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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 1994)
Line 2,1994 Thursday* June 2, 1994 at showed Bess were 1964 of sentenced prison in Mo., then ; day. The vide addi- ;sday they p their in- hammad's certain the Photo illustration by Stew Milne/THE Battalion [Ghost stories around the Brazos Valley in- 1960s while slicing meat behind Texas A&M’s ilude the tale of a man who lost his life in the Animal Industries Building. seen a ghost? (qucr By Christi Erwin The Battalion Chilling stories of the supernatural are not for the weak of heart. Some of the scariest ghost stories are the ones that oc cur close to home. And few people know of the ghosts that haunt the Bryan-College Station area. Dan Wonsowski, a senior English major, and Dave Procious, a senior mechanical engineering major, say they believe a ghost named Shellie haunts their apart ment. Shellie, an A&M student who rented their apart ment before them, died in a car accident last summer, and they believe her spirit never left. Wonsowski said their keys broke off twice in the lock when they first tried to move in. When they did move in, their air conditioner was broken. Maintenance tried several times to fix it, but it would not work until after the Silver Taps recognizing Shellie, Procious said. Because Wonsowski and Procious feel Shellie’s pres ence in their apartment, they have designated a chair for her to sit in. When a guest unknowingly sat in Shellie’s chair, the air conditioner broke again, Procious said. ‘We’ve just learned to live with her,” Procious said. “As long as we don’t sit in her chair, she leaves us alone.” A ghost story much older than that of Shellie in volves the Villa Maria Academy and Ursuline convent, once located in Bryan. A fire in 1928 forced the sisters to relocate their con vent to Oklahoma. Some local residents said the ghosts of a few nuns remain to haunt the grounds. The house changed owners several times and was left vacant for many years. In 1982, Paul Bonnarigo, owner of the Messina Hof Wine Cellar, bought the house and moved it to its new location and designated it as the visitor center of Messina Hof. When the house was tom down, 24 mattresses were found in the attic and around the grounds. Legend is, the nuns would sleep on the mattresses after a day of haunting. Monique Grant, manager of the Messina Hof Visitor Center, said she had not heard that story. “If the mattresses were there it was because the building was vacant and a home for squatters for a number of years,” she said. A&M also is home to a ghost story. It involves the death of a meat laboratory worker in the 1960s named Roy Simms. He cut an artery in his leg and bled to death while slicing meat behind the Animal Industries Building, bloodying the stairs inside the building. After the accident, late-night workers began report ing ghostly happenings. One custodial worker heard Simms speaking to him. Another custodian would leave the elevator door open in the basement because Simms’ ghost would upset things in the laboratory if he was not allowed to roam freely. The meat lab moved to West Campus in 1983, but Simms’ ghost did not. Legend has it Roy Simms still roams the halls of the Animal Industries Building, and the cries of animals being slaughtered can still be heard. Wayne Hamilton, senior lecturer in the Department of Rangeland Ecology and Management, said he knows the story well but has never encountered Simms’ ghost. “I’ve never heard anything or talked to anyone who has (seen the ghost), but it’s general knowledge, and we talk about it from time to time,” Hamilton said. Hamilton added another twist to the story. In the early 1980s, the meat laboratory was converted to classrooms. Sometimes when it rained, the dried blood would mix with the water and drip on the graduate students below, he said. As these stories suggest, ghosts can be anywhere your apartment, a spooky place down the street, or even a classroom. So be aware that a brush with the supernatural may be around the next corner, and your experiences may be the next plot for a spine-chilling tale of the sr pernatural. Photo illustration by Stew Milne/THE Battalion These stairs in the Animal Industries Building were stained with the blood of a man said to haunt there. e. i, we’re not odunit. We id there is that,” said , chief of ispect, we 3S and we ich can be o the sus- pokesman iautomatic le with a the shoot- n linked to 1. , who was is in stable sman for lity Hospi- two body- iside and id two po- :d outside fair condi- ised hospi- Music festival remains class act Summer music series brings chamber and orchestral music to A&M By William Harrison The Battalion F or the month of June, A&M promises to become a “World Classical University,” thanks to !he 1994 Texas Music