A Friendly Phantom: Ghosts of Grant Hall
Title
A Friendly Phantom: Ghosts of Grant Hall
Subject
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Anecdotes
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville
Description
Matthew Hallock discusses Gus and other spirits that haunt Grant Hall on Centre College's campus.
Creator
Hallock, Matthew
Date
2021-01-19
Contributor
Ferrell, Naomi
Rights
All Rights Reserved
Format
MP4
Language
English
Type
Oral history (literary work)
Interviewer
Ferrell, Naomi
Interviewee
Hallock, Matthew
Location
Grant Hall, Centre College, Danville, KY
Transcription
Naomi Ferrell 0:00
All right. Okay. Hello, my name is Naomi Ferrell and today I'm interviewing Matthew Hallock, who is a current professor of theatre at Centre College.I am here with myself, Naomi Ferrell, and Matthew Hallock. We are on Zoom. Today is January 19, 2021. We will be discussing strange or abnormal experiences on Centre's campus. Hello. Um, I'm going to start with a question. Where do you work on Centre's campus? And can you describe the location, the space and that kind of thing?
Matthew Hallock 0:41
Can you hear me? [pause] Sure. I work in grant Hall, which is -- You're frozen for me though. Okay. I can hear you. So I work in Grant Hall, which is the academic portion of the building commonly known as the Norton Center for the Arts. My office on the third floor, but I work in almost every part of the building.
Naomi Ferrell 1:12
And what is your job like? What are typical responsibilities you might have during the day?
Matthew Hallock 1:19
I will teach classes I have administrative responsibilities, where... that will take me to different people's offices... I have production responsibilities will which will take me to the costume shop and the scene shop and the various lighting areas in all three theaters, Weisiger theater, Newlin Hall, and the black box. I'll teach classes which takes me to the fourth floor. And really the first floor is the floor I spend the least time on because that's where music is. But sometimes I have reason to be down there too.
Naomi Ferrell 1:59
Cool. And do you have any strange or unexplained experiences, abnormal experiences you've had on Centre's campus?
Matthew Hallock 2:09
Well, when I arrived here, in the fall of 1997, I learned about the resident theatre ghost, whose name is Gus. And most theaters claim to have a resident ghost. That's why you will often find on stage that is not currently in use a single light bulb on a stand. And it's called the ghost light. It's, it's for it's, it's the light for the ghost so that they don't trip and fall I don't understand, but that's why it's there. It's for the ghost. But Gus, the theatre ghost was most notorious for leaving presents. In the elevator of the building, there is a no longer used Fire Department telephone call box that has a little door on it. And then where there used to be the guts of a little telephone system, there's just an empty box. And from time to time, a student or somebody else will find a small piece of candy or a snack or a treat of some kind. And that would always be attributed to Gus the theater ghost. In addition to that, we have multiple storage facilities in the theater and Norton Center technical spaces that if you are working deep in the recesses of them lights will get turned off on you and you'll have to sort of make your way out in what is a very very dark space and this would happen before the people had cell phones with flashlights built into them. And so that can get a little bit treacherous. But yeah Gus is the theatre ghost here at Centre College.
Naomi Ferrell 4:15
Have you had any experiences with Gus? With lights or anything?
Matthew Hallock 4:23
Not directly. I mean we sometimes when you need to blame something on someone that might be your fault. You can blame Gus the theatre ghost. But I have not had any direct interactions. I have been told a lot of third-hand very self-assured accounts. But I have not myself had interaction with Gus.
Naomi Ferrell 4:47
I would love to hear any of these stories that you'd like to share.
Matthew Hallock 4:55
That I can remember... the ones I remember mainly to do turning off lights that sort of shouldn't have lights turned off or turning off a headset system that can't just turn itself off. It's sort of technical mischief. [pause] Yeah, it's things like that. There's... I again, I don't have a specific tale to tell, but it's just a, it's just a sense in the building that if something unexplained goes screwy, we know who to blame it on.
