Haunted Halls

Haunted halls?
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 31, 2006 by Jennifer Toomer-Cook Deseret Morning News

Apparitions lurking through your school's backstage door?
Ghosts making mischief in the underground tunnels?
Music mysteriously swelling from an old building in the night?
People at several Utah schools and universities say yes.
About two dozen of Utah's educational institutions are listed as haunted on the Utah Ghost Organization's Web site.
Those, plus dozens of other spirited destinations, from the Spanish Fork Cemetery to the Great Salt Lake, are among "some of the most talked about" haunted places, at least according to "folklore, rumors, even scientific methods," the Web site says. The reports often are e-mailed, and the Web site assures "we don't claim that they are accurate or true. These are posted for your entertainment."

Some ghost stories rattle chains for generations, perhaps assisted by the school itself.
Pleasant Grove and West high schools, as well as Kearns Junior High, sit atop underground tunnels. They're a curiosity to students, and generally off limits to them.
West's Brent Taylor, a social studies teacher of more than 40 years and former student, says the tunnels once were giant vents coming from a detached boiler building -- a common way to warm buildings back when. Kearns Junior High drama teacher Scott Henrie says that school was created from an old Army-owned building, and its tunnels have contained old World War II-era ammunition and rations -- plus cats, rats the size of cats, bats, brown recluse spiders and Such pests occasionally make a more public appearance, perhaps adding to ghostly fodder.
Bats once swooped down on spectators at Cyprus High's choir concert, forcing the performance outside. And at West recently, one cruised over the heads of screeching students in a crowded hall, vice principal Rick Jaramillo said, adding the school is taking action to get rid of the furry fliers.
West also has been a site for horror movie filmmakers, Jaramillo said, and in some areas it does have dark stairways, which he wants to light better.
Such facts often give rise to folklore, said Randy Williams, curator of folklore at Utah State University's special collections and archives. Indeed, some schools' alleged hauntings are linked to actual deaths or crimes that have taken place on or near campus and involved former students or workers.
Henrie uses the school's history to weave ghost stories. He tells them to his drama classes in the school's "dungeon," under the stage area where old props and costumes are stored. His storytelling sessions have attracted parents and grandparents, too, in evening sessions Henrie hosted last week.
Sometimes, Henrie embellishes on the ghost story listed on the Web: You can see a family, if you gaze long enough, within the bricks at the end of the 200 hall -- part of the original building, Henrie says. But as you approach, the image disappears.
"I tell my students my stories are all true -- and they are, to a fashion," Henrie said. "They all know what's exaggerated, but they buy into it anyway."
Cyprus High associate custodian Robert Goble has the same experience.
Students often ask him to tell what he calls "the old stories" of the basketball bouncing in the gym, the dark figure at the top of the stairwell, of the mysterious crying many teachers have heard, supposedly, when no one is around. He even reveals the lore of the auditorium's ghost, Edgar, who was packed up from the school's old building some 20 years ago so the students could release him in their new digs.
"The first thing I tell them is, there is no ghost ... I walk these halls at night, I'm the last person to walk out of this building, and there's nothing more spooky than myself, I guess," Goble said. "Yet they'll walk away believers. Some of them take it real seriously."
Henrie has a way of turning even skeptics into believers.
Once, when things went missing from the auditorium, Henrie says his stage crew students set up an infrared camera to catch the thief overnight. The tape was quiet until about 2 a.m. when a floating light appeared. Then another and another. Soon, the lights, or orbs, began to interact. The camera made a sound as if it had a technical glitch, and the orbs stopped. The camera made another sound, and they all disappeared.
"We all saw," Henrie said, "and it really was kind of spooky."
Utah colleges and universities also are part of Haunted Utah. Southern Utah University's Old Administration Building, as the story goes, is haunted by the spirit of a popular young pianist, known for her rendition of "Deep Purple" in the 1930s, according to a student newspaper article penned in the 1980s. Her music supposedly can be heard from the building's top floor in the night, and lights often flash on and off in the night without reason.
Former President Gerald Sherratt, now mayor of Cedar City, said the story has been retold for ages, but he never did have a ghostly encounter. "You'd have to stay out until midnight," he chuckled. "I could never last."

Brigham Young University officials had never heard of that school's ghost story, which claims its new music library reading room is home to odd noises resembling voices or is always too cold or too hot. And in the harp room, a mysterious chair appeared out of nowhere, and no one has accounted for its origin.

University librarian Randy Olsen, who's been at BYU 33 years, said the sounds come from the heating system, that there are ventilation problems, and that a chair did show up in the harp room one day -- probably from a student or other library patron who wanted a seat.
Still, according to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins, Olsen's day was brightened by the "fun excursion into the not-so-supernatural."
So will BYU's newfound ghost live on, like the Deep Purple pianist or Edgar the auditorium ghost?
"The reality is, the ones that resonate and stay 30 or 40 years is because they do touch something for that group," Williams said. "They resonate with the people telling them."
And the bottom line, most say, is entertainment.
"I think it's just ... all in the spirit of fun," Goble said. "They know there's no real ghost, but you've got to have fun."