Halloween Ghost Story Contest Statistics

Not too surprisingly the state with the largest number of winners is the contest's home state of Massachusetts. In the early years of the contest most of the winners were fairly local. These days, most of the winners come from outside Massachusetts, but it still produces more on the average than any other state.

Note that these results include winners from other countries but do not include winners who did not provide a specific state or province. Thus although we have had two winners from Asia, they do not show up here because we do not have a state or province to list for them. We use standard abbreviations whenever possible, and for slices from outside the United States list the country abbreviation in parentheses after the state or province abbreviation.

Since so many winners have come from Massachusetts, here's a breakdown of just Massachusetts winners by town. Right now Saugus still holds a majority of the Massachusetts victories, but its lead has been getting smaller with each passing year.

Both Wakefield and Marblehead have been strong all throughout the history of the contest. Revere has been doing exceptionally well the past few years and just this past year overtook both for second place.

This year Revere High School swept the category and moved ahead of Marblehead to tie Saugus High School for first place. These two schools share just a slight lead over Marblehead, and if it were to sweep the category next year that lead would vanish. The next few schools are not too far behind, either, so this whole pie could easily change depending upon the results in the next year or two -- a sweep by nearly any school is likely to mean an upset. Quite a few of the schools listed here are from outside Massachusetts, and one is even from outside the United States.

The Belmonte Middle School has a fairly strong lead over all the other schools. Of particular interest though is the home-schooled category, currently the third largest slice of pie. If trends continue it could overtake second place Alachua Learning Center. Most of these schools (including Alachua Learning Center) are from outside Massachusetts.

Locally this race tends to be one of the most watched. It's also one of the closest. A sweep could bring almost any of the top schools to the top (or at least second place) next year, and while the top few are currently from Saugus, the next few are all from other communities. Wakefield has traditionally done pretty well in this category, and two of its elementary schools (Franklin and Walton) are represented here. There are also schools from other states besides Massachusetts (and even other countries besides the United States) that are in the running here.