Don't tell CST guards there ain't no ghosts

WINONA, Minn., Aug.14, 2001 -- Call Premier Security to report whatever goes bump in the night on the St. Teresa campus, and the supervisor will believe you. "There are definitely ghosts on this campus," said security chief Chad Ready. "I saw one." Last summer, on his first day of employment at St. Teresa, on Winona's West End, Ready said he was being given a campus orientation by veteran guard Rich Brown. "I was looking in a classroom window and I saw a ghost run past the door."

EXPANDED COVERAGE Reporter: Sanjeev Misra

It was evening, and Ready and Brown were walking through the top floor of Cotter High School, 1115 W. Broadway, when Ready was stunned: He said he saw a completely gray person-like figure "running." The classroom was not well-lit, but Ready said he is certain of what he saw and was wearing his prescribed eyewear. Ready didn't say anything to Brown, fearful he would be branded "some nutball" just as he was starting his job. But Brown later told Ready that he himself believed that the campus was "haunted for sure." Brown told him about a campus chapel ghost who's called "monsignor." During overnight shifts, the chapel confessional and side altar lights turn on and off on their own, he said. Chimes sound at night up in the chapel ceiling but always from different spots. The security staff has found no chimes anywhere in the chapel. Brown, a campus guard for 12 years, said: "There are definitely ghosts here, but they're friendly ones." Brown said that in the highly secured Alverna Center, 1175 W. Wabasha St., he often has witnessed elevators and lights moving and turning on by themselves. "I've walked through the building and found lights on that I just turned off," he said. Mike Marcks, a Wisconsin police officer and ex-St. Teresa guard, said he had the "crap" scared out of him during one third-shift walk through Cotter. Marcks said he was taking a midnight walk through the basement of the four-story private high school and heard something unsettling coming from the boys' locker room: "I heard a bunch of yelling like a bunch of guys getting pumped for a football game or something." He said no one else could have been in the building at the time, let alone a whole team. Why didn't he stop to see who or what was making the noise? "No way," Marcks said. "I kept moving and didn't look back." Marcks said he entered the chapel at night and found himself in blinding "fog." He couldn't see his hands even when he held them up to his face, he said. Addam Martinson, a Winona State law enforcement student and part-time St. Teresa guard, said that during the ovenight shifts he sometimes hears "squeaking shoes" on the locked, pitch-black basketball courts of St.T's Tennis and Sports, 360 Vila St. Martinson said it sounds like a basketball game without any people, "just shoes." Ready said he too has heard the squeaky shoes. Marcks said his ghost stories made a former security co-worker edgy. The co-worker had been scared by a woman in a wedding dress slowly walking through a hallway in Roger Bacon Hall, across the street from Cotter. Marcks said that the security guard told him that he "got really spooked and froze" as the lady walked past him, said "hi," and went down the stairs. Later he met the woman, who turned out to be a teacher at the school and who really was passing by in a wedding dress and indeed said "hi." Mike Drouches, a recent Cornell Univesity of Iowa graduate who works the weekend third-shift, is a non-believer -- sofar anyway. Drouches said the only ghost he has encountered is "the one that won't let go of my chips out of the vending machine" and "probably laughs at me when I'm rocking it back and forth."