LITTLE ROCK — When Halloween rolls around each year, rumors of haunted happenings at Wingo Hall at the University of Central Arkansas swirl like fallen leaves.
Jimmy Bryant, director of UCA archives, said Wingo Hall was hurriedly built by the Public Works Administration during the Great Depression. Construction began May29 and the building was finished in October1934. For most of its lifetime, the building has been a residence hall until about two years ago when it became administrative offices.
"People who have live there over the years have said they thought it was haunted. Usually it has something to do with running water like 'We would be standing outside the bathroom ande hear water running when no on is in the bathroom," Bryant said.
Other first-person accounts of haunted happenings in Wingo Hall include voices from the locked attic, lights turning on and off and door knobs falling off and rolling around.
Carol Daves, asssitant to the provost, works in Wingo Hall. She has been on the UCA campus nearly 30 years, first as a student and later as an employee.
As a student, she heard stories of "Glenda," the ghost of a lovelorn student who killed herself when her fiance died in World War II.
"In the 1970s, I had some friends living in Wingo Hall. One of them said she had noticed the ghost, who they called 'Glenda,' liked to play in the water. The faucets would turn on by themselves. You'd go in the bathroom and no one would be in there," Daves said.
Bryant said he had not heard of the 'lovelorn student' story.
"But that doesn't mean it didn't happen," Bryant said.
When the physical plant was doing renovations on Wingo Hall, Daves said one of the employees caught a glimpse of Glenda.
"One of the physical plant guys saw the ghost of a woman. She was standing there and just disappeared into the wall," Daves said.
Since she started working in the building, Daves said she's had a couple of her own experiences.
"I was working alone late one night. I was walking toward the president's suite, and in the glass windows, I saw the reflection of a woman standing behind me. When I turned around, no one was there," Daves said.
Another time, she was working at her desk and felt someone standing beside her.
"I said 'Just a minute,' and when I looked up, no one was there," Daves said.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 149, 157 on 10/28/2007