Annual Ghost Walk explores spooky legends, myths around campus

Led by a peaceful procession of wicked witches in cloaks and gypsies with lanterns, campus community members convened Thursday evening for a treat of spooky scares, tall tales and gruesome ghost stories. \nAbout 200 tickets were sold for the fourth annual Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology ghost walk across the IU campus. For the first of two scheduled ghost walks, Bloomington residents, students, faculty and guests departed from the south side of the Main Library and finished at the Career Development Center. \nThe second ghost walk, already sold out, is scheduled to depart at 7 p.m. tonight from the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, 504 N. Fess St., and will weave through the Indiana Memorial Union, among other buildings and locations on campus. \nRuth Aten, administration service coordinator for the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology who established the first ghost walk on the campus community in 2001, said 24 talented students and faculty are involved in putting the ghost walk together. She said the ghost stories are collected from campus community members and department research.\n"Every year the ghost walk has ballooned; this year, we oversold," Aten said. "Someone said this campus is the most haunted around. We've got great storytellers."\nDepartment of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Chair Ruth Stone said the money will be used to buy a DVD player and viewing screen for the department seminar room and a folklore conference this spring.\n"Folklore is the study of stories and beliefs," Stone said. "We actually have over 100 graduate students and over 50 undergraduates getting degrees in our department. They study lots of dimensions of life, things people might not feel are important: the way people live, and the songs and music they make. A lot of important information is communicated in these stories, and that is what we are studying."\nThe ghost stories shared ranged from haunting voices near the Arboretum that heckle, "Get off of my home," to a posse of guys with a revolver hiding in the shadows chasing a blurred spirit; from the "Lady in Yellow" who was murdered by her boyfriend to the laughter of a little child in the basement of Teter; from the female student who had her neck slashed ear-to-ear in McNutt to students drowning in the former pool of the Student Building.\nFolklore and Ethnomusicology graduate student Terri Jordan, who was dressed as a gypsy, said folklorists concentrate on cultural tradition and creativity.\nSimilar to Greek and Roman mythology, many common threads, motifs and themes tie ghost stories together. Graduate student Mike Pierce said one ghost story or another floats around dorms because of the proliferation of students in these buildings.\n"Ghost stories are about intrusions into the past," Pierce said. "You start to see patterns in ghost stories; you notice people die in fires a lot. I think, this is just me conjecturing, being burned really hurts, and the deceased are mad about it."\nGraduate student Rhonda Dass said Ballantine Hall is known as the suicide tower, and for good reason. She said many janitors refuse to go to the top floor after midnight, at which time orbs of light flash down the hallway and jump out of the window.\n"The most important part of a ghost story is it could be true," Dass said. "It leaves a little bit of suspense. In other stories, like fairy tales, there is no way to prove that little pigs can talk. Ghost stories usually involve one person who experiences a supernatural encounter, a certain condition that must be met: it's dark, it's misty, solitary -- often lonely -- sound ,and it's always late at night."\nDass said all ghost stories shared during the ghost walk are collected from personal accounts and not made-up by the storytellers.\n"Folklorists don't invent stories, we record them," Dass said. "Take the introduction to folklore class, and buy your tickets early for next year."\nSighted periodically throughout the evening covered in blood, the "Lady in Yellow," costumed by graduate student Zsuzsanna Cselenyi, said she was murdered by her boyfriend because she was pregnant.\n"I roam around the campus," she said. "I was killed unjustly, and I haven't had my revenge yet. I want to scare him to death. Don't get pregnant if you don't want to get hurt."\nThe ghost walk eclipsed with a guided tour of the Career Development Center by Director Patrick Donahue, who played the character of and dressed as the "Good Doctor." Besides the back door, which doesn't open to the inside of the CDC building, and the front window, which can't be accessed from within, Donahue said the facility has a haunted past straight from newspaper headlines.\n"When the original owner was unable to sell the house, he shot and killed himself in the basement," Donahue said. "I was supposed to have taken care of female student sexual indiscretions on the third floor. I performed illegal abortions; I would take the fetuses and stick them in the coal shoot until they could be disposed of during the night. I hung myself above the stairs. (Career Development staff) have reported seeing the ghost of a 17-year-old girl who died in my hands."\nDuring the ghost walk tonight, campus community members can expect the same range of scary tales. \nGraduate student Chantal Clarke said her costumed role as ghost will be better utilized in the haunted IMU. \n"I'm just footsteps tonight," Clarke said. "I'll be part of the ghost story tomorrow, an ambiance in the shadows."\n-- Contact staff writer David A. Nosko at dnosko@indiana.edu.