Missouri State University Folklore Students to give Campus "haunted" tours

Members of Missouri State University’s Folklore Club will give guided tours of campus tonight, sharing little known tales and spooky stories about the Springfield campus. KSMU’s Missy Shelton reports.

The Missouri State students who will serve as tour guides tonight will share legends and stories collected from students and alumni. Dr. Rachel Gholson is faculty advisor of the Folklore Club, which is presenting tonight’s Haunted Tours.

Gholson says, “Students will be sharing narratives that have been collected from other students across campus for the last eight years that are all about various mysterious events, strange bits of information you may not know about campus, such as underground basketball courts that you can reach through tunnels that exist in specific places or ghosts that are in various buildings. There will be all kinds of haunting narratives and then little bits of interesting information they’ll share.”

Tours begin at 7 tonight and groups will leave every 20 minutes from Plaster Student Union. Tickets are required but can be purchased on site this evening. Just to get you “in the spirit,” Dr. Gholson shares a story that will not only be told this evening but will be reenacted by students from the Missouri State Theatre and Dance Department.

Gholson says, “There is the young woman who is purported to have been studying in the library one evening. She had a bit of a scary experience where a young man was walking around and she felt uncomfortable. She picked up her books and she disappeared into the restroom and hung out for a while. She came back out and saw that he was gone. Everything was fine and she continued her studying. But when the library closed just before midnight when she was leaving, she happened to run into him again. I wont’ give away the narrative but I will tell you that the fountain out front has not always been the best place to get your feet wet.”

You can hear the conclusion of this story tonight during the Haunted Tours that the Missouri State University Folklore Club will be hosting beginning at 7 outside the Plaster Student Union.