Festival. For five nights in June, internation al performers will treat Brazos Valley residents to classical music in A&M’s Rudder Theater. In its seventh season, the program iresents chamber music every Monday in June, as well as one Friday orches tral performance June 24. Headliners for shows include violin ist Ruggiero Ricci, pianist Philippe Bianconi, the Esterhazy Quartet, the Western Arts trio, conductor Maxim Shostakovich and violinist Leon Spier- er. FESTIVAL ded in the ased from lodyguard , 34, who tion with ;o his left len. ^ ’ editor For Werner Rose, the coordinator of the event and an A&M music professor, the shows fill the musical void in Bryan/College Station during the sum mer months when nothing is going on. And he also enjoys playing in the shows as a member of the Western irts trio. “It’s wonderful, invigorating,” Rose aid. “I’ve been involved since I arrived it A&M in June of 1988. My friend lavid Tomatz and I brought this up to Texas A&M, and two years later it ivolved into the Texas Music Festival.” Tomatz, who started the program at The University of Houston, plays with lose in the trio and says the shows lelp bridge the gap between renowned irofessionals and up-and-coming musi- ians. “It represents an effort to create an hspen’ type music festival,” Tomatz said, referring to the famous festival in Colorado that mixes teaching with per formance. Over 90 participants are selected from an international mix by audition to perform in the festival. “What this is is a gathering of the music students who are the best and at the top of their field. (The students) live in dorms, study chamber music, and we put together a large faculty to work with these people in orchestra and chamber concerts.” Perhaps students can learn from the extensive experience of several of the featured performers: • Ruggiero Ricci, a concert per former for 65 years, who has played more than 5,000 concerts and made over 500 recordings, including 65 com pact discs in the last three years. • Philippe Bianconi has won several competition awards, including the sil ver medal in the Seventh Van Clibum International Competition, and has performed internationally, including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Cen ter. • Maxim Shostakovich is the son of famed Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich and has conducted all of the United States’ major orchestras. • Leon Spierer has been concert- master of the Berlin Philharmonic Please see Festival/Page 4 :ins, Chrisline eddie, Warren ord and Julia and .‘.pring holidays and TX 77840. 'exas A&M in ihe Division 1 3 Reed he Battalion. Ft>< . call 84 5-0569. nday through r full year. To ‘For HomeFront Neivs, I’m Marilyn McBee’ By Paul Neale The Battalion HomeFront News’ frontwoman Marilyn McBee epitomizes job satis faction. “If I was to describe the ultimate dream job, this would totally be it — either this or being an MTV veejay,” she said. Filling a 5-minute news spot at the end of CNN’s Headline News, HomeFront News is Bryan-College Station’s outlet to the wonderful world of cable TV. And McBee adds liveliness to this hometown outlet, which she refers to as a video magazine. “We’re a little bit more leisurely and a little more in-depth,” McBee said comparing HomeFront News’ coverage of features and personality profiles to other media in the area. She said HomeFront News fills a niche in Bryan and College Station. “We run the stories that some times fall through the cracks,” McBee said. “We get to do the sto ries about people who are making a difference in the community or a great event coming up that a lot of people could enjoy.” McBee says finding the news ele ment in news features, or soft news, is a bit more demanding at times than reporting hard news. But McBee described it as challenging and rewarding. “I think everybody has a story to tell,” McBee said. “You just have to find what it is.” Because HomeFront News is made up of only two people — McBee, who produces, reports and hosts the program, and Steve Hine, who photographs and edits — at times it’s difficult to come up with a variety of things to cover, McBee said. “When you have two people, you pretty much have two perspectives,” McBee said. “And if one of us is hav ing a bad day. . . it’s really hard be cause production is down by 50 per cent.” Nonetheless, McBee said she thor oughly enjoys the challenges present ed to her at HomeFront News. For McBee, the road to Home- Front News wasn’t straight or with out its surprises. She earned a degree in public re lations and minored in broadcast studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. From there, McBee served as news director at several radio sta tions in Oregon, her home state. When McBee came to Texas three years ago to work at a local country Please see McBoe/P •
