The Walla Walla Corn Maze opened for its 25th year this October with a number of fall activities, including the famed Haunted Corn Maze. Although the day serves all those looking for a traditional corn maze experience, the family property turns into a haunted maze at night only for those willing to be chased by zombies with chainsaws or lost in the dark for about an hour.
At the heart of the experience are the ‘scarers’ as they are commonly known. While talking to a few of them, it was quickly clear how much they enjoy doing this work. All of them volunteer, and some of them have been doing it for many years to simply celebrate the Halloween season and bring joy, or fear, into people’s day. Jody, one of the veteran scarers, was especially enthusiastic.
“It’s great. I’ve been doing this for about 12 years and this is fun for me. Having people come out, scaring them with a chainsaw beforehand and as they come out. Nothing like making people pee themselves,” Jody said.
For many of the scarers, they are eager to scare their own family and friends. The Walla Walla Corn Maze sees many people from the broader tri-cities community, but family runs deep. Jody has even recruited his nephew, Keegan, to volunteer as a scarer.
“Jody is my uncle. He’s the one who brought me out here to start scaring and he’s been doing it so long that he scared me as a kid,” Keegan said.
Family is also central to the owners of the Walla Walla Corn Maze. Allyson Filan, the daughter of the owner, is in charge of getting the maze ready over the summer with her siblings.
“We do all of the irrigation and hoeing out the paths, and I was the one who designed the maze this year. I’m the one who fought tooth and nail to get the maze back after COVID-19 so I really like it,” Filan said.
Filan went on to share that people are the main reason she enjoys the work so much. Her family spends a lot of the year prepping for the fall season, so engaging with visitors and sharing her work with the community is a big part of why the family keeps going after all of these years.
As the sky got darker and the line to the maze got longer, it was clear that the community shows up as well. Many participants had been coming for many years and were eager to see the subtle changes that this year would bring. Dalton Lopez, a college student from Walla Walla, was there early and sat around the fire waiting for it to be dark enough to head into the maze. Lopez had gone through the maze before and was with a number of friends who he had previously done it with.
“I like seeing some of these guys get scared. I’m here with my youth group for our parish in Walla Walla, but I’m visiting from college in Spokane,” Lopez said.
Although not everyone traveled as far as Lopez for the haunted maze, the Walla Walla Corn Maze shows that Halloween does seem to be a time when people want to be around family and friends. For Whitman students, the haunted maze might be the perfect opportunity to enliven a weekend with friends or continue to make Halloween memories away from home, where many childhoods were filled with costumes and trick-or-treating.
The scarers were eager to have Whitman students at the maze and encouraged more students to come or even volunteer as scarers. Andy, or ‘Pirate Andy’ as he’s known in the haunted maze, was especially excited about more engagement.
“Come help out and at the absolute least come and enjoy it and see what it’s like. This is like a big giant play and we’re putting it on every weekend. Come be part of it because we want to keep on doing it year after year,” Andy said.
Whether scaring or simply enjoying the fun, the maze offers an opportunity for students and residents alike to immerse themselves in a shared experience — one that all the scarers are eager to continue building.
