Haunted UP

2
The Beacon 7 October 29, 2009 Living 6 The Beacon Living October 29, 2009 The horror! The horror! Tragic deaths. Disembodied voices. Pots and pans flying off the walls. A mysterious little girl watching from afar. A piano play- ing from a dark, empty room. These are all the recipes for a great Hollywood horror film and they also happen to be based on real life experiences of UP stu- dents, faculty and staff. The Commons “You old black crows!” Frank Houston has shouted these words at many UP priests since the early 1900s. The only problem is that Frank Houston died in the 1920s. “Frank Houston was a crusty old Protestant who didn’t like the priests,” James Covert said. Co- vert was once a professor of his- tory and political science at UP and during his time on the cam- pus he also became UP’s resident “ghost expert.” Covert earned this designa- tion while he was researching the school’s history for his book “A Point of Pride: The University of Portland.” During this research, Covert unearthed many chilling tales of Houston’s campus appearances. Houston owned the property the Commons was built on ac- cording to Covert, and he didn’t want to sell it to the university unless he was paid his incredibly high asking price of $30,000. When Houston died, his wife sold the property to the university for $9,000. When the Commons was built in the 1950s, people immediately began experiencing odd things. “One food service director left because he heard footprints, and others would see dish carts start to move and run down the hall,” Covert said. Over the years, other Com- mons workers have also com- plained of pots and pans flying off the walls, food and utensils being thrown to the ground and unmanned carts roll around the kitchen area. Some people have even heard a voice yelling in their ear while ascending the stairs from the Ter- race Room. According to Marc Covert, assistant director of periodicals and James Covert’s son, Hous- ton’s angry spirit has scared many Common’s workers over the years. The ghost frightened an as- sistant manager who worked for Saga Foodservice, a precursor to Bon Appetit. In 1977 he was working late one night, all by himself, catching up on paper- work when he decided to go get a drink. As he was going to the main dining room, he saw a big stainless steel foodservice carts rolling around the corner all by itself. “Mike was a no-nonsense kind of guy who didn’t believe in ghosts,” Marc Covert said. “But he couldn’t explain how that could have happened.” According to James Covert, other frightening things have hap- pened in the Commons. The Ter- race Room of the Commons has seen the death of a beloved UP priest the Rev. Charles C. Milt- ner, C.S.C. Miltner was in the Terrace Room, celebrating his retirement with several friends and guests. As Miltner was giving his fare- well speech something horrible happened. “When God calls me, that’s when I’ll go,” Miltner announced to the room at large. Just moments later, he slumped over and died. Waldschmidt James Covert has heard the stories of many UP staffers who have led him to believe that Waldschmidt Hall is potentially haunted by Paul Hillgens. When Hillgens attended the university in 1923, he was a high-school stu- dent attending boarding school, and it was a tradition in those days to go below the Bluff to Wil- lamette River and swim. After dropping his bags off on the fifth floor, he ran to the river and ac- cidentally drowned. His bags were sent back to his parents unopened. Since then, many people have claimed to see Hillgens’ ghost, a young boy dressed in an old- fashioned bathing suit with a baseball hat and sometimes san- dals, walking the floors of his would-be home, Waldschmidt. The people who have experi- Rosemary Peters Design Editor [email protected] Courtesy of the University Archives The portion of the photo inside the circle is believed to be photo- graphic evidence of the existence of the Common’s ghost, Frank Houston.This photo was taken in 1975 by Keith Kendall. See Haunted, page 9 Brotherhood, truth, justice and authentic masculinity. These are the four pillars for which the League of Extraordinary Gentle- men, or LXG, stands. When he was hired in 2005, Josh Noem of Campus Ministry was given the task of trying to get the male population on cam- pus more interested in partak- ing in school activities. He was asked to do so because of a na- tional trend in American colleges showing that men are lagging behind women academically and in extracurricular involvement in schools. For two years, Noem strug- gled to come up with an idea which would involve the men on campus in one unifying activity. But in 2007, he decided to try something that St. John’s Univer- sity in Minnesota enacted, and he called it the League of Extraordi- nary Gentlemen. “In broad terms – from a Cam- pus Ministry perspective – we’re meeting spiritual needs on cam- pus,” he said. “We’re giving them space to be self-reflective, engage in brotherhood and communicate on a deeper level to look at sto- ries of their lives to find a grand coherence.” Noem asked the Office of Residence Life to recommend any guys on campus who might be interested in the League, and he was given 11 names. Junior Kyle Ke- arney is one of the original men to join LXG and he is now the official Web- master for the club. The LXG Web site, https://pilots.up.edu/ web/LXG, is run completely by Ke- arney. “I wanted to find a group that I could have deeper discus- sions with,” Kearney said. “It’s brought men together who wouldn’t initially in- teract.” The pilot group of LXG is still to- gether today, work- ing toward the same