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Home Features Founders Hall Spooks Students

by Benjamin Middendorf

Watch out for a light in a Founders Hall window the next time you’re walking back from a late-night study session in the library. Did a theatre student just forget to shut it off? Or is some long-dead ghost of a Concordia student cramming for an 8 a.m. exam?

Founders Hall was the first building built on Concordia’s campus in 1894. It held both classrooms and dorm rooms for Concordia’s first group of male students studying to be teachers.

As more and more buildings began going up on Concordia’s campus, the role of the building faded, and now it holds storage for the theatre department’s costumes and a workshop in the basement for set design. The upper levels are blocked off due to concerns about the safety of the floors.

But for some theatre students who frequent Founders, the building has another story to tell.

“It’s the nexus of the campus,” sophomore Lewis Kasparek said. “The oldest building and the one that has changed the most. I think it’s full of things left unsaid.”

Stories abound about the sound of little running feet. An old organ has also been heard playing at times.

“I’ve heard about the footsteps coming from the halls when anyone was alone in the building,” Kasparek said. “There have been sightings of eyes, or people feeling a presence in the empty building. As well as the children.”

“I was not fully convinced until I saw the boy in knickers in the bathroom,” senior Chris Genszler said. “After that, I grew convinced.”

So next time you walk by Founders Hall on the way to or from a chapel service, give it a glance. It might hold some secrets.

“I have at times heard things, but grew accustomed to them, knowing God is with me, therefore nothing will harm me,” Genszler said.

photo by Austin Schafer

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