St. Armands Circle was filled with tons of trick-or-treaters, young and young at heart, Saturday evening. All the stores and restaurants stayed open late so that bumble-bees, witches, ninjas and pumpkins could fill their bags full of sweet treats.

Burns Court was a lot more colorful this weekend with the addition of the 3rd Annual Chalk Festival. The event was free to attend and the theme of this year's festival and art was 'Halloween'.

Lady Gaga, vampires, southern belles, witches and geishas all paraded through UBS and Merrill Lynch's haunted hallways as part of their Girls Inc. Halloween on Friday afternoon.

Richard Crawford, financial advisor, held an open house for the new Edward Jones Branch at 443 John Ringling Blvd., on St. Armands Circle.

Susan Roberts' eighth-grade science classes at Brookside Middle School spent Wednesday measuring how the circumference and height of a pumpkin can affect the number of seeds it contains.Once they had completed the lab by creatively carving faces into their pumpkins, students lit a candle inside them and turned off the lights to admire their Jack-o-lanterns.

Excited youngsters paraded around Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in their favorite Halloween getups today.

The Sarasota County Arts Council held its 12th Annual Awards Celebration, Monday, Oct. 25 at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts Mertz Theatre. The evening honored some of Sarasota's most prominent leaders of the arts and cultural community.

The Asolo Repertory Theatre welcomed the artists and cast for "Bonnie and Clyde," a new musical from Ivan Menchell, Don Black, John McDaniel and Jeff Calhoun.

The Business Ethics Alliance held its monthly luncheon today, when panelists Matt Walsh, editor and CEO of The Observer Group; Susan Burns, editor of biz941; and Diane McFarlin, publisher of the Herald-Tribune Media Group, debated the topic "Does journalistic truth now mean something different than it previously meant?"

The 2nd Annual Sarasota Zombie Pub Crawl took place along Gulf Gate Blvd. this past Saturday. Over 150 people dressed up and came out to participate in the zombie fun at the seven pubs and bars in the Gulf Gate area.

The Humane Society of Sarasota County hosted its 13th Howl-O-Ween at the Sarasota Fairgrounds on Saturday, Oct. 23. The main event was the costume contest which had over 90 entries.

St. Thomas More Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of sister Judith Baldino, affectionately known throughout the parish as "Sister Judy," on Sunday, Oct. 24.