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10/23/2024 08:30 AMIf you are an avid video game player, you will recognize the big, square figures in front of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Chester. If you like are the rest of us, here is what you need to know: The figures are created to resemble characters in Minecraft, which is often identified as the most popular video game of all time.
Patrick Bryan knows all about those Minecraft figures. It’s because he made them.
So, what are they doing on Main Street in Chester? They are part of Halloweentown at Laurel Hill Cemetery, the holiday fundraiser which the Chester Elementary School PTO organizes as part of Chester’s townwide Halloween celebration, on Friday, Oct. 25 from 5 to 8:30 p.m. The PTO benefits from tickets sold to play the games which each class organizes in the cemetery. It is free for people to walk through the cemetery to see the fantastic holiday creations.
The townwide event also includes a costumed Halloween parade from North Quarter Park to the center of town, as well as music, food, and a scavenger hunt.
Patrick’s involvement in the event stems from a simple premise.
“I like making things,” he says.
In past years, Patrick has made the equipment for a Harry Potter cornhole game and, on another occasion, miniature golf inspired by the horror video game, Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Sometimes, the creation of new games involves creating entirely new ways to approach existing materials. For Minecraft, Patrick made a jack-o’-lantern of foam insulation sheets and had to develop a way to bind the sheets together to form a cube. Experimenting with different adhesives, he found an expanding spray foam, Great Stuff, which worked.
“It was the only way to do the job,” he says.
Patrick always wants to use innovative approaches to make his creations.
“If I know how one material works, I want to do it with another. I want to learn a new way,” he says.
In creating the spooky game area in the cemetery, Patrick says that the PTO has been careful to respect the existing tombstones. The games are taking place in areas which won’t disturb the graves, and the PTO met with the board of Laurel Hill Cemetery to ensure that they agreed to the plans.
“They have been very understanding,” he says.
Patrick and his wife Jennifer, who is the administrative assistant to Region 4 Superintendent of Schools Brian White, moved to Chester 19 years ago. When they first visited the town with a small son, it was during the fall season, and they remember seeing the annual Halloween costume parade.
The couple now has three children, with the oldest in college and the two younger ones well beyond their elementary school days. However, the fact that his kids are now older has not dimmed Patrick’s enthusiasm for the Chester Elementary project. Patrick notes that, just like him, Kim Stack, another longtime worker on the Halloween project, no longer has children attending elementary school.
“I love the people involved. We work as a team. It is a great group,” he says.
Patrick, who is a biology professor at Middlesex Community College, grew up in Pennsylvania. He was the first member of his family to attend college, and he did it with an ROTC scholarship which involved both military service and time to attend school. Patrick earned a doctoral degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and did postgraduate studies in Hong Kong. In his studies of marine invertebrates, he twice went to Antarctica and did some 100 dives under the ice.
Patrick’s first teaching position was at Central Washington University, but he left the job right after he had received tenure. It wasn’t about professional differences. It was about family.
“Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was a dad,” he says. “I quit to have enough time to raise my kids.”
Patrick was an avid runner, although he is now hampered by an Achilles tendon injury. He wanted to run the Boston Marathon, but the year he applied, he missed the cutoff time by one minute. Patrick still does grueling hikes, including one this summer up Mount Yale, a 14,200-foot peak in the Sawatch Mountains of Colorado.
“We had expected it to be warm, but it was very cold. We were soaking wet. One leg was numb,” he recalls.
Patrick is also a guitar player. Mostly, that happens late at night, when he is often learning with YouTube videos.
Patrick says that the preparations for the Minecraft game took at least five months of planning. He purchases most of the materials himself. There is a small stipend from the PTO, but Patrick points out that since the Halloween event is a fundraiser, he doesn’t want to take away from PTO profits with construction costs.
Patrick used tape for making the straight lines he needs in painting the component parts of the Minecraft figures. It wasn’t a little bit of tape. In fact, Patrick estimates that he used some 100 rolls.
In the end, though, Patrick knows that the benefits of the event are certainly worth the effort.
“It takes hundreds of hours, and it is only seen one night. But it is all about seeing the kids happy,” he says. “Nobody knows I made things. I am happy being a volunteer.”