goals the club was founded upon, and a few new ones as well. “We encourage discussion among men while at the same time we’re not being entirely se- rious,” he said. The mission of the League is to give the members an environ- ment in which they feel comfort- able talking about things a little deeper than what might happen in a hallway, according to Noem. The idea is to talk about subjects other than sports, cars and girls. “It’s creating a place for guys to be real, to be authentic with one another,” Noem said. Meetings are supposed to give LXG members the opportunity to talk about how they really feel without fear of harassment. Members of the League meet in small groups of eight to 10 with one or two adult mentors ev- ery few weeks. In the beginning of each school year, the League holds a mass recruiting drive, nicknamed the “Manquisition.” After the initial recruiting ses- sion, which has already occurred this year, joining the League isn’t encouraged; however, Noem is willing to work with men who still wish to join LXG. The Consul for Brotherhood, junior Creede Caldwell, hopes to boost awareness of LXG on cam- pus in the future. The League is already hosting events on cam- pus, and hopes to add to that num- ber in addition to working more off campus. “It provides a really good op- portunity for bonding and meet- ing other men,” he said. “We definitely hope to increase our member base and our presence.” The groups of men are all from the same year and stay together throughout their time at UP, to encourage a stronger friendship amongst them. Each year also follows a certain theme during discussions. Freshmen focus on identifying who they are, sophomores talk about their relationships (namely family and friends), juniors talk about the challenges they have encountered and how they have overcome them and seniors (of which there are currently none) mentor freshmen groups and talk about what they have learned from their time in LXG. Each meeting’s discussion is led by a different member of the group, allowing for each person in the unit to demonstrate leader- ship skills and influence the topic with his own experiences and feelings. Service has also been intro- duced into the League’s curricu- lum, and several organized com- munity service projects have been completed. One of the more re- cent projects LXG participated in was removing leaves and wash- ing windows at the Children’s Relief Nursery. The leaders of LXG make up what is called the Consulate, rep- resenting the main pillars of the group. The Legatus (president) is junior Andrew Berigan, the Con- sul for Brotherhood is Caldwell, the Consul for Justice is junior Brian Walsh and the Consul for Masculinity is junior Matthew Vanderlaan. These men are all interested in finding out what it means to be a man. “That component about ex- amining masculinity has been a really important piece for us,” Noem said. “It’s been an impor- tant value to keep us grounded in our identity as human beings and to talk about and overcome the conventional stereotypes.” Over the past three years, LXG has grown from 11 men to over 60. It seems to double in size each year, to the great happiness of Noem and the student mem- bers. “We’ve spread virally, with the initial group telling everyone to join,” joked Kearney. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is meant to help men on campus get involved. With group discussion, community service and a uniting sense of brotherhood, LXG is working to reverse the negative male trend at UP and get guys involved in an extracurricular activity. LXG explores timeless side of masculinity Lauren Seynhaeve Staff Writer [email protected] Campus club fosters the pursuit of authentic male values and concerns Courtesy of Creede Caldwell Juniors Kyle Kearney, Stephen Kam and Nick Etzel, members of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, take a breather while on a recent hiking trip. One day during lunch, Uni- versity President Rev. E. Wil- liam Beauchamp expressed to Dr. Thomas Greene, dean of the graduate school, his desire to see a certain faded and rusted sculp- ture on campus repainted. The sculpture is a red steel sculpture and sits by Buckley Center near the greenhouse entrance. Greene made sure this wish was honored. He consulted the President on the color and went out and bought the paint. With the help of the physical plant team, the sculp- ture was given a fresh new coat of paint. “Caring for what we have is good stewardship; it’s that sim- ple,” Greene said. “Restoring the piece to its original color also enhances the sculpture and the beauty of our great campus.” The repainted steel sculpture is entitled “Papa Sierra” and was constructed in 1980 by Tom Morandi. It was selected from a huge art exhibit that showcased the work of ten sculptors in April 1980. This sculpture is one of the many sculptures on campus that offer artistic expression. The Christ the Teacher statue is one of the more noticeable sculptures on campus and sits be- tween Franz Hall and Mago Hunt Center. Performing and fine arts professor Jill Hoddick was on a committee in 1989 that was given the task of searching for an art- ist that would create an original sculpture for the UP campus. The committee was lead by professor Mary Margaret, a former fine arts professor and comprised eight faculty members and staff. The artist Donovan Peterson was chosen and it took him about four years to actually complete the sculpture. The University President at the time, President Thomas Oddo, was very sup- portive of the piece but died in 1989 before he was able to see it brought to campus. “The Christ the Teacher statue was a memorial to our University President Thomas Oddo,” Dr. Mi- chael Connolly, performing and fine arts professor, said. “He was much beloved by students.” The sculp- ture was in- stalled and dedicated to the President in 1995. “The sculp- tures arrived on a truck,” Connolly said. “They enlisted the baseball team to lift them.” The sculp- tures are made of cast bronze and are thirty percent larger than the normal human size. The floor un- der the sculp- tures is made of stones called basalt that are indigenous to the Holy Lands. The artist called his work “figu- rative abstrac- tion,” which is a blend of both representational and abstract components. “The figures have a universal quality,” Hoddick said. “No defini- tive race, but hu- man- every man figures.” There are other elements of the sculpture that pass- er-byers wouldn’t normally notice. The negatives or spaces between the figures were thought out by the artist and work into the piece as a whole. The baby in the piece was modeled after Pe- terson’s son. Since its install- ment, the sculpture has been more than just aesthetically pleasing to stu- dents and faculty on campus. “I think it is a perfect sculpture for our campus community,” Hoddick said. “It reminds us of the religious nature of the campus, our interest in educat- ing the whole hu- man being, and sharing our gifts with others.” The doors and front columns of the Chapel of Christ the Teacher are another example of the fusion between art and religion. The doors and columns were sculpted by LeRoy Setziol out of solid black walnut in 1986. Religious symbols can be seen in the intricate carvings in the door. “The lines of the sun’s rays all converge into the handle,” Con- nolly said. “And there are sym- bols of the life of Jesus like an ear of corn, snail and whale.” The door also has images that represent the four gospels. A man represents the book of Mat- thew, a lion represents Mark, an ox represents Luke and an eagle represents John. In addition, the four columns represent the four gospels. LeRoy Setziol also completed wooden sculpture found within the lobby of Mago Hunt Center. It is 12 carved wood pieces made of Alaskan yellow cedar from the floor to the ceiling, resembling a totem pole. It was built in 1978 and is entitled the “Paul E. Ouel- lette Memorial Wood Sculpture.” A sculpture that marks the University of Portland as a part of history would be the Captain William Clark Monument. The Clark Monument stands proudly at the edge of the bluff and serves as a symbol of exploration and discovery. The monument depicts three men, William Clark, York, Clark’s black slave, and an un- named American Indian who was a member of the Cushook tribe. The statue stands at the south- ernmost point of the Willamette River Valley, which, according to legend, is the area that Clark and his men first sighted a dis- tant mountain, which Clark later named Mt. Jefferson. “There is a marker on the ground in front of the sculpture that points to Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson,” Connolly said. According to Connolly, this is also where Clark saw the Wil- lamette River and realized that it was a separate river from the Co- lumbia River. “They learned about the Wil- lamette from native people out east by the Sandy River, where Troutdale is now,” Connolly said. “Clark came back overland and saw it from somewhere on the bluff, at or near our campus.” The sculpture is cast in bronze, stands six feet and nine inches tall, and stands on a four foot concrete and stone base. Clark is seen pointing toward the moun- tain with his right hand, while holding his journal in his left. He is taking a step forward, both figuratively and metaphorically. Clark’s windblown coat reveals four ermine tails given to him by Sacagawea as a Christmas gift in 1805. York, Clark’s slave, is shown holding Clark’s left hand and pressing his right hand against Clark’s shoulder, as a sign of sup- port and friendship. The Cushook Indian is seen holding a wapato plant, symbolizing the Cushook heritage. The monument was created by sculptor and muralist Michael Florin Dente in 1986. He had pri- vate collections in various places other than the Northwest such as New York City, Florence, Rome, Italy and Saudi Arabia. He also was a faculty member of the De- partment of Fine Arts at UP until 2000. Hoddick believes that art plays a very significant role on campus and hopes that students will real- ize this as well. “I hope students will open their eyes to their surroundings,” Hoddick said. “This is a place of education and learning and what better way to learn about art than to look at it up close and person- al.” Connolly sees art as some- thing that adds vitality and beauty to our lives when it can some- times seem repetitive. “When you look at something beautiful it can take you out of the mundane,” Connolly said. “There are things much bigger than the day to day grind.” Art, hidden and in plain sight Melissa Nip Staff Writer [email protected] Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON The statue of Christ the Teacher, situated between Franz Hall and Mago Hunt Theatre, is one of the most familiar sculptures on The Bluff. Installed in 1995, the sculptures are made of cast bronze and are thirty percent larger than normal scale. Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON One of several carvings that adorn the columns of the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. Art on campus ranges from the broadly familiar to the diamonds in the rough In over 100 years of history, UP has a long list of otherworldly happenings

