Kids – 400 of them – showed off their costumes to 100 Bouwells seniors last night during the 13th annual Sunrise Rotary Club – Boutwells Landing pre-Halloween Parade.

Thirteen members of the Stillwater High School pep band serenaded the 10-and-under tricksters as they filed past senior residents, all fortified with treats.  Kids were armed with buckets, pails and pumpkin-shaped containers, except for one little girl who carried a pillow slip.  She knew the loot potential.

Doors at Boutwells main building swung open at six p.m, as they always do.  By seven it was all over, as it always is.  During that hour, upwards of a thousand kids, parents and grandparents had passed through Boutwells Towne Center, not quite as many as some years, but better than last year. 

Along with the treats, kids had their pinkie finger painted purple at a PolioPlus table.  They left behind $275-plus in donations to the Rotary International program which has almost eliminated polio worldwide with its inoculation program.

Along with the Sunrise Rotary Club-Boutwells Landing co-sponsors, this year’s 13th annual “Parade of Purple Pinkies” was supported by the Oak Park Heights First State Bank and Trust, Lake Elmo Bank and Lake Area Bank.