Wichita couple ready to put massive, longtime Halloween display to rest

What started as a few straw bales and pumpkins nearly three decades ago has grown into a Wichita tradition for Kevin and Debbie Brown.

Tombstones; dead trees; hanging skeletons; talking ghosts; enough orange, blue and purple lights to be spotted from passing airplanes; drifting fog; and mountains of candy for children are the norm for the couple who live in south Wichita on the 2100 block of East Bayley.

But this year, the couple says, is the last for the display.

“I haven’t been out of this yard for Halloween for the past 28 years,” Kevin Brown said. “My wife and I would like to start traveling and seeing some things.”

It started as a whim.

In 1987, Kevin and Debbie Brown’s children were young. Kevin Brown remembered the old spook houses he used to go to as a child.

He wanted to create something that would give kids a thrill but would be more akin to Disney than a slasher film.

“None of it is terrifying,” Kevin Brown said of the Halloween display. “We get a lot of parents saying they appreciate having a place to take the kids where they don’t go home with nightmares.”

He made things himself. Recycled when he could. And each fall, he would add something new to the growing spectacle on Bayley Street. His sons called the front yard the “Little Shop of Horrors,” according to an Eagle story from 2006.

The Browns’ front yard grew in fame. It was featured on CNN and mentioned on national radio by rocker Alice Cooper.

And each year more than 2,000 children visit the yard. Families park their vehicles blocks away and walk to the Browns’ front yard, Debbie Brown said. Friends and neighbors donate sacks of candy.

This year, Kevin Brown said, his goal is to attract 10,000 children. The front yard will be on display from Monday through Halloween.

He has brought in 30 bales of straw and 30 pumpkins and has prominently displayed the mock cemetery with more than four dozen handmade tombstones. Debbie Brown has created a spooky Halloween-themed soundtrack to play each night for visitors.

There are no inflatables or mass-produced, marketed doo-dads. Everything is homemade or homegrown, with a bit of humor added.

“It’s not anything flashy,” Kevin Brown said. “It’s more of an analog Halloween.”

A sign pointing in the direction of and providing the number of miles to prominent scary sites reads: Tombstone, 987; Sleepy Hollow, 1,280; Amittyville, 1,458; and Stanley Hotel, 571.

There are skulls on stakes of “not-so-famous relatives of some very famous, really bad, nasty, evil, naughty, mean dudes.”

A Casper-like ghost asks: “Ever wonder if ghosts believe in people?”

Other signs include whimsical sayings such as “Witches parking – violators will be toad” and “To fix a broken jack-lantern? Use a pumpkin patch.”

“We’ve had people from other countries come by,” said Kevin Brown, who is a musician, guitar instructor and guitar repairman.

The Halloween display “has always been such a creative outlet for me. We are giving kids a safe place to enjoy the holiday.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2014 at 8:23 PM with the headline "Wichita couple ready to put massive, longtime Halloween display to rest."