"Lucy and Ethel" Photo Steals the Show

For the third straight year, Lora Griffiths and Connie Tubiolo wowed the Duke community with their creativity (and maybe even their marketing) to win the Blue Devil Halloween Photo Contest. 

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The duo from the Office of Sponsored Programs received the most "likes" - 402 by 5 p.m. Thursday, the deadline to vote on Facebook, for their re-creation of Lucy and Ethel from the classic Candy Shop episode of the "I Love Lucy" sit-com. In all, Duke employees submitted 34 photos in the contest.

"Lora hustled and sent out lots of emails to let people know they should vote in the contest," said Tubiolo, who dressed as Ethel. "But it was a real nail-biter of a competition."

That's for sure. With five minutes left to vote Thursday, "Lucy and Ethel at the Candy Factory" and "Live Long and Prosper" were in a tie.

Runner-up "Live Long and Prosper" was a photo of the Pratt Professional Masters Programs team members dressed up as Star Trek characters. That photo garnered 395 "likes" by the voting deadline.

"Awesome! Beam me up Scotty!! Looks like Captain Kirk has died and gone to heaven," Jim Mundell, engineering's executive in residence, posted in the comments for the photo on the Facebook album. 

The "spookiest" prize goes to "Pumpkin Peekaboo," a photograph taken by Lemur Center staff photographer David Haring and submitted by Robin Ann Smith, manager of education and outreach for the Duke Lemur Center

The Working@Duke editorial team bestowed the "zaniest" award to the Pratt team and the "spookiest" award to the Lemur Center's photo of an Aye-Aye lemur in a pumpkin. The Aye-Aye photo was submitted by Robin Ann Smith, manager of education and outreach for the Duke Lemur Center. Each of these teams will receive a bag of Halloween candy as a prize. 

Griffiths and Tubiolo will add  the grand prize coffee mug emblazoned with the Lucy and Ethel photo to the mugs they won in  other Halloween contests for dressing as Raggedy Ann and Andy in 2011 and Pinocchio and Geppetto last year.

Griffiths and Tubiolo said their win was truly a team effort. Griffith's mother had the idea of using "I Love Lucy" as a theme, and Tubiolo's daughter dreamed up  playing off the candy shop episode.  

"And we couldn't have done it without Lora's husband, who found the pink smocks and nametags online and actually built us our conveyor belts," Griffiths said.  

The "zaniest" prize goes to "Live Long and Prosper," submitted by Staci Thornton and the Pratt Professional Masters Programs team. Pictured, from left, are Jamila Belk, Staci Thornton, Erin Degerman, LaTondra Murray Chandler, Brad Fox, Bridget Leddy Fletcher, Susan Brown and Dorsey Bachenheimer.

Staci Thornton, who submitted Pratt's "Live Long and Prosper" photo, said the contest generated a lot of fun for the Pratt team. Thornton sent an email a week in advance of the contest, reminding colleagues to wear V-neck sweaters with black T-shirts underneath. She also scheduled a "meeting" on Halloween and cut out nine Star Trek emblems from yellow felt to pin to each person's "uniform." 

"We met in the faculty lounge and took a whole bunch of photos, with us looking pensive, frightened, and serious - it was a hoot," said Thornton, academic coordinator for the Professional Masters Programs at Pratt. 

The contest even reunited old friends.

 Jane Smith, a program coordinator at the Fuqua School of Business, learned about the contest when Griffiths, a colleague from Northgate 20 years ago, sent her an email inviting her  to vote in the contest.  

"We hadn't realized we had both returned to Duke," Smith said. She voted for Griffiths and enjoyed viewing all of the Halloween photos. 

"I love Halloween," Smith said. "It is good for people to get together and express themselves and have some fun as adults. The holiday is definitely not just for children."