Ruby Cheek Doesn't Like Busch Light
Ruby Cheek Hall is a dorm building that many Centre students and faculty believe is haunted. Nate Bentley, a current Junior, lives on the second floor and has witnessed a couple paranormal experiences. Nate describes it as “a homey building and a good building to live in” but also as “pretty unsettling.”[i] Random noises occur all over and creep the students out. In late September or early October, Nate was in the process of falling asleep when his roommate’s computer monitor turned on. No one was around the computer to turn it on. The screen was completely white. “Instead of being on, like the home screen where you log in, it was just completely white,” said Nate[ii]. The computer stayed on for about five minutes before it turned off on its own. A few weeks later, Nate and his roommate had extra beer cases lying around their room and decided to use them to decorate the wall. About two or three days in, the cases started to fall down. They used duct tape and taped each case well. When the cases fell off, the tape was still completely sticky and had no real reason to be falling off the wall.
Nate and his roommate had heard some other paranormal stories about Ruby Cheek, so they decided to try to communicate with her. They pointed to a specific case on the wall and said, “If you don’t like this beer wall, knock down this case of Busch Light.”[iii] Nothing happened right away, so they left and came back in an hour to find a Busch Light case on the floor. It was the only case that had fallen down. Another time, Nate was listening to rap music and the speaker kept falling off the table. Nate thought “that’s kind of strange, like why did my speaker randomly fall off my desk? It wasn’t even on the edge either. It was like, probably six inches back.”[iv] The music was on high volume, but the bass was not shaking it to the point where it should fall off the table. Nate could not understand why it was happening, so he turned the music off.
Ruby Cheek was a lifelong resident of Danville, Kentucky, born on May 13, 1905. She graduated from the Women’s Department of Centre College in 1929. Her senior class remembered her as “a distinct asset to the college; not only because of her high academic standing, but because of the enviable place she has won for herself in the Music Department. She has delighted audiences repeatedly with her beautiful songs and has always been found most generous with her talent.”[v] She met her husband while attending the college and the couple married in Danville, in July of 1933, the year after Ruby started her position as the organ instructor at the college. She taught at the school for nearly forty years. A colleague said she was “extraordinary in so many ways” and referred to her as an “iron butterfly.”[vi] Ruby died on August 1, 1994 and is laid to rest in Danville. She loved Centre so much that she left her home for the college. The Ruby Cheek House was built in 1860 and renovated in 1936. It is rumored that her Will specifies students who are kind and love Centre should live in the house. It continues to operate as a dormitory for Centre students.
Ruby’s life was heavily influenced by Centre College and students/faculty believe her ghost still haunts the Ruby Cheek House. Mona Wyatt, the director of special events in 1994 and a close friend of Ruby, said, “I’ve never met anyone as devoted to Centre as she was. Mrs. Cheek always stayed involved with Centre.”[vii] Her dedication makes it no surprise that Ruby’s ghost haunts Centre.
I believe Ruby haunts Centre because she wants to guide students during a liminal chapter in their lives. Lily Roark, an alumna, lived in Ruby Cheek and had a paranormal experience during the Fall of 2018. Lily felt a compression at the end of her bed one night and instead of feeling frightened, Lily felt “comfort, safety, and love.”[viii] She believed this compression was Ruby sitting on her bed. This was during a time in Lily’s life when she was struggling with anxiety and depression. Ruby was a mentor when she was a professor at Centre College and even in the afterlife she acts as a mentor. Lily said, “these aren’t spirits that want to scare me. They are spirits that just want to reassure me. Like, they just want me to know I’m safe and protected.”[ix] Ghosts do not interact with people randomly, they are intentional. Jacky Seaver, the director of donor relations, believes ghosts are on Centre’s campus because of their “goodness” and “they show up when people need them to show up.”[x]
Ruby was also described as an “iron butterfly,” kind but also stern. John Phillips, class of ‘69, said “with her, you couldn’t overlook anything. She was meticulous in detail and very stubborn.”[xi] She wants students to be respectful to Centre and her home. She was “meticulous in detail” so she probably preferred her home to look a certain way and she expected students to behave a certain way. Nate believes “she wants everyone to respect her building and not mess with it. That’s probably why she ripped down the beer wall because it was just, I guess, disrespectful to her building.”[xii]
Nate and Lily’s experiences are just two out of the many stories that occur on campus. We have ghosts to guide, protect, and comfort us. Ruby is a great example of the stern but loving professor that wants to continue to be in Centre College students’ lives.
-Katie Jenkins
ENDNOTES
[i] Nate Bentley, interview by Katie Jenkins, Ruby Cheek Doesn't Like Busch Light, January 18, 2021.
[v] “Old Centre 1929 Women's Department,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed January 25, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/1235.
[vi] “RUBY MOSS CHEEK '29.” Centre Alumni. Accessed January 24, 2021. http://alumni.centre.edu/s/285/bp20/interior.aspx?sid=285&gid=1&pgid=2247.
[vii] Roberts, Amy. “The ‘Iron Butterfly’ Passes as an Era Fades Away: A Centre Legend Remembered.” The Centre College Cento. September 22, 1994, LXXI volume, no. 2.
[viii] Lily Roark, interview by Abi Bosworth, The Iron Butterfly: Ghost Stories of Ruby Moss Cheek, January 14, 2021.
[x] Jacky Seaver, interview by Savanna Roper, The Chenault Alumni House: Working beyond the Grave, January 19, 2021.
[xi] Roberts, Amy. “The ‘Iron Butterfly’ Passes as an Era Fades Away: A Centre Legend Remembered.” The Centre College Cento. September 22, 1994, LXXI volume, no. 2.
[xii] Nate Bentley, interview by Katie Jenkins, Ruby Cheek Doesn't Like Busch Light, January 18, 2021.