Naomi Ferrell 5:30
Are there certain areas in the building where these stories have taken place or is it really just anywhere in general within the building?
Matthew Hallock 5:39
Well, Weisiger theater, a room that no longer fully exists because of a renovation that was called the U shaped room. It's no longer U shaped because now it's sort of J shaped, [mimes with hands] but it used to be that you'd sort of come in one door, and go down a hallway, and then back down another, and lighting storage was on this side, and costume storage was on this side. And by the time you got into costume storage, because of all of the fabric, someone could call your name from the far end, and you wouldn't hear it. It would absorb all of the sounds. And so people would get sort of ... you someone would check and say, "Oh, the door to the U shaped room is open, let me open it up, call in see if there's anybody there. And if not, I'll turn off the lights and lock the door because that's the safe thing to do." Well, sure enough, lots of people got locked in the U shaped room. And some would sometimes Gus would get blamed.
Naomi Ferrell 6:50
Do you believe in Gus as a spirit?
Matthew Hallock 6:56
Not particularly. I'm not a skeptic about a lot of things, but this one doesn't do it for me.
Naomi Ferrell 7:09
Is it Gus as a spirit or spirits in general?
Matthew Hallock 7:15
Spirits in general. I mean, I believe - [pause] I'm gonna, I'm going to give a broad answer to your question. I believe that places can hang on to energy [pause] energy that belonged to events, or to the people involved with those events, long after those events have occurred. And by long I've could mean millennia. I don't have a particular belief in individuals and their spectral form hanging out in space. I mean, if you go to a place like the theater of Epidaurus, in Greece, and you stand on the altar stone in the middle of the orchestra, you get a kind of resonant frequency that hits you. And it did. I don't know from whence it comes. But it is absolutely palpable. And it is absolutely unreal. The same thing has happened to me when I went to the site of the Woodstock concert in Bethel, New York, Max Yasgur's farm. There's a stone that marks where the concert entrance was. And on a quiet summer day, there's some kind of residual energy in a space like that. And I believe that that kind of thing is true. But as far as individual ghosts, No, I don't.
Naomi Ferrell 9:00
So if you think about Centre's campus and how long it's existed and the history that Centre as a place has, and Danville. Do you think that Centre holds these types of energies?
Matthew Hallock 9:10
[deep breath] Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question, because I've spent the majority vast majority of my time in this building, which is 28, 30 years old, maybe 40 years old, which doesn't really kind of earn it ancient anything, right. So to my experience, no. [pause] If someone were to tell me that Breckinridge or Old Centre, or some of the really old buildings had pockets of I don't know what I felt, but there's something going on over there. I, I would not tell them they were nuts.
Naomi Ferrell 10:17
And I agree with that. With this idea of energies. And I don't know, that's personally how I think of it too. Instead of like a specific spirit, it's more of an energy that's kind of left behind. [pause] So in that regard, so what do you think of... Because I know that Centre does have a lot of ghost stories. So what do you think of like, like Gus? There's like Peter, who lives in Breck or apparently there's a ghost who hangs around Young. And there's apparently one in Yerkes as well. What do you think? Do you think that these are all just things that people have brought up? Or what do you think of these events? These spirits?
Matthew Hallock 10:57
There’s what I think and then there's what I want to think.
Naomi Ferrell 11:00
Well, you can tell me both?
Matthew Hallock 11:02
Sure. What I think is I don't know. [pause] Right? I mean, just the sort of the analytical responses, the critical analysis responses. I don't know, I don't have any information. I don't have anything to analyze. Therefore, I don't know. Right? That's my most generous, stoic answer. My, you know, what I want to think, is that it's possible. You know, I mean, I think that meaningful things happen in a place like a college [pause] things that can leave a resonance behind... [pause] happen at a college. You know, young people go through gigantic life transformations at a college. That's if this idea of events, leaving a resonance behind to be felt by people after they're gone, isn't completely crazy, then that could happen here. That's what I want to think. Right?
Naomi Ferrell 12:18
Right. I understand that.
