Hauntings at Fresno State

Fresno State, located near the center of California in the large agricultural area known as the San Joaquin Valley, is, of course, said to be haunted.

Let's start with the music building....

Music students report hearing strange, unexplained noises at night in the music building's practice rooms. Some reports are more specific and describe voices and whistling when the building is empty save for the person hearing the noises.

A plaque dedicated to the memory of journalism professor Roger Tatarian sits right outside of McKee Fisk Hall.  At least one person reports that automated doors to the building opening and closing when he greeted the plaque by saying "hello Roger."

Anatomy classes held in McLane Hall involve cadavers*.  Although no ghost stories are associated with the room in which they are kept, the cold, morgue-like feeling is commented on in the stories that I found.

Commentary:  As I have noted on other entries, the folks from Hometown Tales used to like to point out that every college is said to be haunted, because it's a way for the boys and the girls to interact.  California State University Fresno (AKA Fresno State) is no different.

I am just disappointed that the ghost stories at Fresno State are so lame.

A few thoughts:

An ex-girlfriend of mine was a student at Oberlin College's conservatory of music, and she told me that stories much like the music building stories at Fresno State were also common at Oberlin.  Similarly, when I was a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, I heard a few of the undergrad music majors telling similar stories there.  I wonder if, rather like theaters, music practice rooms have a reputation for hauntings, or if it is just that people are isolated in these rooms listening intently and hearing normal sounds that they wouldn't normally notice.

The story linked to in the Sources section has a sentence which paraphrases as "some of the rooms have tools not normal for an educational facility: cadavers!" which, really, leads me wonder whether this person has ever considered how anatomy is taught.  Cadavers are fairly common on university campuses.  Also, are people genuinely surprised to discover that a room that houses cadavers would have a "cold, morgue-like" feeling?  What else would it be like?

The sources to which I link bring up the murder of Tracy Leroy Nute by former professor Maz Bernard Franc...even though the murder happened off-campus and no ghost stories are associated with it. I don't get why the murder is brought up.  I mean, it was a disturbing, grisly event that occurred and which had a loose connection to the campus...but there is nothing allegedly supernatural about it, it's just disturbing.  And given that the victim's family still lives in the area, it seems callous to use it for cheap Halloween thrills in the student newspaper when it's not even really connected to the alleged point of the article.

Sources:  College Newspaper, Weird Fresno (mostly a re-print of the newspaper article), Los Angeles Times