LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18)– Around 500 Jack-O-Lanterns will be lit at Transylvania University Tuesday evening for the school’s annual Pumpkinmania.
Pumpkinmania festivities begin at Transy at 6 p.m. and lasts until 8 p.m. on the steps of Transylvania’s Old Morrison.
The event is a tradition during the school’s RafWeek. RafWeek celebrates the legend behind Constantine Rafinesque, a botanist, author, and Transy professor who was fired by President Horace Holley in the 1800s. After he left, Rafinesque claimed to have cursed the university and Holley. The university explained on their Facebook that within the years after, Holley died and the main college building caught fire. In 1924, his body was brought back to Transylvania University and buried in a tomb.
Every year, students celebrate the creepy legacy of Rafinesque by holding a raffle for students to sleep in his tomb, and through Pumpkinmania, in which hundreds of student-carved pumpkins line the steps of Old Morrison and the community is invited to join the campus with trick-or-treating, food trucks, music, and more.
The Jack-O-Lanterns will be lit at 7 p.m.
If you miss tonight’s celebrations, you can still see the pumpkins. They will be on display until November 2nd.
