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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?
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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.
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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.
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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
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‘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 •