Students decked out in their Halloween costumes and walked down a paper runway in the quad for the annual ASB-hosted Halloween Costume competition during lunch on Oct. 31. ASB judged the Contestants on four categories: funniest, scariest, best group costume and overall best costume.

The winner for the “funniest costume” category was freshman Noah Choi, dressed as an inflated police officer. Junior Nick Sanchez won the “scariest costume” category dressed as a zombie, wearing patterned contacts, heavy makeup and shoes tipped with metal that made an eerie sound when walking.

Freshmen Emily Pham and Kayvahn Rastavan, dressed as rappers Lil Pump and Kanye West, won the category of “best group costume.” Junior Elias Tchapadarian won the overall best costume dressed as a custodian, sporting the IUSD uniform and holding a trash picker.

“We have had the costume contest for the last three years,” student activities coordinator and junior Karly Hopper said. “We knew that we wanted to do it because we wanted it to be a tradition at Portola, since everyone seemed to enjoy it. I think we got a lot of participation, which was really good, and I think everyone who watched and participated had a lot of fun. I think it really brought out the Halloween spirit.”

The most popular category was the group costume, with students dressing thematically, such as the Four Seasons Hotel, characters from Winnie the Pooh, Spongebob and “Alice in Wonderland.”

“Me and my friends talked about doing a group costume, and someone mentioned ‘Alice in Wonderland’…so we all coordinated and assigned roles to each other,” junior Aliyah Davis, dressed as the Cheshire Cat, said. “There were a bunch of people lining the rows, and as we walked down, everyone’s eyes were on us. That was pretty exciting.”

This year’s competition has some changes from last year’s competition, including different judging categories and the competition no longer taking place in the Student Union. Spectators watched the event from around the quad, cheering on the contestants as they walked down the runway.

“I enjoyed seeing people’s reactions to the costumes because some were laughing and some were really confused which made it even better,” Pham said. “I hope to see a lot more people dressing up next year.”