Do you ever get the feeling someone is staring at you? Do you ever feel that cool breeze sweep by you when you’re walking through a building. It might not be the cute boy or girl across your desk looking at you, or the draft from the air conditioner. Instead, it could be a ghost.Whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some students and faculty and staff that do. Not only do these people believe in ghosts, some have also encountered them.Senior Shelbi Blackmon has had some pretty weird things happen to her in the past three years she’s been at SHSU. As a freshman, living in Belvin was beyond weird. It was crazy and when she heard these ghostly tales, she didn’t think twice that they weren’t true.”The first story I ever heard was a girl shooting herself in a community bathroom on the ground floor of Belvin/Buchanan Hall. You’re supposed to see the silhouette of her face on the wall,” Blackmon said. “Supposedly, that’s why there is a wall covering up the two bathrooms,” she said.While Blackmon ponders back and forth what is true and what is not, besides the rumors, there could be evidence to support the bathroom incident.”On the fire emergency exit map on the back of everyone’s dorm room door, the maps on the ground floor show two bathrooms. If it’s not true, then why are they on the map?” she asked.JoEllen Tipton, director of Residence Life, begs to differ. “There has been no such thing like someone shooting themselves, or someone murdering somebody. UPD hasn’t ever reported anything of that matter. There has been stories, but even then, in Belvin, there has never been bathrooms on the ground floor. The room on the ground floor that people mistake the bathroom for being, is a maintenance closet that holds air conditioning equipment,” she said.”We’ve heard the girl’s face on the wall story, but none of the staff or faculty has ever seen it. In the late 70s, a lot of girls painted murals on the walls of the ground floor, which is also known as the garden floor. Depending on the paint color on the walls, in between the years, I’m guessing that some of the pictures might still show through the repainting renovations,” Tipton said.Blackmon also heard a rumor of a lady’s picture hanging in the lobby of Belvin/Buchanan, that follows students when they walk by. The picture is of an old Residence Manager Mrs. W.H. Fannie Matthews.Blackmon, who lived on the ground floor of Belvin, said she knew someone (ghost-like) had to have been down there. “My roommate and I used to hear footsteps. At midnight the door from the stairwell would open, and then we would hear footsteps throughout the hallway. When we looked outside, no one would be there,” she said.Footsteps and weird eyes following people are not the only weird things that have happened to Blackmon. One day, one of her friends was in the community bathroom on the floor of the lobby next to the office. After washing her hands at the sink, she turned the water off and then suddenly, the faucets slowly turned back on and water rushed back out. Blackmon remembers the day clearly. “My friend ran out of that restroom like a “bat out of hell,” she said.Natali Rhymes, a resident manager at Elliot Hall had some grueling stories to share also. “I believe in ghosts, but I’m not sure how many of the stories are true,” she said.”Back in the day, there used to be four dorm rooms on the ground floor. Supposedly, a girl was killed in her room. The rooms were then renovated into a lounge for the bottom floor. If you go to the ground floor of Elliot by yourself at nighttime, you’re supposed to see a girl combing her hair in the reflection,” said Rhymes.Anyone interested in seeing the facts for themselves will have to wait. A tar problem on the bottom floor caused the lounge area to be reconstructed. Now, the area is being considered for central staff offices.”When I was a residence assistant at Belvin, I would check the rooms and every time I went down there, I felt a presence. It always felt like there were two ghosts down there. If I ever went down there to study, I always felt safe, but I was never alone,” she said.”I also remember one day when I was doing room checks by myself in one of the rooms – that was the last time I ever went by myself. I went to G73, and usually the doors stay ajar if you leave them open. I left the door open, but right after I went in the door slammed shut. It couldn’t have been a gust of wind,” explained Rhymes.Rhymes has had plenty of weird and freaky things happen to her, but the worst was when she was a house manager at the old Chi Omega House, now the Stuart House, which houses the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority. “When I first moved into my room, I hadn’t heard any of the ghost stories. While I unpacked, I tried hanging my pictures, paintings and calendars up on the wall. Nothing would stay. In the bathroom, I had a shower caddy, you know the cart that holds hairspray, your face wash and so on. I hung that on the wall in the bathroom. Later on at night, like a dummy, I was there by myself when the residents hadn’t gotten there yet and I was watching “The Sixth Sense” in the dark. If you know the part where the little boy says, “when the little hairs on your back raise up, that’s them,” my shower caddy fell in the bathroom. It scared the living daylights out of me, so I called a friend of mine and we looked in the bathroom together,” she said. “After that night, I heard that an old Chi Omega alum hung herself in her shower of one of the rooms. Some of the sorority girls told me about the incident. Anyways, a little while after that, I was doing room checks and the room that she had killed herself wouldn’t open with my master key. In fact, you had to go through the suite to get to the room. If you unlocked the door to the bathroom and left, and then came back, the door would be locked,” said Rhymes.In Estill, Residence Assistant Jennifer Bernardi said she didn’t really think any of the stories were true and that the pipes in the buildings were probably just really old. She did however comment on a day while the school was out for break, that she was doing room checks with one of the other RAs. “We were on the fourth floor when we heard a lot of voices, and more than just six people. We thought the other RAs were all together having a little get together, but when we got down there, there was no one there,” she said. Resident Manager Jessica Truscott, of Belvin/Buchanan Hall said she had heard the myriad of stories, but didn’t think any of it was true. She said that the halls were spooky, but not “ghost story” spooky.”I think it’s fun to think something happened because the buildings are so old,” she explained.A faculty/staff member who didn’t want their name published, said that there are ghosts in the Peabody Building and Austin Hall.In the Peabody Building, there is supposedly an older woman in a long black dress who visits the building in the daytime. If the music being played on the radio is not the music the ghost likes, she’ll pull the cord out of the socket.In Austin Hall, an elderly maid stands at the end window looking out towards the courthouse. Sam Houston’s ghost is also rumored to appear at nighttime in one of the back windows and also looks out.