Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

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ghosts and murder. Some comes from the classroom. One old story deals with the final exam given by a philosophy professor. The only question was “Why?” Two students got A’s: one who answered, “Why not?” and one who said, “Because.” The other stu- dents wrote long treatises. Students have long maintained that they are obligated to wait only 10 minutes for an instructor, 15 minutes for an assistant or associate professor and 20 minutes for a full professor before leaving class. “It’s become part of the unofficial belief code,’” Montell said. “A lot of students believe it, and so do teachers, frankly.” hl: all campus folklore deals with around the Hill prompted the notion that a biology professor had per- formed genetic experiments with squirrels and then released them, thoroughly upset- ting the local squirrel gene pool. Two biology professors said they never heard the story and doubted it was true. “They've been around as long as I have,” said Dr. H.L. Stephens, a former depart- ment head who came to Western in 1927. Dr. Herbert Shadowen, a mammalogist here since 1961, agreed with Stephens that the squirrels “have experienced a genetic change and survived in a protected envi- ronment.” White squirrels in the wild would not survive, they said. O°: abundance of white squirrels headed for Western listened eagerly with a beer in his hand as a friend told him: “T heard Western is a real party school. Playboy did an article about party schools and one year they rated Western second. The next year, Playboy wouldn’t rank it: They said Western was in a party class of its own!” It was big news, and the student believed it for months and told it as a fact. But Jane Cowen Schoen, manager of Playboy’s reader service, denies all. “It’s a legend,” she said in a telephone interview. “We never did anything like that. Every school in the nation seems to think their school was rated either at the very top or the very bottom.” She said the magazine “started getting questions about it in the late 50s or early 60s,” and eventually prepared a form letter denying the claim. [ orertosk over which of two bluffs Or graduating high school student overlooking Barren River is “the real Sally’s Rock” overshadows the legend of the girl whose name the rock bears. “Early in the century,” the old legend goes, “a beautiful girl named Sally Beck lived by the river. Well known among riverboat captains, she was called the ‘Bride of the Barren.’ “But late one rainy night, she went to the sandstone column that stood near the river, looked into the black waters below, spoke a man’s name and jumped into the darkness. She was found the next day on the river bank — dead.” According to a 1976 College Heights Herald article, however, Miss Beck lived to a ripe age and married a Canadian farmer who had advertised in a newspaper for a wife. The rock column slid into the river in 1910. edar Hill, upon which the campus C sprawls, is near collapse if all the sto- ries about caves under it are true. Some claim a hermit lives in a cave under Van Meter Hall (also suggesting that this is the source of mysterious happenings). Hundreds of truckloads of concrete were poured into a cavern before Pearce-Ford Tower could be built over it, others say. And Smith Stadium has only one grand- stand because the other side of the field is over a cave. Owen Lawson, physical plant adminis- trator, said a cave system could exist under the Hill, but years of core-drilling before construction produced only crevices and small voids. Lawson said that before Pearce-Ford was built a drilling of 100 feet was made, “but we didn’t find anything but solid rock.” Smith Stadium has only one side, he said, because the university wanted a 20,000-seat stadium, which wouldn’t fit on the other side, which is narrower because of the convergence of Russellville Road and University Boulevard. Besides, when construction began, Western hadn't yet bought that side of the field. Roger Stinnett @ 25 Folklore on the Hill

