FROM THE ARCHIVES: A night of fright at Ridenbaugh

This story was originally published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on Oct. 27, 2018.

It was on a fall evening in 1999 when Emily Wicks conceived the idea of hosting a student-led haunted house in the University of Idaho's historic Ridenbaugh Hall. The sun, Wicks said, had just begun to set, slanting past the century-old red brick building flanked by skeletal trees, foreshadowing the coming winter - it looked creepy.

"She was sitting here one night and just looked up and saw how creepy it was and thought it would a be great idea - half of the creepiness is already here," Ridenbaugh Haunted House organizer Carly McLean said. "It's already a very, very creepy building - it was an old women's dormitory, and there are a lot of ghost stories that are already told in the music building."

The annual Ridenbaugh Haunted House, now a nearly 20-year tradition, returns to the UI campus today. It will feature two floors of student actors taking part in scenes designed to terrify. While there are other Halloween events throughout campus, McLean said Ridenbaugh Hall, whose narrow hallways and creaking floors already have a reputation for being haunted, was an obvious choice for the site of a haunted house.

The building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, saw its first batch of residents in 1903. As legend has it, the building is still occupied by the restless spirits of its former tenants. McLean said people commonly report eerie circumstances when using the building, which now serves as a practice space for music students. She said students have reported hearing banging and slamming doors on upper floors while practicing alone in the building late at night, but she suspects the most reported phenomena may be related to a woman rumored to have taken her own life inside Ridenbaugh while she was a resident of the building.

"The most common one that people say is that they hear piano coming from outside the building - like very out of tune, incorrect piano coming from outside the windows," McLean said.

The woman who died, McLean said, was a piano major.

"We don't really know exactly what the timeline is, but people have died in the building and so the past couple years, we've had one room that we designate just to the 'Ridenbaugh ghost,' " McLean said. "We just fill it up with copies of newspapers and then put in the creepy light bulb and last year when we were decorating, it was about 20 degrees colder in only that room."

While the spirits that purportedly inhabit Ridenbaugh may have spookier plans, McLean said the haunted house, hosted by the female music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota and their male counterpart, Phi Mu Alpha, is more fun than terrifying. She said beyond just being a fun event, it is a good way for the two fraternities to gain visibility and attract new members.

"It is fun and it's not like that 'scary scary,' " McLean said. "We've tried to have a few rooms that are really scary and then a few that are not as scary and maybe more that are just kind of weird and unsettling."

McLean said the cost for entry is $1 or a can of food - all of which is donated to a local food bank. The event usually does pretty well, McLean said, noting last year's haul included $200 and three boxes full of canned food. She said perhaps two years ago, their donation was so large they brought one food bank employee to tears. Wicks said she had not expected the haunted house to become a yearly event, but the contribution the event makes to the community each year is a compelling reason for the tradition to continue.

"Having a good year like that really lays that good foundation, rebuilds it up and gets younger people excited about it to hopefully keep it going for a longer," Wicks said.

The Ridenbaugh Haunted House takes place 8 p.m. to midnight tonight on the UI campus next door to the Administration Building.

Scott Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.