The Halloween Photo Contest Winners Are…

Gilligan. The Skipper, too. A millionaire and his wife. A movie star. The professor and Mary Ann.

“Cast of Gilligan's Island from the 'SS Pickens'" – seven Duke Family Medicine employees dressed up as the popular, marooned TV characters – won the sixth annual Blue Devil Halloween Photo Contest with 278 “likes” on Facebook as of 4 p.m. Thursday. 

“Everyone just had a really good time,” said Jody Crabtree, the program coordinator for Duke Family Medicine who dressed up as Mrs. Howell of the Gilligan’s Island crew. “We have a couple people in the picture that are very creative… They were trying to figure out something we all could do and participate, with all seven characters.”

Crabtree said her colleagues shared the photo with friends and family, students, physicians, and other staff members and asked colleagues to take out their phones and vote during an all-staff meeting this week.

As the grand prize winner, the seven Duke Family Medicine employees will receive coffee mugs decorated with the team’s winning contest photo. A total of 39 photos were entered into this year’s Halloween photo contest.

Duke Web Services was a close second with 240 “likes” for its depiction of a fire-breathing dragon scaling the American Tobacco Campus Lucky Strike Tower. The Pratt Professional Masters Programs ran in third with 228 “likes” of its “Where’s Waldo?” group.

Working@Duke judges awarded Duke University Registrar staff members with the “Most Creative” designation for their “ Now Streaming … Members of the Registrar's Office star in your favorite Netflix originals!” mashup. Colleagues dressed up as characters from the shows “Stranger Things,” “Jessica Jones” and “Orange is the New Black.”

At the beginning of October, the Registrar team created an “idea board” and conducted surveys to pick the top costume idea. They started with about 15 original ideas, which included dressing up as characters from Clue.

Dawn Schaefer, staff assistant to the University Registrar, added that her colleagues also custom-made a sheriff’s badge, and someone’s mother sewed a pink dress for the project.

“We gathered stuff that we thought would work,” Schaefer said. “It was just kind of infectious as people got excited about doing it.”

Regina McKoy, program coordinator for Duke Human Resources’ Staff and Family Programs, received the “Spookiest” designation for her comic book character she created, Arabella, who is friends with DC Universe supervillain Harley Quinn. McKoy crafted her face makeup to look like she had an elongated mouth.

She said she received some stares while driving to work in the morning and was excited to find out she won a Halloween Photo Contest prize.

“I really did it because I’m a confirmed and confessed big kid,” McKoy said. “The fact that I was going to do this anyway and come to work and wear it all day was a win in and of itself for me. To have someone else recognize it was pretty cool and was the icing on the cake.”

Winners of the “spookiest” and “most creative” photos will receive bags of chocolate candy. View the rest of the 2016 contest submissions by visiting the Working@Duke Facebook album.