October 31, 1996
Ghost haunts local theater
ROBERT MOHL
News Editor
LAKELAND-- If you go to the Lakeland Cultural Arts Center Halloween night
you'll see the annual Haunted House put on by the staff.
But if you're lucky, you'll get a glimpse of something truly out of this
world.
"We have a ghost. We actually have a real live ghost. No kidding," says
Angela Wright, 39 of Roanoke Rapids. Wright is one of several theater volunteers
who claims to have had a brush with the supernatural.
Wright holds the distinction of being the only one to have seen the spectre.
"It was the weirdest thing," she says. "We were doing a summer review, I was
standing on one side of the stage, Ruth Morgan was standing on the other."
"There was somebody standing behind her and it was bothering me. It bothered
me so bad that I sent somebody over to see who it was and they said there was
nobody there. But I could see it."
"It was the figure of a person moving. It was tall and swaying but I couldn't
tell who it was."
The spirit, whoever it is, hasn't appeared since, say Lakeland volunteers.
But it has made its presence known.
"I've heard noises, everybody hears noises," Wright says.
"It sounds like a person whistling," says Martha Faulcon, 54, of Littleton.
Faulcon, administrative manager of Lakeland, says she's never seen a ghost, but
strange things do happen at the theater.
Just ask Ruth Morgan.
"We were doing esLove Lettersxe, it's a two-person play," says Morgan, 44, a
Weldon resident and a part-time production manager at Lakeland. "We went out to
do the second half and I heard water pouring behind the curtain, about a
pitcherful."
"I thought, oh great, another leak. So we went on with the show. Well after
it was over we searched that stage and we didn't find a esspotxe of water."
Others have reported lights going on and off by themselves, potted plants
tipping over and costumes moving or disappearing.
But the ghost's favorite activity is opening and closing doors.
"One night, a few months after I got involved, I was sitting in the office,"
says Wright. "The door to the outside was closed and the door to the hallway was
closed. The door to the outside opened and closed by itself, then the door to the
hallway opened and closed by itself. That's when I started asking questions."
Morgan recalls one gesture that seemed to have come from a well-mannered
spirit.
"I was going to the green room with an armload of stuff and the door opened
for me, which I thought was very considerate," she says.
Angela's ex-husband, Doug Wright, 44, of Roanoke Rapids, has also encountered
strange door activity.
"The door to the green room has a sign on it, 'Keep Closed at All Times.' I
was working so I left the door open. It closed," says Doug Wright.
"I opened it again, and it closed harder. To make a long story short it wound
up slamming closed and I said 'OK, Mark, I'll leave the damn door closed.'"
Mark is Mark Taylor, the founder of the Lakeland Cultural Arts Center and No.
1 suspect as the ghost.
Many of those who have encountered the ghost believe that Taylor, who died in
1989, is keeping an eye on what he started.
No so, says Michael Smith of Roanoke Rapids.
"I was about 15, working at Lakeland when Mr. Taylor told me there was a
ghost in the old building," says Smith, 32.
"A lot of people have speculated that it's Mark, but all this was going on a
long time before Mark died," Smith said.
"All this" includes dresses disappearing and reappearing in locked trunks,
doors opening where there is no breeze, and Saggie, Taylor's fearless German
shephard, refusing to let people enter the old building.
So if it's not Mark Taylor, who is the ghost?
Well, there may not be one.
"The building is so uneven that movement anywhere could close doors," says
Offa Lou Jenkins of Littleton. "There are natural phenomenon that can explain
these things."
Jenkins, a 1934 graduate of Littleton High School and member of Lakeland's
board of directors, says she has never heard of a ghost at the site.
The history of the site is also short of spectral candidates.
The Lakeland Cultural Arts Center used to be Littleton High School. Starting
as a wood building built at the end of the Civil War, the two-story old building,
now used for storage, was built in 1915. Additions were added up to 1950. The
school closed in 1975.
However, school officials say they were ghost free.
"I never heard of it as long as the school was there," said Rachael Ricks of
Littleton.
Ricks was assistant superintendent of Warren County Schools when Littleton
High closed in 1975. She was also a counselor at the school in the '30s and
taught first grade in the '40s.
"I didn't hear any reports of a ghost," adds James Leonard, 70, principal of
the school for its last five years. "Aside from the Halloween tricks we had
nothing unusual."
"If there had been a ghost I would have left," laughed Leonard who lives in
Halifax.
Don't worry, say Lakeland members. This is definitely a friendly ghost.
"I don't think it's a malicious being, it's never frightened anyone," says
Smith.
"The spirit is not there to hurt anybody," agrees Angela Wright. "I have a
good feeling about that spirit."
"If it's a ghost," Morgan says, "he likes us."
(
geocities.com/rjmohl)