Best Feature Writing

Highland’s Haunted Halls

Rachel Giles, Staff Writer

What’s scarier than thinking you’re alone in a school that was once a prison?

Finding out you’re not.

Halloween is a time for ghost stories, but ghost stories are a year-round thing at Highland. Numerous faculty members at Highland have seen and felt ghosts wandering the halls throughout the years, but none more than those who arrive the earliest and stay the latest at this haunted school.

The ghost experts at Highland include Secretary Karrie Allred, former teacher Randy Schreiter, custodian Matt Lilly, and security guard John Price.  They all have spent time alone at Highland.

For Allred, the most-prominent ghost story involved an old friend.

One day, when Allred, former Highland employees Whitney Fauver-Everett and Katie Eskelson-Ieremia, and former principal Chris Jenson were working in the main office, they heard a voice over the radio: “Katie, I need help right now!”

Typically, this is a sign of an emergency, and the need for quick action. They all jumped up and started to run towards the door when Katie paused and turned to everyone, “wait, that was Kershaw.”

Normally, a radio call from Kershaw was expected as he, as a security guard, patrolled the school. But this time was different. Kershaw had been dead for several months.

They spent a few minutes looking for someone who might have taken a radio, but no one was found.

Teachers often wonder what happened to former colleagues when they die, but maybe they don’t ever really leave the school. Maybe that’s why rooms are always turned into a mess despite the fact that no one ever enters or leaves.

Randy Schreiter was a former driver’s ed. teacher at Highland. His room was in the basement and a camera was right above his door.  On numerous occasions, Schreiter would be the last one to leave and first to arrive, but the papers on his desk would be shuffled around, and his drawers left wide open. When checking the camera, no one ever entered or left other than Schreiter every time.

This is a common “ghost” story at Highland.

“I get a lot of reports of ‘someone’s been in my room!’, but there’s nothing ever on camera. The fridge will be open, wrappers are everywhere, papers everywhere too,” Price said.

Ghosts breaking into teachers’ rooms to mess with them, and scaring old friends over the radio seem more like childish jokes, but what if it is because they are children?

At 9 pm on a March night a few years ago, when preparing for the ACT exam, Allred was alone in the building when she heard kids’ voices on the third floor. She ran up the stairs to check if some students had broken in, but when she got there the laughing had stopped, and she was alone again. She checked the cameras, and no one was ever on the third floor, or really any floor. It was just her.

Allred is not alone in hearing laughter in the halls.

“You hear laughter. Like it would be 2:00 in the morning and there is laughter, like kid laughter. Then you’re just like ‘hello?’. And then you don’t hear anything, and then you get that feeling and you’re like, alright, I’m out,” Lilly said.

Laughter should be something heard during the school day, but not something you want to hear when you are the only person in the building, especially in halls like the red hall.

Students and teachers alike know the infamous red hall—the hall in front of the gym with the windows into the courtyard—and apparently, it’s one of the ghosts’ favorite halls to haunt.

“When I’m here late at night (usually after the football games) I’m in here pretty much alone, and when I walk through the red hall, I can’t wait to get to the cafeteria,” Allred said.” Because when I’m in the red hall, the hair on the back of my neck just stands up.”

It’s that feeling that you get when you know you’re being watched, but you can’t see anyone around, when you know you’re not alone, but logically you are. That’s the feeling of ghosts.

Price spends his days making sure students at Highland are safe, but how do you protect students from something that can’t be seen, hardly heard, and can’t be traced?

Price was at Highland around 5:45 one morning with a custodian.  When the custodian was talking about how he was having a bad day, Price agreed and added that he “wished the power would just go out”. In granting his sarcastic wish, all the power in the building went out. For no reason.

Price also reported that he used to feel the presence of a former custodian. One day when he was doing his job, a random person grabbed his arm and informed him: “the custodian wanted him to know that he’s doing a good job, and he can move on now”. Ever since that day, Price no longer felt the presence of the former custodian.

There is more proof though than just Price and others sensing the presence of a ghost.

Highland’s vape detectors in the bathroom were installed to help stop students from vaping, but they have other benefits that are more paranormal than expected. The vape detectors go off during the night—often at one in the morning—when there is not a single person in the building. Vape detectors are made to detect specific chemicals released in a vape, but what if they can also detect certain chemicals – the vapors? — that make up a ghost?

Additionally, Highland has motion detector camera that will start recording when there is movement in a room (and turn off when no one is in the room).  Often, the staff in the office report watching the security footage from previous nights because the cameras started recording overnight. However, nothing is observed in the recordings. But something triggered the cameras.

If the vape detectors and cameras are sensing movement in Highland, it is only a matter of time before everyone starts seeing or feeling the paranormal.

Highland has had hundreds of people pass through its halls, and apparently many of them loved Highland so much they never want to leave. So next time you are in the school late at night, just know that you are not as alone as it appears.