The Halloween Party in 1978 was our largest to date. There are at least 40 people visible in the two images below and I’m guessing there were another 20-30 people that came and left without being photographed.

Top Row: Joann, Matt Shetley (?), Jim Bob Green, (Clown?), Carl Debord, (Princess?) Middle Row: Kathy Johnson, Lew Miltenberger, Breck Bartmess and date, Steve Green, Chris Miltenberger, Bill & Carla Odom, Julie Handlen, Connie Fox, Bob Fox, Roehl Johnson, Charlie. Front Row: Rebecca O’Neil, John Robison, RP, AJ, Diane Thomason, Joe Browning.

This party has special significance this writer in that it did double duty as a wedding reception for Barb Miltenberger and Steve Mays. The ceremony –such as it was– took place in Dr. Miltenberger’s living room and lasted about 12 minutes. Friends and all but immediate family were on the patio drinking beer and listening to the Missouri Tiger football game. As evening approached, everyone when home or back to hotel rooms to get into their costumes and headed for Allan and Steve’s place on Barbara Drive.

I’ve been to a lot of weddings in the last twenty years but I’ll put this “reception” up against any of them. There were so many great moments: Barb’s sing-along to Sweet Blindness; Lew Miltenberger’s morning-after return to the Ken-Motel; eight party-goers on RP’s coffee table…

Someone mistook Charlie’s gallon of screw-driver mix for orange juice and added vodka. An impossibly drunk, two hundred pound man in a mouse costume. Surreal.

I’m not certain on this point but I think this might have been the first Halloween party at which we awarded trophies for best costume.