description

Are ghosts and ghouls afoot at the University of Portland?

Transcript of Haunted UP

Page 1: Haunted UP

The Beacon 7October 29, 2009 Living

6 The BeaconLiving

October 29, 2009

The horror! The horror!

Tragic deaths. Disembodied voices. Pots and pans fl ying off the walls. A mysterious little girl watching from afar. A piano play-ing from a dark, empty room. These are all the recipes for a great Hollywood horror fi lm and they also happen to be based on real life experiences of UP stu-dents, faculty and staff.

TheCommons

“You old black crows!” Frank Houston has shouted

these words at many UP priests since the early 1900s. The only problem is that Frank Houston died in the 1920s.

“Frank Houston was a crusty old Protestant who didn’t like the priests,” James Covert said. Co-vert was once a professor of his-tory and political science at UP and during his time on the cam-pus he also became UP’s resident “ghost expert.”

Covert earned this designa-

tion while he was researching the school’s history for his book “A Point of Pride: The University of Portland.”

During this research, Covert unearthed many chilling tales of Houston’s campus appearances.

Houston owned the property the Commons was built on ac-cording to Covert, and he didn’t want to sell it to the university unless he was paid his incredibly high asking price of $30,000.

When Houston died, his wife sold the property to the university for $9,000. When the Commons was built in the 1950s, people immediately began experiencing odd things.

“One food service director left because he heard footprints, and others would see dish carts start to move and run down the hall,” Covert said.

Over the years, other Com-mons workers have also com-plained of pots and pans fl ying off the walls, food and utensils being thrown to the ground and unmanned carts roll around the kitchen area.

Some people have even heard a voice yelling in their ear while ascending the stairs from the Ter-race Room.

According to Marc Covert, assistant director of periodicals and James Covert’s son, Hous-ton’s angry spirit has scared many Common’s workers over the years.

The ghost frightened an as-sistant manager who worked for Saga Foodservice, a precursor to Bon Appetit. In 1977 he was working late one night, all by himself, catching up on paper-work when he decided to go get a drink. As he was going to the main dining room, he saw a big stainless steel foodservice carts rolling around the corner all by itself.

“Mike was a no-nonsense kind of guy who didn’t believe in ghosts,” Marc Covert said. “But he couldn’t explain how that could have happened.”

According to James Covert, other frightening things have hap-pened in the Commons. The Ter-race Room of the Commons has seen the death of a beloved UP priest the Rev. Charles C. Milt-ner, C.S.C.

Miltner was in the Terrace Room, celebrating his retirement with several friends and guests. As Miltner was giving his fare-well speech something horrible happened.

“When God calls me, that’s when I’ll go,” Miltner announced to the room at large. Just moments later, he slumped over and died.

Waldschmidt

James Covert has heard the stories of many UP staffers who have led him to believe that Waldschmidt Hall is potentially

haunted by Paul Hillgens. When Hillgens attended the university in 1923, he was a high-school stu-dent attending boarding school, and it was a tradition in those days to go below the Bluff to Wil-lamette River and swim. After dropping his bags off on the fi fth fl oor, he ran to the river and ac-cidentally drowned.

