Kelloggsville — Monsters and minions have been slowly — and quietly — taking over West Kelloggsville Elementary.
“This one literally just showed up over the weekend,” said Principal Casey Wearing as he glanced at his office door, now transformed into a monster wizard.
But second-grader Aiven Stewart knows who is behind all the spooky metamorphoses.
“I watched them,” Aiven said as he looked directly at custodians Ashley Balsktis and Teresa Emmons. “It made me want to create my own door.”
Balsktis, a 2013 graduate of Kelloggsville, said she has always decorated the custodian closet door. This year, the project expanded into decorating other doors at the school.
“As Ashley started doing the doors, it just seemed natural to pitch in,” said Emmons, who has worked in the district for four years and currently has a grandson enrolled.
Gathering ideas from Pinterest, the two have transformed more than a dozen of the school’s doors into monsters, ghosts and minions.
“My favorite is the purple minion,” said Balsktis. “It took a long time to do the hair because you had to crinkle each strand by hand.”
Because it took Balsktis longer to create the minion-themed doors — featuring both regular and purple minions — Aiven said he was able to catch her in the act.
“I really like the monster that has the one eye,” said second-grader Roselyne Jarquin Ramirez, who added the doors have made the school a little more fun.
“That’s really the whole point behind the project, is to see the students smile,” Emmons said. “It makes the school more sociable because they are looking at the doors and talking about them.”
Read more from Kelloggsville:
• Stuffed giraffe ‘spots’ great attendance
• Hallways become global gateways for Hispanic Heritage Month
