BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Every year when Halloween approaches, it’s not unusual for the Bluefield Daily Telegraphto run a story about local ghost legends or a house with a reputation for being haunted. This Halloween, the search for a haunting didn’t go any further than the newspaper itself.
The nature of the news business often leads to people working late at night when the usual ringing telephones, conversations and other activity have given way to quiet. Passing trains, an occasional siren or police scanner calls might break the silence, but there are times when the noises, and occasional sights and occurrences, could be dubbed supernatural.
Not everyone sees or hears anything suggesting ghosts. Editor Samantha Perry said while she sometimes works alone on weekends, she has never experienced anything unusual. Sports writer Tom Bone, who started working at the Daily Telegraph on Halloween about 17 years ago, doesn’t recall seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary.
Gillespie recalled when a custodian spotted the ghost standing in a window; his description matched that of the man who had died in the warehouse. And there was a time when Gillespie and another employee heard the ghost laugh. They were in the pressroom when some parts suddenly failed.
And somebody who couldn’t be seen thought this malfunction was funny.
“We heard him laughing at us,” Gillespie said. “That man’s spirit has always been in the back of the warehouse, but never came back in the mailroom.”
Another potential spirit could be an employee who died in a crash on Route 52 in the mid 1980s. He was known for playing tricks, and he worked in the mailroom. He liked to bump Gillespie’s mother, who was a mailroom worker at that time, in the back with a cart used to move newspapers.
“About two weeks after he was killed, one of those things came rolling and hit her in the back,” Gillespie said. He also liked to sneak up behind Gillespie and pull his shirt; that trick didn’t end after death, either.
Sometimes a shadow or a presence will be seen out the corner of an eye.
Former photographer Jon Bolt was in the photography room viewing the day’s news pictures with former Copy Editor Amy Persinger when they sensed a person walk into the small room and stand behind them. This wasn’t at all unusual, and they thought it was former Senior Editor Bill Archer.
But they looked back and saw nobody was there, Bolt recalled.
“We just kind of looked at each other. I went and checked the mens’ room and she ran into the ladies, but nobody was there. There was absolutely nowhere to go,” Bolt said.
The photography room has been the scene of other odd events. Photographer Eric DiNovo remembered one evening when three sheets of paper tacked to the wall next to the computer were suddenly lifted. There was no sudden draft or breeze to account for the movement.
“It was crazy, man, the craziest thing,” DiNovo said. “There were these papers – this one and this one – and they went straight up in the air.”
DiNovo said another witness, sports writer Bob Redd asked him, “Didn’t you see that?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I did,” DiNovo replied. They fanned the papers tacked to the wall in a desperate effort to debunk what had just happened, but nothing could lift them in the same ghostly manner. It never happened again.
News Editor Andy Patton, who designs many of the Daily Telegraph’s pages, experienced his first strange encounter about 20 years ago.
“What is now the door to (Sales Manager) Natalie Fanning’s office opened and closed on its own,” Patton said. That was not the first ghostly occurrence he experienced late at night.
“I’ve heard footsteps. You’ll think you see someone out the corner of your eye, and there’s no one there,” he stated. “And most people will tell you that the elevator goes up and down on its own and the doors open.”
But the mailroom and the warehouse of the Daily Telegraph are the creepiest places in the building, Patton said.
Those areas are just as spooky as the old state prison in Moundsville, a favorite place for ghost hunters.
Fortunately, if there are ghosts wandering the newspaper, they have not shown any malicious intent.
“If it is anything, I don’t see anything bad,” Patton said. “Maybe it’s just curious and is looking over my shoulder. Maybe it’s just wanting to see what tomorrow’s headlines will be.”
— Contact Greg Jordan at [email protected]
