Ever been haunted by a ghost on campus? John Allen, associate editor of On Wisconsin, is collecting campus ghost tales.
"I've gotten about 50 stories so far," says Allen, perusing his e-mail. "Ghost stories are a favorite urban legend. I'm hoping to get a list of what is out there."
Nominations for haunted campus buildings thus far include the Law School, a specific dorm room in Witte that housed a "nice" ghost and "Lincoln's head." (There are two bodies buried on Bascom Hill, discovered when the Lincoln statue was put there - they were moved elsewhere on the hill, says Allen.)
Another common tale: Humanities is said to be haunted by the ghost of its architect who committed suicide over its appearance. Allen says this one is absolutely untrue (the suicide part, at least).
But the top contender is Science Hall, which once housed the Medical School.
"Science Hall is sort of a favorite because it looks so creepy, it has the weird gothic look, there are bats in there and it used to have a cadaver-dissecting room, so there were dead body parts," says Allen.
E-mail your favorite creepy story to onwisconsin@uwalumni.com. They'll go on the alumni Web site and in the fall issue of On Wisconsin.
Weinermobiles cruise Vegas
Oscar Mayer PR woman Syd Lindner can say she "brushed shoulders" with Keith Urban before he was a married man. Lindner was at the 2006 Academy of Country Music Awards held in Las Vegas last month, where all six Weinermobiles from Madison converged to cruise the strip carrying three versions of Elvis: the old, the young and the "Blue Hawaiian."
Also with Lindner was Emily Fleischmann, brand manager for Oscar Mayer in Madison. The pair hung out with nominee Julie Roberts, who was hired to get customers to sing the Oscar jingle for its ongoing singthejingle.com contest.
"The women all seemed to have fabulous hair and the men wore jeans and sported cowboy hats," reports Lindner. "But I must say, I can see now why Nicole Kidman has hooked up with Keith Urban (the two married on Saturday). He was a standout."
Losing his marbles
When Oregon School Board member Steve Zach was handing out diplomas at the high school graduation earlier this month, the seniors were having a hard time shaking his hand.
"We were having this clumsy time shaking hands and things kept getting fumbled up," says Zach, an attorney with Boardman Law Firm and son of Avenue Bar's Skip Zach.
It wasn't until later that he learned the students were holding marbles, which they were handing to departing principal Bob Scott, who is leaving to become director of curriculum for the New Berlin School District. Zach has no idea how Scott disposed of them, but he managed to keep things moving.
Jokes Zach: "They must have thought that Bob had lost his marbles during his tenure at Oregon and were giving them back."
Losing his golf balls
Here's the report on Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's "inspection" of Madison's public golf courses last Friday:
"I took 282 shots (5.2 per hole)," he writes in an e-mail to Parks head Jim Morgan. "My only concern was the condition of the fairways. From where I stood in the rough, they seemed to be in much too good a shape. Since I don't use the fairways much myself, I can't understand why so many resources are put into their maintenance."
And how does he stack up to Steve Brown, who played every hole on all of the courses last year, without losing a ball? "Six balls were lost in the course of the inspection," admits the mayor.
Source: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/i ... 99&ntpid=2
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