Matthew Hallock 12:21
I'm also a tragic romantic. [laughter]
Naomi Ferrell 12:25
Do you think that being skeptical about events, or being not skeptical... I don't want to say not believing, I'll just continue to use the word skeptical. Do you think that creates some sort of block to these energies that they do exist?
Matthew Hallock 12:58
[long pause] I don't know. I mean, it seemed, you know ... Boy, we're way off into the hypothetical weeds here! So what the hell we'll play right? I'm gonna inversely answer your question. I think it is possible to be open and available to the perception of these things, even while keeping a careful, critical mind to them.
Naomi Ferrell 13:31
That makes sense.
Matthew Hallock 13:33
And I don't know that skepticism itself is... means that that's a frequency you can't tune to anymore. I think it is rather a buffer that might keep you from running headlong after something without a little bit more evidence. That's entirely made up and in this entirely made up scenario that we're playing around with. [laughter]
Naomi Ferrell 14:07
That's fair. That's fair. I understand that. Um, yeah. Now, now I'm really thinking about it. [laughter] Do you think that if, if you had an experience on Centre's campus or really anywhere, that could be something that others would describe as something supernatural? Do you think that it would cause you to believe and encourage your belief or would it be something that you could possibly justify something else?
Matthew Hallock 14:53
So would second-hand telling of an experience, be persuasive? [pause] Think it depends on the telling. And the teller. [long pause] Yeah, I mean, if this is a person who I think carries some ownership and authenticity about themselves and isn't carrying some kind of motive I'm not gonna dismiss them out of hand. Right? People's experiences are their variances.
Naomi Ferrell 15:39
Right. Okay, I have one more question. And that is, do you know if there is a backstory to Gus as the theater ghost. Do you know where he came from? Or is he something that just has appeared?
Matthew Hallock 15:57
I don't know the backstory, I can ask. And I'll let you know if I learn anything.
Naomi Ferrell 16:02
That'd be great!
Matthew Hallock 16:04
Yeah, I'll check with Patrick. And I'll check with Tony, who is Jen Goff's predecessor and, and maybe Mark Derujo. [interruption] Yeah, I'll ask around.
Naomi Ferrell 16:40
Thanks! I'm going to stop the recording now.
END OF INTERVIEW
All right. Okay. Hello, my name is Naomi Ferrell and today I'm interviewing Matthew Hallock, who is a current professor of theatre at Centre College.I am here with myself, Naomi Ferrell, and Matthew Hallock. We are on Zoom. Today is January 19, 2021. We will be discussing strange or abnormal experiences on Centre's campus. Hello. Um, I'm going to start with a question. Where do you work on Centre's campus? And can you describe the location, the space and that kind of thing?
Matthew Hallock 0:41
Can you hear me? [pause] Sure. I work in grant Hall, which is -- You're frozen for me though. Okay. I can hear you. So I work in Grant Hall, which is the academic portion of the building commonly known as the Norton Center for the Arts. My office on the third floor, but I work in almost every part of the building.
Naomi Ferrell 1:12
And what is your job like? What are typical responsibilities you might have during the day?
Matthew Hallock 1:19
I will teach classes I have administrative responsibilities, where... that will take me to different people's offices... I have production responsibilities will which will take me to the costume shop and the scene shop and the various lighting areas in all three theaters, Weisiger theater, Newlin Hall, and the black box. I'll teach classes which takes me to the fourth floor. And really the first floor is the floor I spend the least time on because that's where music is. But sometimes I have reason to be down there too.
Naomi Ferrell 1:59
Cool. And do you have any strange or unexplained experiences, abnormal experiences you've had on Centre's campus?
