The Star City Hearse Club is becoming a Halloween staple, but members want to do more

It’s a chilly fall night, the sun is setting, and the Star City Hearse Club is meeting in a parking lot at Lincoln’s Woods Park.

Mike Murray, one of the founders of the club, is greeting drivers as they arrive.

Mike and his wife, Heather Murray, started the club in 2023, about a year after they found and bought a hearse through Facebook marketplace.

Mike Murray said the hearse club was a logical next step.

“Once we got it, it was just pretty much building and looking for a community who had, you know, other similar interests,” he said.

He added he's always been interested in old cars. Combining that with his love of Halloween led to buying a hearse.

Heather, also an avid Halloween lover, said she had wanted to own a hearse since she was a teenager.

“I feel like you either love it, or you hate it,” Heather said while laughing. “When we're at car shows, people will either be really interested and want to come up and look inside, or they stay away. They kind of avoid coming near it.”

During its first year, the club created a hearse tour. People can go online and request a visit from club members and their decorated hearses. The tour is in its third year and includes visits to more than a dozen homes over two days.

Not all the drivers are from Lincoln. Lorena McArthur is a hearse enthusiast from Haigler, a town in southwest Nebraska, near the corner of Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska. She was in town visiting her daughter.

“We're both into hearses and stuff,” McArthur said. “I was actually going to school [to be] a mortician when I was younger. So yeah, we like this stuff.”

McArthur’s daughter showed her the event on Facebook, and McArthur immediately knew she wanted to come. She said her hearse is her daily driver.

“I'm actually the only hearse driver, as far as I know, around that area,” she said. “We get a lot of thumbs up and stuff. Some people kind of look at us kind of weird. But you get that everywhere.”

The plan for the night was to cover houses south of O Street in Lincoln. Once everyone arrived, and the schedule was communicated, the club rolled out.

Gary Little has been a part of the club since it started. He said Mike Murray tracked him down after finding out he owned a hearse.

“Mike found me,” Little said. “He drove by and saw the car sitting in back of the house. Went and talked to the wife, because I was at work, (and) left me his number. I gave him a call, we talked, and then it started.”

Little had a playlist he listened to called ‘Hearsen Around.’ As he left the parking lot and drove into the night, Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” echoed out of his car’s speakers. While he was cruising to the first house, a woman pulled up next to Little at a stoplight. She asked if he was Joe, another member of the club. Little answered no but told her where Joe was in the long line of hearses.

“We have fans,” said Little, chuckling to himself.

Most of the seven houses the club was visiting on this night were having a neighborhood party. As the hearses pulled up, you could hear the oohs and ahhs.

Nicole Nobbman was the owner of one of the houses. Mike Murray approached her, as he did at every house, and introduced himself. The kids ran to the hearses yelling, “can you take a picture of me with it?”

Nobbman said she loves Halloween, but had never seen the hearse club before.

“I saw that they go around, and I thought, as much as I love Halloween, it would be a great addition to a Halloween party,” she said.

Nobbman had prepared a full table of snacks and treats in her garage. Rice Krispie brains, s’mores bars with eyeballs, severed finger cookies and even cinnamon roll intestines. She said the cinnamon roll must have looked too real, because people were skipping it.

At another house, the homeowners transformed their entire garage into a haunted house. Each member of the Star City Hearse Club made sure to go through, especially Mike.

“Growing up in Kansas City, there's a lot of haunted houses,” said Mike. “I think from the time I was 14, we would literally save our money all year and go spend $100. My mom would drop us off, and we'd go to the big haunted houses down there, and it was just always a lot of fun evolved around the holiday of Halloween.”

At each house, Mike made sure to take a group photo of everyone who came to see the hearses, alongside the drivers.

The group ended the night at a house near to the capitol building. It was late, and only the homeowners were there, but the hearse club still made sure to greet the homeowners and admire their decorations.

Before everyone parted ways, they talked about what plans are coming up, and what they can do better for next year.

Mike suggested the members divvy up the responsibilities. He said he could navigate from house to house, but someone else should take on the picture-taking role. Little said he would happily accept that role.

Outside of the next meeting, and planning for 2026’s hearse tour, Mike said he wants to plan other future events.

“We're always trying to come up with new ideas,” he said. “I tell the group, if you have ideas, just let us know, and let's look into it.”

Heather said that along with the hearse tour, they have done a tour for Memorial Day and have helped out at food drives.

“You know how they have, like, the stuff the bus for different things, we've talked about doing that with a hearse,” said Heather.

Another idea is for the club to drive to the Denver area to be part of HearseCon, a large four-day event centered around hearses and their drivers.

No matter what they do, the club’s main goal will always be to create and strengthen community.