OGDEN, Utah — Every day looks different in one Ogden yard. The owner has a unique way to make his neighbors smile.
Meet the "Ogden Skeleton Man," Ron Pippin, who spreads joy one bone at a time.
Every day in October, Pippin sets up a new skeleton scene in his front yard.
“I wanted something for people to look forward to,” said Pippin. “If I set something up once, once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. So I wanted something to be different every day that they could look forward to, come by and get a smile, and it gives me something to do.”
He has recreated movie scenes like The Wizard of Oz, Karate Kid and Rocky Balboa, posed skeletons doing yoga, a St. Patrick’s Day scene, a cheerleading pyramid, a lawnmower running over a skeleton, getting out the vote with skeletons holding up a sign of every candidate running in Ogden, a skeleton crew fixing a truck, and many more.
Pippin also set up a selfie station one day, where people could sit with the skeletons to take a picture.
“I’ve had people tell me there was a line of people waiting to take a selfie, so that was kind of fun," he said.
He started this as a way to bring some smiles back during the pandemic.
“I thought it would be a one-year thing, and I got a lot of reaction from it," Pippin said. "I actually thought of not doing it again this year, and I had a lot of people just say, 'Please do it again!' So here I am, doing it again.”
And people love it — driving by to take pictures or making it a stop on their walks, just to see what their skeleton friends are up to each day.
“The whole idea is to get a smile. That’s the goal. Based on some of the letters and some of the things that I’ve seen, seems like I’ve accomplished that," Pippin said.
If you want to come hang out with the skeletons, see what they’re up to, or just walk around, you have a couple more days in October to see what the Ogden Skeleton Man is up to. The display is located at 26th and Fillmore in Ogden.