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24 mors are alive and well on the Hill. Ranging from traditional boasts to ter- rifying ghosts, the stories make up part of Western's folklore. Some are “migratory legends” or “mi- gratory rumors,” according to Dr. Lyn- wood Montell, director of intercultural and folk studies. Common throughout the na- tion, these are localized for Western. Oth- ers contain familiar motifs, he said. Bors « folk beliefs and migratory ru- dorms have brought to Western the migratory legend that Montell called “the most popular of all horror stories or superstitions told on college campuses.” ‘Many years ago,” the legend goes, “two girls, Sarah and Jane, stayed in this dorm during spring break, when everyone else was gone. They were uneasy about staying alone, so Jane stayed in Sarah’s room. “One night Jane was walking down the dark upstairs hall to get something from her room. She turned a corner and gasped when she saw the dim outline of an escapee from an asylum. “Jane turned and ran, but the lunatic grabbed a fire ax and chased her. Just as she neared the stairs, he lunged, hitting her in the back with the ax. She dropped and he disappeared into darkness again. “Sarah began worrying but was too scared to look for Jane. Suddenly, she heard scratching at the door, like an anima clawing to get in. Sarah was terrified and hid. “When she opened the door the next morning, she looked down and screamed. There was Jane’s bloody corpse with a hand raised as it had been when she scratched on the door, hoping for help. “Girls who lived in the room later said they heard scratching in the night. They finally turned it into a storage room. No one’s lived there since.” E ate-night ghost story sessions in girls’ ago in telling the story of the Van Meter Ghost. Fonzole Childress, who worked in the department in the 1960s, recalled that some of Western’s “most fan- tastic acting went into telling it,” especially to freshman girls. It went like this: “Back at the beginning of the century when Van Meter Hall was being built, a man was working on the roof. An airplane flew by and the man, who had never seen a plane, stood and stared at the sight. Sud- denly, he lost his balance and fell through the skylight over the stage. He landed on the stage and died, but his body lay there for a weekend before it was found. It left a bloodstain that was scrubbed and washed, but wouldn't come off. It’s been there ever since. Though the telling of the legend slacked off after Russell Miller Theater was built, former actors’ tales linger. One actor said that once, when he was in the dressing room alone after a rehearsal, he happened to look up and see the reflec- tion of a man in the mirror. He turned, but ro heatre students delighted a few years. Folklore on the Hill w a } 4 j j no one was there. Other theatre people spoke of strange blue lights, mysterious occurrences with spotlights and supernatural feats during the years Van Meter Auditorium was the principal theater on campus. Central Hall when word was passed that famed psychic Jeanne Dixon had predicted the murder of a coed in a West- ern high-rise dormitory. Fortunately, it did not occur. Most of the fear came in the spring of 1976. “It was stupid,” said one resident. But she added, “If there had been a killer it would have been worse with a lot of girls in one room.” 5: slept six and seven to a room in Hl house on Chestnut Street claim they share living quarters with a female ghost, the spirit of a woman murdered in the house. Lambda Chis say one fraternity brother woke up in the night when he heard a noise in the next room. The door was pad- locked from the outside, but he claimed he heard typing and saw a light. Residents said that one night the lights in the house went out, but the stereo re- mained on. In a room they call the nursery, the alarm clock goes off at midnight when a person sleeps there for the first time, they claim. But, they said, “It’s a friendly ghost. It never hurt anyone.” Breese of the Lambda Chi Alpha

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nga was enjoying a hot show- n., last Oct. 24, when sudden- kered out in a West Hall jomeone say, ‘Where were you n the lights went out?’ so I thought it was a joke,” the Country Club Hills, IIl., said. “But when I got out I burned out, leaving 894 women in Bates- unner, North, South, East and West halls ut hot water and electricity for more cable was delivered from », Tenn., the next afternoon. In d and darkness, a crew installed it. the power returned to the and then failed again while adjust- vere made. Minutes later residents yed luxuries they had taken for cubes, lights, stereos and hey had coped. Some had adventure. nd games at first,” East Hall Johnson said. “But the stayed off the more the hassle.” Patty Ferguson said creamed when the hey wanted to know as and how long it hey just wandered ing to decide what is were given flashlights L the exit doors more fre- ‘n assistant director from a men’s d in the lobby during the peak til midnight).” Il night clerk Roger Hinderliter eee Sandy Plantinga said most West Hall residents shuffled through the dimly-lit halls and stairways to the lobby when the power vanished. Industrious residents stuffed napkins into a chicken wire-covered wagon frame by candlelight, she said. “It was an outside decoration for Homecoming and we paint- 26 Power outage 20-year-old underground cable had . ed it red.” South Hall resident Mila Sledge buried her goldfish (Rudolph and Oreo) which died during the power outage. “They were in a bowl with an electric pump when it went off,” the Smiths Grove sophomore said. “They died a few hours before the lights came back on. It could have been the water or something else, but it was the most upsetting part of the ordeal. “We had emergency lights in the hall, but after a while their batteries ran down,” Miss Sledge said. “I used a flashlight and a battery-operated lamp until it ran down, too.” Bates-Runner resident Marla Kingrey said some girls went to other dorms or to hotels to study and take showers. “I went to Central Hall to take a shower and there were girls from everywhere taking show- CKOUT ers there.” The Glasgow junior said she missed cooking meals and warm water the most, but she did have some fun. “We took candles in one room and told ghost stories for an hour,” she said. “It was so much fun.” Food was spoiled, eyes were strained by studying by dim lights and showers were taken in foreign dorms, but the women managed to survive the ordeal. “It was sort of neat,” Miss Kingrey add- ed. “It was really different and gave us something to talk about for a long time.” Connie Holman @ A BATTERY-OPERATED emergency light illumi- nates a Bates-Runner Hall corridor as residents study. Other residents spent the night in other dorms or at local hotels. West, East, North and South halls were also struck by the blackout. Mark Lyons