STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

“You can grab as much as you like,” Monica Sze told a young boy dressed in an astronaut suit as he grabbed ahold of the forearm of a skeleton and approached a small cauldron.

The boy fished and fished with the skeleton’s hand. And, when all was said and done, he pulled one candy bar out of the cauldron set up by Higher Ground.

“This is what it’s all about—taking care of kids, seeing kids smile,” said Sze, who was greeting trick-or-treaters with Cheyanne Stopol.

Sharon Bolton and her Betty Betty Jr. had a treasure chest that Blackbeard would’ve loved.

Sze and Stopel were among more than a dozen veterans and others who decorated their car trunks and set out treasure troves of Butterfingers and Almond Joys outside the American Legion hall in Ketchum Halloween night.

“One thing we’ve learned is that you need to go to Costco for candy because you never have enough,” said Ed Simon, who was among the ringleaders of what’s becoming an annual tradition at the American Legion. “It’s our way of bringing Halloween to the kids of Ketchum.”

Beth Riall and Dave Briggs found a few assorted creepy characters to welcome youngsters.

Somehow, a yellow lab managed to find time to take a nap in between trick-or-treaters.

Marcus Vavak and Jody Pratt presided over the candy delivered to the American Legion in the back of a Ketchum Fire Department ambulance.