So many costumes showcased Cornell staff creativity at the 2018 Halloween Happenings that judges had to make a new category to accommodate them: judges’ choice honorable mention.

The group receiving that honor at the Oct. 31 gathering at Cornell Cinema: the “Minions,” from ILR Budget and Finance.

Topping the best group or department category was “CVM Vipers,” a team from the College of Veterinary Medicine’s accounting service center. Second place in the group category went to “Alice in Wonderland,” from Cornell Health.

The scariest was Jennifer Evangelista, from the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, as the “Corpse Bride,” followed by “The Don,” from Building Care, who was so scary that organizers are still trying to find out who he is.

Judged the funniest was “Blast from the Past,” with staff from Martha Van Rensselaer Hall; in second place were “The Spice Girls,” featuring DJ AllSpice, with staff from Occupational Medicine, Cornell Health.

Second most original were “Penguins: Birds of a Feather,” from Statler Hall. First in most original were Building Care’s “Pac Man and Ghosts,” with an outsized Pac Man who barely fit through the stairway to the stage.

Other costumes included the “Colonel and His Chicken”; “Ant Man and the Wasp”; “Hobo the Clown”; “Anonymous” from “V for Vendetta”; “Belle” from “Beauty and the Beast”; “Lifarian”; “Marvin the Martian”; and “SPCA Adoptable Animals.”

Joel Malina, vice president for university relations, emceed the event. Judges were Mary Opperman, vice president and chief human resources officer; Rachel Giordano, human resource generalist at Seneca Place; and Michael Esposito, academic policy consultant in academic human resources.

Opperman closed the event by paying tribute to Judy Hart ’73, a long-time Cornell employee and retiree who died in 2015. Hart advocated for the creation of Halloween Happenings, begun in 1997 by the Cornell Recreation Community.