Matthew Hallock 2:09
Well, when I arrived here, in the fall of 1997, I learned about the resident theatre ghost, whose name is Gus. And most theaters claim to have a resident ghost. That's why you will often find on stage that is not currently in use a single light bulb on a stand. And it's called the ghost light. It's, it's for it's, it's the light for the ghost so that they don't trip and fall I don't understand, but that's why it's there. It's for the ghost. But Gus, the theatre ghost was most notorious for leaving presents. In the elevator of the building, there is a no longer used Fire Department telephone call box that has a little door on it. And then where there used to be the guts of a little telephone system, there's just an empty box. And from time to time, a student or somebody else will find a small piece of candy or a snack or a treat of some kind. And that would always be attributed to Gus the theater ghost. In addition to that, we have multiple storage facilities in the theater and Norton Center technical spaces that if you are working deep in the recesses of them lights will get turned off on you and you'll have to sort of make your way out in what is a very very dark space and this would happen before the people had cell phones with flashlights built into them. And so that can get a little bit treacherous. But yeah Gus is the theatre ghost here at Centre College.
Naomi Ferrell 4:15
Have you had any experiences with Gus? With lights or anything?
Matthew Hallock 4:23
Not directly. I mean we sometimes when you need to blame something on someone that might be your fault. You can blame Gus the theatre ghost. But I have not had any direct interactions. I have been told a lot of third-hand very self-assured accounts. But I have not myself had interaction with Gus.
Naomi Ferrell 4:47
I would love to hear any of these stories that you'd like to share.
Matthew Hallock 4:55
That I can remember... the ones I remember mainly to do turning off lights that sort of shouldn't have lights turned off or turning off a headset system that can't just turn itself off. It's sort of technical mischief. [pause] Yeah, it's things like that. There's... I again, I don't have a specific tale to tell, but it's just a, it's just a sense in the building that if something unexplained goes screwy, we know who to blame it on.
Naomi Ferrell 5:30
Are there certain areas in the building where these stories have taken place or is it really just anywhere in general within the building?
Matthew Hallock 5:39
Well, Weisiger theater, a room that no longer fully exists because of a renovation that was called the U shaped room. It's no longer U shaped because now it's sort of J shaped, [mimes with hands] but it used to be that you'd sort of come in one door, and go down a hallway, and then back down another, and lighting storage was on this side, and costume storage was on this side. And by the time you got into costume storage, because of all of the fabric, someone could call your name from the far end, and you wouldn't hear it. It would absorb all of the sounds. And so people would get sort of ... you someone would check and say, "Oh, the door to the U shaped room is open, let me open it up, call in see if there's anybody there. And if not, I'll turn off the lights and lock the door because that's the safe thing to do." Well, sure enough, lots of people got locked in the U shaped room. And some would sometimes Gus would get blamed.
Naomi Ferrell 6:50
Do you believe in Gus as a spirit?
Matthew Hallock 6:56
Not particularly. I'm not a skeptic about a lot of things, but this one doesn't do it for me.
Naomi Ferrell 7:09
Is it Gus as a spirit or spirits in general?
Matthew Hallock 7:15
Spirits in general. I mean, I believe - [pause] I'm gonna, I'm going to give a broad answer to your question. I believe that places can hang on to energy [pause] energy that belonged to events, or to the people involved with those events, long after those events have occurred. And by long I've could mean millennia. I don't have a particular belief in individuals and their spectral form hanging out in space. I mean, if you go to a place like the theater of Epidaurus, in Greece, and you stand on the altar stone in the middle of the orchestra, you get a kind of resonant frequency that hits you. And it did. I don't know from whence it comes. But it is absolutely palpable. And it is absolutely unreal. The same thing has happened to me when I went to the site of the Woodstock concert in Bethel, New York, Max Yasgur's farm. There's a stone that marks where the concert entrance was. And on a quiet summer day, there's some kind of residual energy in a space like that. And I believe that that kind of thing is true. But as far as individual ghosts, No, I don't.
Naomi Ferrell 9:00
So if you think about Centre's campus and how long it's existed and the history that Centre as a place has, and Danville. Do you think that Centre holds these types of energies?
Matthew Hallock 9:10
[deep breath] Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question, because I've spent the majority vast majority of my time in this building, which is 28, 30 years old, maybe 40 years old, which doesn't really kind of earn it ancient anything, right. So to my experience, no. [pause] If someone were to tell me that Breckinridge or Old Centre, or some of the really old buildings had pockets of I don't know what I felt, but there's something going on over there. I, I would not tell them they were nuts.
