The Norman community can meet OU’s ghosts and ghouls just in time for Halloween as OU Ghost Tours makes its in-person return after being virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
OU Ghost Tours is a free, approximately 75-minute tour that takes participants out after dark to discover the historical backgrounds behind the supernatural happenings on campus.
Chad Kuwitzky, the student lead of Ghost Tours, said he’s excited to helm the tours this year and have others in the community learn about the spirits haunting campus. He said he hopes to get people as excited as he was when he first learned about the hauntings on campus.
“It was around Halloween and I was kind of in the spooky mindset,” Kuwitzky said. “I decided to meet Jeff Provine, and he walked us through a bunch of history I had never heard before about OU, and it hooked me. It’s stuff you don’t hear typically, and I wanted to learn more.”
Provine, author of “Campus Ghosts of Norman, Oklahoma” and founder of the OU Ghost Tours, used to run the program but has taken a step back to focus on operating other ghost tours in downtown Norman and Oklahoma City.
Although Provine said he’s disappointed to be less involved this year, he’s excited to see where the students take it, especially with Kuwitzky’s leadership.
“Chad has been an excellent leader, from organizing everything to getting stuff together,” Provine said. “I’m super proud (because) I put the script together, (but) they’re carrying it on for the next generation.”
OU Ghost Tours came about after Provine studied abroad in Great Britain in 2009 and went on a ghost tour on the Isle of Wight with his English friend, Tess.
He said he only knew of one ghost at OU — a young boy named Bobby who roller skates on the top floor of Ellison Hall and plays with wooden blocks left in the conference rooms — but was encouraged by Tess to keep digging.
Provine said he remembers thinking he wouldn’t find enough stories from OU’s 100 years of history to warrant a tour compared to places like England, which has stories going back at least 300 years, or other haunted campuses like Gettysburg College, which sits adjacent to the Gettysburg battlefield. However, he said he was pleasantly surprised at what he found.
“During office hours and after class, I started interviewing secretaries and custodians and other people who were in the building for a long time, digging around on the internet, seeing what leads are out there and found tons of ghost stories,” Provine said. “So, I started up this little walk in 2009, and … it’s been growing ever since.”
Kuwitzky said Ellison Hall is by far his favorite landmark on the tour because he believes Bobby has the most plausibility. According to him, Bobby allegedly either had an asthma attack or was hit by a car on Elm Avenue and was taken to what was then Hygeia Hall, OU’s infirmary, for treatment but didn’t survive.
Despite Ellison being his favorite stop on the tour, Kuwitzky said he loves to tell the story of the exorcism in the old Jim Thorpe Multicultural Center building, formerly the old Delta Delta Delta sorority house, later a boarding house and now known as Anne and Henry Zarrow Hall.
In 1973, a student referred to as Jack slept in his room on the second floor of the boarding house before he felt a pressure on his throat choking him and heard loud footsteps near his bed, according to The Oklahoman.
Jack met with Charles Rhoades, the director of the New Age Center in Oklahoma City, who willingly went into a trance and allegedly spoke with Nadine B., a young Tri-Delta member who was killed in a 1930s auto accident, and Fred, who helped her kick people out of her old room by any means necessary.
Rhoades threatened to remove Nadine and Fred forcefully if they didn’t leave on their own, which agitated them. He decided not to wait and performed the exorcism. The evening ended with Rhoades telling Jack “not to dwell” on it.
Another story told on the tour is about OU’s first mascot, Mex the Dog. When Mex passed away in 1928, the university canceled classes and had a 4,000-person funeral procession down Lindsey Street, with his final resting place being somewhere underneath the stadium, allegedly at the 50-yard line.
Mex the Dog was OU's first mascot.
Now, Provine said Mex continues to support every Sooner home game.
“This idea of a little Boston terrier out there barking and howling, licking football players and leaning up against photographers and doing all this stuff, like, that’s a pretty cute thought,” Provine said.
Despite his enthusiasm for the ghost tours and telling stories, Provine said he doesn't necessarily believe in ghosts. Rather, he’s more fascinated by the idea of what happens after death as he finds the scientific answer of your brain shutting off “boring.”
Kuwitzky, on the other hand, said he absolutely believes in ghosts and sees them more as friendly rather than there to ruin someone’s day.
“I don’t think they’re things that haunt us,” Kuwitzky said. “They’re part of history, and they stick around because they love this place. It’s a matter of remembering who they are and why they were here, and they want to maintain the great things they thought about this place.”
Hudson Haskins, a tour guide, said, like Provine, he doesn’t believe in ghosts but loves the supernatural, which is what got him motivated to be involved with the ghost tours in the first place.
“I’ve got some spooky ghost stories from when I was a kid, (but) that was a long time ago,” Haskins said. “I’m in between, but that doesn’t mean ghost stories don’t scare the hell out of me, and who knows? If anything happens on the tours, maybe I will believe by the end.”
Despite skepticism, he said ghosts are inherently exciting because there’s a natural fear of something being there that isn’t supposed to be. He said the natural thrill entices others to go on the ghost tours regardless of whether or not they believe ghosts are real.
“Look at me. I don’t believe in that stuff, but damn sure I walked out of my car when the lights turned off, and I got spooked from telling stories (during this interview),” Haskins said. “For something inherently spooky to come to what is essentially home — whether that’s for students, alumni or just people in the Norman area — that’s personal, and getting to take ghost tours and be spooked at home is awesome.”
Haskins said what really got him excited was the legend of former music professor and famed pipe organist Mildred Andrews Boggess, who died in 1987, and whose music can still be heard in Holmberg Hall, even though the pipe organ was moved to the Catlett Music Center.
She also likes to sit and listen in on performances, and if she disapproves, she will make her displeasure known by slamming doors.
Haskins explained a story of how once, when Provine was leading a tour, a student who had just finished her capstone performance joined the tour. Her entire family had shown up for the performance, but there was someone else in the audience.
“There was this old woman with white hair, all pinned up, nice and prim, that the student did not recognize and, when (Provine) described the woman (during the tour), that student broke down in tears because that’s who she saw,” Haskins said. “It gave me chills as a start to everything I was in for.”
Kuwitzky said the tour guides can determine the level of “scary” needed for each group, so those who seem squeamish don’t have to learn about the more macabre stories OU has to offer, like 13-year-old Jonathon Yost who was beheaded by a dumbwaiter and now allegedly haunts Cate Center Four.
As the tour’s lead, Kuwitzky said he wants to try to push marketing this year with OU Mass Mail and Instagram but wants to emphasize to community members that he and the other tour guides aren’t seeking to make a profit.
He said any proceeds given by visitors will be donated to the Boys & Girls Club of Norman.
“We want to continue to stretch what the brand (of OU Ghost Tours) can be, but a lot of that loses its validity when someone thinks, ‘Oh, you’re just doing this to get paid,’” Kuwitzky said. “When people come in, we want them to know we’re doing this because we love doing it.”
He said both returning and newly trained tour guides are thrilled to restart the tours, and they all hope more tours will continue well after they have graduated.
“We’re excited to have people come back and hear from us and learn a little bit more about OU’s campus from some of the more funky sides of it,” Kuwitzky said.
