VICTOR SCHMITT-BUSH
Assistant News Editor
If you were to ask students and staff about paranormal activity on campus, they would point you in the direction of Igoe Hall, but some say that Thompson Hall is haunted, too.
Students and staff go about their daily activities during the day, but as the clock strikes midnight, janitors and technicians have reported seeing strange things. They are whispering throughout those halls that something is going bump in the night.
“I saw shadows and stuff when I used to work there,” said Park and Ride bus driver Tim McGraw. “But there was an experience I had one night in that building that I don’t think I’ll forget.”
McGraw recalled that one evening in the early ‘90s, when he was closing down the ITS Service Center, which was called the Media Center at the time, something strange happened.
“I’d go into work cleaning it up and make sure all the computers were shut off,” he said.
“One night I shut the computer off and when I was walking out the door, the computer went back on. I was like, ‘OK. I swear I shut it off.’”
This confused McGraw. He brushed it off at first, but strange things continued to happen.
“I walked back in, turned it off, watched it turn off, started out the door, then it came back on,” he said.
According to McGraw, this activity could be connected to the passing of the late SUNY Fredonia staffer, Ron Warren, who died in November 1991. Warren used to work at the Media Center, and he spent a lot of time assisting students and getting to know them there. McGraw said that the media center was a place of comfort for Warren, and perhaps it still is.
“That’s what spirits do I think,” he said. “They return to where they were the most comfortable in life.”
To prevent the computer from turning on a third time, McGraw mentioned Warren’s name.
“I said, ‘Ron, stop it. I don’t have time to play games,’ and then he stopped.”
He shut off the lights in that room and left the building. McGraw never witnessed anything like that in Thompson Hall again, but he knows someone who continues to witness strange activity in Thompson Hall even to this day.
“His name is Doug Johnson. He’s the I.T. guy,” said McGraw. “He knew Warren better than I ever did. He has better stories to tell than I do.”
Johnson was in no way eager to tell his stories. He declined to say a single word.
Maybe it wasn’t Warren.
Whether the truth is known about the haunting of Thompson or not, there are other instances of ghostly activity on campus. One only has to look.