Expect to see even more purple around the Middletown area over the next week as the city celebrates its fourth annual Purple Palooza, a week of celebrating Middie Pride, the Halloween season and Middletown High School football!
The event was originally scheduled for October 22-26 but was delayed until the following week due to high school students taking the Ohio Graduation Test.
Every Middletown business, school, restaurant and agency alike are asked to decorate their storefronts, offices, doors and anything else they can think of.
The idea originally struck Mark Kerns, a teacher at Middletown High School, when he heard a contest was being held to see who could show the most Northwestern University Wildcats spirit. Originally a celebration which was confined to the halls of Middletown schools, the event spread to the city starting in 2010.
On October 18, 2011 Mayor Larry Mulligan presented Middletown High School Principal Cotter with a proclamation officially declaring the coming week “Purple Palooza Week.” Additionally, the Middletown City Council declared the week Purple Palooza Week for the school district during its October 16 meeting.
Doulos Threads, a screen printing company on Verity Parkway, was busy on Monday delivering nearly 400 pre-ordered Purple Palooza shirts to Middletown-area elementary schools.
A brand new Purple Palooza design will be unveiled which will be picked from a Middletown High School contest for students with “an artistic flair and imagination for creative design,” according to Middletown City Schools’ website. The winning design will be put on the Purple Palooza apparel: hoodies, crew neck sweatshirts, long and short sleeve t-shirts.
All proceeds from the apparel sales will benefit the Pigskin-Roundball Spectacular, an event started in 1990 as a dream of Mark Kerns to have both a football and basketball personality speaker in Middletown, Ohio. The event has come to be one of Southwest Ohio’s biggest athletic occasions and benefits many local and national organizations.
Expect to see a lot of purple on the storefronts of Middletown as the weekend rolls around and the city embraces the fourth annual Purple Palooza Week!
Sources: Middletown Journal, Middletown City Schools