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Photo by Shawn McHugh

Zoey Patterson, 11, decorates a scarecrow face during the Boys & Girls Club of Craig afternoon excursion to the Wyman Museum.

Ella was a cowgirl - and a fashionable one at that.

She wore a yellow ranch shirt with white lace, her designer jeans held up by a light pink belt.

Her head was a burlap sack painted with neon pink eyes, a green nose and a black, smiling mouth.

Alyssa Parkin, 8, grabbed the scarecrow's hay-stuffed arm and shook it.

"Nice to meet you Ella," she said, as a group of six children strapped Ella to a stake so she could be put on display.

On Friday at the Wyman Museum, Alyssa and about 20 children from the Boys & Girls Club of Craig painted pumpkins, made scarecrows and wandered through the hay maze.

Friday's activities were designed to entertain students out of school on fall break, but Wyman will be offering all those activities and more to the public during today's Wyman's Pumpkin Patch.

Proceeds from the event today will go to help produce this year's Winter Festival.

The Community Budget Center donated used clothing for the children to use in making their scarecrows. All three of the characters made Friday will be displayed around downtown Craig for the Halloween season.

After they finished making Ella, Alyssa's group moved on to pumpkin painting.

Zach Patterson, 8, brought back the biggest pumpkin he could find.

"I just grabbed the biggest one over there," he said. "It's going to be red and black and a scary pumpkin."

Some of the students were more concerned with painting their faces than their pumpkins, but each of them would have a unique work of art to take home.

"I'm going to make the mouth red," Parkin announced. "It's going to be a ghost pumpkin. I like ghosts, but they scare me. Boys say they're not afraid of ghosts, but they are."

"No I'm not," Zach replied from across the table.

After setting their pumpkins out to dry, the group sprinted to the hay maze.

Isaac Jacobson, Boys & Girls Club director of operations, patrolled the tops of the hay bales as his students raced through the maze.

Not only did they have to find the end of the maze, they were looking for a "needle in a haystack," a painted metal rod Jacobson had hidden somewhere among the hay bales.

"Wyman's just invited us out here out of the goodness of their hearts today," Jacobson said. "Just to give the kids a project to do. It's a sweet thing. They got so excited coming down here."

The museum's office manager Nicky Boulger was outside helping the students paint their pumpkins. She said Friday's preview for the Boys & Girls Club and today's event are meant to be a fun day for the kids.

"It's meant to be a fun day for the whole family," she said. "We'll have homemade pies, caramel apples and Halloween balloons."

At the end of the day Friday, Ella was no longer alone.

The two other Boys & Girls Club groups had constructed her two friends, Pattis and Blue.

But Zach wasn't positive they would do their jobs.

"Scarecrows are meant to scare away crows," he said. "I don't know, maybe they will."