For the past month, scarecrows have been popping up all over Tecumseh. There were 42 entries in the City of Tecumseh Residential Scarecrow Contest, 10 for the Commercial Scarecrow Contest, and four City of Tecumseh Employee Contest scarecrows.
On Oct. 28, a judge from outside the community drove to each site and took notes. And now, the results are in for the inaugural contest.
The residential winners are first place, “ Sunflower Sally,” owned by Steve and Barbara Allen at 1609 N. 13th St.; second place, “No Place Like Home,” belonging to Julio and Nicole Sanchez at 259 Oakridge; and third place, “Tom and Scary,” owned by Lori Brown at 20500 Malone Rd. Winners of the commercial contest were, first place, “Honey Dew Jim” at The Farmer’s Daughter Market, 302 N. Broadway; second place, “J.J.” at A/C Doctors, LLC, 102 E. Maple; and third place, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” at Make It Yours, LLC, 115 N. Broadway.
Both the residential and commercial winners will receive a credit on their utility bill of $250 for first place, $175 for second place, and $100 for third place.
For the Tecumseh employees contest, “Farmer Caw’s Crow Harvest,” created by the team of Payroll Clerk Sarah Carter and Court Clerk Beth Jeffcoat, took the grand prize of a $25 gift card each and bragging rights.
Carter said employee names were drawn to create the two-person teams.
She and Jeffcoat built their scarecrow from 2x4s, PVC pipe, cornstalk stuffing, farm clothes, and a styrofoam pumpkin with burlap for the head and a microfiber dust mop for the hair.
“Yeah, I had scrap PVC and wood laying around, and most everything else is from the Dollar Tree, except the crows,” said Carter. “ ... and the garden for the corn stalks.”
They painted Farmer Caw’s face on the Thursday before the Oct. 15 deadline and put him together on Oct. 14.
Carter said she and Jeffcoat don’t work in the front office, so they don’t have a lot of customer interaction. But during Tecumseh Business Trick-or-Treat on Halloween, she noticed people enjoying the employees’ scarecrows, which were displayed in front of City Hall.
Like many of the commercial scarecrows, they have served as good props for photos, as well.
Deann Smith, owner of The Farmer ’s Daughter Market since it opened in Nov. 2019, designed “Honey Dew Jim” to look like her husband, the farmer, Jim, using his clothes, hat, and glasses, right down to the nuts and tools in his shirt pockets.
Kate Blain, who works at the restaurant and at Benson Park Pecans, did much of the assembly, which Smith estimates took eight hours.
She said her customers have enjoyed their scarecrow, which guards the entrance.
“We’ve had a lot of fun with him,” said Smith. “People come in, and they’ll say, ‘I was standing out there talking to Jim for 15 minutes, and he never said anything. That’s when I realized it wasn’t Jim because if Jim’s not talking, there’s something wrong.’ ” For A/C Doctors, LLC, working on their scarecrow was mandatory.
“It took a team effort,” said Office Manager Becky Webb.
She said Bryson Wilson and Erron Moore worked on it between calls.
Webb said she got the idea of the cartwheeling scarecrow from Pinterest.
“We wanted to be different,” she said. “I told them I wanted him standing on his head doing something different.”
They used PVC pipe, chicken wire and straw, with a pumpkin for the head and zip ties to attach him to one post of their front porch.
“I think they are scared of anything I come up with from now on. But they did do a great job,” said Webb. “We have the TikTok video that shows him being put together. … And it’s also on our Facebook.”
“At all my work events, people have said that they have come just to drive by just to see him because of the TikTok video.”
Webb said J.J will probably stay on display throughout autumn.
“He’s a fall establishment. He’s kind of family now,” she said.
“It was fun,” she added. “The City had a great idea. Something different, something fun.”
Leslie Ferrin, who has owned Make It Yours with her husband Mark for five years, said they were having fun combining classic song references and folklore. Their “weary traveler” was “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” who rode in on “A Horse With No Name,” both being derived from songs by Jim Croce and America, respectively. The original idea for Leroy was for him to be singing to their metal animal yard art creations.
Ferrin collaborated with consignment vendor and artist Penny Coates to create their scarecrow, and she said it took about three days to build. The cowboy’s head was made of paper maché, and the stick horse’s head was an actual horse skull, which Ferrin thought was appropriate for Halloween. Leroy also wore a cowboy hat and held a guitar.
Barbara Allen, the winner of the residential scarecrow contest, said she built “Sunflower Sally” with her 15-year-old grandson, Micah, over a weekend. She started with her favorite color of purple, and one of the purple ribbons on Sally’s hat happened to have sunflowers. So, they decided to add sunflowers to her hay bales, and Allen came up with her name after she was done.
“It was really just fun. We really enjoyed it,” said Allen. “We were happy that the City did it. It was good to see all the entries. We just kind of watched everywhere we went, and man, everybody did such a good job.”
Julio, Nicole, Blakeley, 17, Drake, 11, and Tito, 10, Sanchez all worked on their “No Place Like Home” sports-themed scarecrow “little by little,” said Nicole Sanchez, in between attending the State Fastpitch Tournament games in OKC, since Blakeley is on the Lady Savages.
Much of what they used was repurposed sports gear or family clothing, such as her dad’s overalls and a Savage shirt and jacket.
“All my kids played sports,” Sanchez said. “My older two played sports at Tecumseh. Me and my husband both did. The boys, they play youth sports here at Tecumseh. So, we’re definitely a sports family.”
Sanchez said they had fun building their entry and recycling items, but she didn’t believe it would place, due to steep competition.
“ When I drove around town, I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, there’s so many good ones,’ and like, ‘ There’s no way. There’s no way I’ll ever (win),’ ” she said.
Sanchez serves as the Tecumseh Chamber of Commerce President and is thankful to the City of Tecumseh.
“Definitely, thanks to the City of Tecumseh for putting this on and just bringing some joy to the ... community,” she said.
Sanchez already has plans for next year’s entry, but is guarding her secrets. In the meantime, her one-and-ahalf- year-old granddaughter is enjoying this year’s scarecrow and making Sanchez walk with her around it.
“My granddaughter Jaydee loves it,” she said. “She loves the scarecrow the most.”