Naomi Ferrell 10:17
And I agree with that. With this idea of energies. And I don't know, that's personally how I think of it too. Instead of like a specific spirit, it's more of an energy that's kind of left behind. [pause] So in that regard, so what do you think of... Because I know that Centre does have a lot of ghost stories. So what do you think of like, like Gus? There's like Peter, who lives in Breck or apparently there's a ghost who hangs around Young. And there's apparently one in Yerkes as well. What do you think? Do you think that these are all just things that people have brought up? Or what do you think of these events? These spirits?
Matthew Hallock 10:57
There’s what I think and then there's what I want to think.
Naomi Ferrell 11:00
Well, you can tell me both?
Matthew Hallock 11:02
Sure. What I think is I don't know. [pause] Right? I mean, just the sort of the analytical responses, the critical analysis responses. I don't know, I don't have any information. I don't have anything to analyze. Therefore, I don't know. Right? That's my most generous, stoic answer. My, you know, what I want to think, is that it's possible. You know, I mean, I think that meaningful things happen in a place like a college [pause] things that can leave a resonance behind... [pause] happen at a college. You know, young people go through gigantic life transformations at a college. That's if this idea of events, leaving a resonance behind to be felt by people after they're gone, isn't completely crazy, then that could happen here. That's what I want to think. Right?
Naomi Ferrell 12:18
Right. I understand that.
Matthew Hallock 12:21
I'm also a tragic romantic. [laughter]
Naomi Ferrell 12:25
Do you think that being skeptical about events, or being not skeptical... I don't want to say not believing, I'll just continue to use the word skeptical. Do you think that creates some sort of block to these energies that they do exist?
Matthew Hallock 12:58
[long pause] I don't know. I mean, it seemed, you know ... Boy, we're way off into the hypothetical weeds here! So what the hell we'll play right? I'm gonna inversely answer your question. I think it is possible to be open and available to the perception of these things, even while keeping a careful, critical mind to them.
Naomi Ferrell 13:31
That makes sense.
Matthew Hallock 13:33
And I don't know that skepticism itself is... means that that's a frequency you can't tune to anymore. I think it is rather a buffer that might keep you from running headlong after something without a little bit more evidence. That's entirely made up and in this entirely made up scenario that we're playing around with. [laughter]
Naomi Ferrell 14:07
That's fair. That's fair. I understand that. Um, yeah. Now, now I'm really thinking about it. [laughter] Do you think that if, if you had an experience on Centre's campus or really anywhere, that could be something that others would describe as something supernatural? Do you think that it would cause you to believe and encourage your belief or would it be something that you could possibly justify something else?
Matthew Hallock 14:53
So would second-hand telling of an experience, be persuasive? [pause] Think it depends on the telling. And the teller. [long pause] Yeah, I mean, if this is a person who I think carries some ownership and authenticity about themselves and isn't carrying some kind of motive I'm not gonna dismiss them out of hand. Right? People's experiences are their variances.
Naomi Ferrell 15:39
Right. Okay, I have one more question. And that is, do you know if there is a backstory to Gus as the theater ghost. Do you know where he came from? Or is he something that just has appeared?
Matthew Hallock 15:57
I don't know the backstory, I can ask. And I'll let you know if I learn anything.
Naomi Ferrell 16:02
That'd be great!
Matthew Hallock 16:04
Yeah, I'll check with Patrick. And I'll check with Tony, who is Jen Goff's predecessor and, and maybe Mark Derujo. [interruption] Yeah, I'll ask around.
Naomi Ferrell 16:40
Thanks! I'm going to stop the recording now.
END OF INTERVIEW
Original Format
MP4
Duration
16:46
Citation
Hallock, Matthew, “A Friendly Phantom: Ghosts of Grant Hall,” Ghosts at Centre College, accessed May 16, 2024, https://centreghosts.omeka.net/items/show/24.