Haunted Halls Of Knowledge
by Ryan Terrell
Teachers and workers at an Illinios High School are fast becoming students of the paranormal.
Green orbs, cold spots, mysterious voices. There are dozens of stories citing paranormal activity at Lockport Township High School’s Central campus.
Built in 1909, the building resembles a haunted castle with its stone-like exterior and towering facades.
But it’s what is rumored to be inside the building that has sent chills up the spines of the surrounding Lockport community the school has been nestled in for almost 100 years.
Image: Dozens of stories of paranormal activity at Lockport Township High School’s Central building have surfaced in recent years
From custodians that died on the job to an award presenter that died on stage in the school’s auditorium, the source of the paranormal activity remains a mystery — a question that only adds to the fear felt by students, teachers and custodians for years.
Tom Shaw has been a custodian at Central since 1980. It was his first day of work that he had an encounter.
“There was a guy that told me a few custodians had died in the building here. Ten minutes later, before I was getting ready to leave on my first day, I sat down in the teacher’s lounge and started thinking about what he said — about the deaths. All of a sudden the light cover right above me came crashing down and hit me right in the head,” Shaw said, showing the goose bumps he still gets to this day when talking about the encounter.
“Right after that, I got up, left a pop on the table and took off.”
Kelly Pierce, also a custodian at Central, had her encounter more recently.
“A few months ago I walked into the gym, when it was all dark. I was looking towards the doorway and I saw this green light. Normally there aren’t any lights, but I thought maybe it was some sort of emergency light,” Pierce said. “Then all of a sudden the green light looked like it turned at me, spotted me and disappeared. Now, I thought someone walked in front of it, but I shined my flashlight towards the spot and no one was there.”
The custodians at Central, many of whom are inside the school after dark and sometimes alone, had other stories as well, such as unattended elevators going from floor to floor, spring-loaded seats in the auditorium that are inexplicably down and sudden cold spots on the stage of the auditorium.
Michelle Cannon, a freshman physical education teacher, detailed her spooky experience inside the school’s auditorium.
Image: Many who have worked in the building have had strange encounters
“There have been rumors that the auditorium is haunted by some kind of female presence. I used to work out in the morning down the hall from the auditorium, at 6 a.m. One day I heard a woman singing — she had a very high-pitched voice. So I got off my treadmill and went into the hallway, because normally I am the only woman around at that time. I asked maintenance if there were any other women around, and he said, ‘no, there’s no one here,’” she said. “I left right away.”
Cannon added that some people have reported feeling some sort of a presence sitting next to them during a performance, and that it would vanish when they looked over.
Although the identity of the female presence isn’t unanimous amongst Central’s staff, some say it could be that of a woman who died on the stage of the auditorium in the 1980s. She was preparing to present an award at a ceremony when she suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack.
Dave Warthen, a former technology teacher at LTHS for 35 years, said he would often be inside the school alone late at night.
“I never encountered any ghosts, but there were always all kinds of strange sounds, drinking fountains that would go on and metal flaps on the garbage cans that would swing,” he said. “There were a lot of strange things that went on.”
Products of the imagination or actual encounters with paranormal activity?
Whether or not ghosts reside behind the walls of Central, there are certainly enough stories to incite fear this Halloween.
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