Meet Guavaween's Party Animals

Guavaween Photos: Day | Night
Kids Revel In Their Guavaween
Videos: After Dark | Guavaween For Kids

YBOR CITY - When Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader and R2-D2 are strolling down Seventh Avenue and pass a guy dressed as the pope who is walking with a red devil, it can only mean one thing:

Welcome to Guavaween.

On Saturday night, the 22nd annual Halloween celebration - fashioned after Mardi Gras - drew an estimated 70,000 to Tampa's historic Latin district for the Mama Guava Stumble Parade and Features Costume Contest. The events, which included the afternoon Guavaween Family FunFest presented by The Tampa Tribune, carried into the early morning hours today.

'Head on a Platter' turned plenty of heads among the revelers. Belinda McKenzie came all the way from Oxford, Ala., to parade around with her brain-exposed head popping through a table with a bloody table cloth, blood-filled goblets and a candle.

'I would like to invite you to the costume party,' said event photographer Shauna Lillywhite, handing a formal invitation to McKenzie. 'I love a good pun, and that you are homemade.'

'My husband was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in 1995, and we came to Guavaween,' McKenzie said. 'It's such fun, and we've finally made it back.'

She couldn't ride to the party in costume. She had to put on her extra-wide get-up in a parking garage.

Morgan Williams, creative director for event organizer CC Event Productions, and Lillywhite walked through the streets in search of people with the wildest and most creative costumes. They handed out invitations to 20, and three judges whittled the field to five before the crowd selected a winner.

Williams spotted Dean Cochran of Tampa doing a very good impersonation of Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow from 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' on the corner of Seventh and 15th streets.

'Oh, that is great,' she said. 'That deserves an invite.'

Cochran called his costume 'Return of Buco Bruce,' in honor of the swashbuckling pirate who once adorned the helmets of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But make no mistake: This was a Johnny Depp pirate all the way. He fashioned three pistols, a rifle, a sword and dagger. The skeleton mask and hat with a plume touched off the look.

'Can I have a picture with you?' Rhonda Murray of Auburndale asked Cochran, who gladly obliged mugging for her and two of her friends.

'He's pretty cool and he's got all the equipment, all the moves,' Murray said. 'And his tongue even came out.'

Sisters Debbie Godwin of Tampa and Lisa Yeomans, dressed in purple and pink fright wigs, also posed with Cochran.

'His mannerisms are just great,' Yeomans said.

The ol' pirate took time to pose for photos with the Cereal Killer and the Dead Bride, who were perhaps the most gruesome pair.

Geoffrey Scott Patterson of Tampa spent six hours getting into costume, which included plenty of oozing blood and boxes of Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks and other cereals pierced by plastic knives and stuck into his costume. He carried a wooden staff with three pierced skulls.

'These are Larry, Moe and Curly,' he said.

His friend Kimberly Quario played the zombie bride with a blood-splattered wedding dress.

'People keep coming up to me and asking me to smile,' she said, shrugging her shoulders.

The parade, led as usual by Mama Guava and her daughters, the six Guavettes, featured 41 floats. Costumed characters threw beads to those lining the streets and even up onto second-floor balconies.

The Krewe of Zingaro float won the $1,000 first prize.

Clint Vonhollen, dressed as 'Sloth,' was the people's choice in the costume contest and was awarded a $2,000 cash prize and a Nintendo Wii game donated by Hollywood Videos. The contest was sponsored by Feature Costumes of Tampa, which also donated all those beads flung in various directions.

Guavaween's name is a play on the 'Big Guava' nickname Tribune columnist Steve Otto coined for Tampa as a play on the 'Big Apple' New York City tag. Otto's last reign as Papa Guava at the parade was five years ago. Gavino Gutierrez, a Tampa pioneer, tried to cultivate guavas here but was not commercially successful. But he did plant the seed for a nickname.

Mix the guava with Halloween and you get Tampa's own fruity version of trick-or-treat for adults.