2,000 people have expressed an interest in attending, (so it seems to be) much needed."

Roche used to organize the "Black Cat Bash" around Halloween, when kids came in costume and candy was handed out, but "everyone in town is doing that.

"And I thought, we don't celebrate fall, we just celebrate Halloween around here. So I decided that maybe it would be fun to do another activity in the (University) park, and I thought Parktoberfest would be fun."

The event will fill a gap in the slate of park district's activities, she said.

"I think it is needed," she said. "I think we need more events like that."

During the event, "we're going to do the hayrides and we've got hay bales and corn stocks, and just kind of embrace fall a little bit," she said.

Members of the UND Athletic Department are planning to participate, and "we'll throw some footballs around," she said. "I'm hoping to get the Hawk (mascot) from UND there. I think that'll be fun."

She also hopes that, by holding it at University Park, the event will attract UND students, and "the north end people always appreciate that as well."

Autumn is "definitely something we need to embrace," she said. "We have fall here, we've got the four seasons, and we're really quick to do hockey and the winter sports, and then we kind of go right into the summer programming and then we have nothing. ..."

Parktoberfest "will be more for families," she said. "I think people are still looking for things to do, and it's getting dark so fast that at least we can sneak one last movie early enough that kids can still get home and get to bed."

"I think it's going to work out really well," she said. "I'm excited."