His bags were sent back to his parents unopened.

Since then, many people have claimed to see Hillgens’ ghost, a young boy dressed in an old-fashioned bathing suit with a baseball hat and sometimes san-dals, walking the fl oors of his would-be home, Waldschmidt. The people who have experi-

RosemaryPetersDesign Editor

[email protected]

Courtesy of the University Archives

The portion of the photo inside the circle is believed to be photo-graphic evidence of the existence of the Common’s ghost, Frank Houston.This photo was taken in 1975 by Keith Kendall.

See Haunted, page 9

Brotherhood, truth, justice and authentic masculinity. These are the four pillars for which the League of Extraordinary Gentle-men, or LXG, stands.

When he was hired in 2005, Josh Noem of Campus Ministry was given the task of trying to get the male population on cam-pus more interested in partak-ing in school activities. He was asked to do so because of a na-tional trend in American colleges showing that men are lagging behind women academically and in extracurricular involvement in schools.

For two years, Noem strug-gled to come up with an idea which would involve the men on campus in one unifying activity. But in 2007, he decided to try something that St. John’s Univer-sity in Minnesota enacted, and he called it the League of Extraordi-nary Gentlemen.

“In broad terms – from a Cam-pus Ministry perspective – we’re meeting spiritual needs on cam-pus,” he said. “We’re giving them space to be self-refl ective, engage in brotherhood and communicate on a deeper level to look at sto-ries of their lives to fi nd a grand coherence.”

Noem asked the Offi ce of Residence Life to recommend any guys on campus who might

be interested in the League, and he was given 11 names.

Junior Kyle Ke-arney is one of the original men to join LXG and he is now the offi cial Web-master for the club. The LXG Web site, https://pilots.up.edu/web/LXG, is run completely by Ke-arney.

“I wanted to fi nd a group that I could have deeper discus-sions with,” Kearney said. “It’s brought men together who wouldn’t initially in-teract.”

The pilot group of LXG is still to-gether today, work-ing toward the same goals the club was founded upon, and a few new ones as well.

“We encourage discussion among men while at the same time we’re not being entirely se-rious,” he said.

The mission of the League is to give the members an environ-ment in which they feel comfort-able talking about things a little deeper than what might happen in a hallway, according to Noem. The idea is to talk about subjects other than sports, cars and girls.

“It’s creating a place for guys to be real, to be authentic with one another,” Noem said.

Meetings are supposed to give LXG members the opportunity to talk about how they really feel without fear of harassment.

Members of the League meet in small groups of eight to 10 with one or two adult mentors ev-

ery few weeks. In the beginning of each school year, the League holds a mass recruiting drive, nicknamed the “Manquisition.”

After the initial recruiting ses-sion, which has already occurred this year, joining the League isn’t encouraged; however, Noem is willing to work with men who still wish to join LXG.

The Consul for Brotherhood, junior Creede Caldwell, hopes to boost awareness of LXG on cam-pus in the future. The League is already hosting events on cam-pus, and hopes to add to that num-ber in addition to working more off campus.

“It provides a really good op-portunity for bonding and meet-ing other men,” he said. “We defi nitely hope to increase our member base and our presence.”

The groups of men are all from

the same year and stay together throughout their time at UP, to encourage a stronger friendship amongst them. Each year also follows a certain theme during discussions.

Freshmen focus on identifying who they are, sophomores talk about their relationships (namely family and friends), juniors talk about the challenges they have encountered and how they have overcome them and seniors (of which there are currently none) mentor freshmen groups and talk about what they have learned from their time in LXG.

Each meeting’s discussion is led by a different member of the group, allowing for each person in the unit to demonstrate leader-ship skills and infl uence the topic with his own experiences and feelings.

Service has also been intro-duced into the League’s curricu-lum, and several organized com-munity service projects have been completed. One of the more re-cent projects LXG participated in was removing leaves and wash-ing windows at the Children’s Relief Nursery.

The leaders of LXG make up what is called the Consulate, rep-resenting the main pillars of the group. The Legatus (president) is junior Andrew Berigan, the Con-sul for Brotherhood is Caldwell, the Consul for Justice is junior Brian Walsh and the Consul for Masculinity is junior Matthew Vanderlaan.

These men are all interested in fi nding out what it means to be a man.

“That component about ex-amining masculinity has been a really important piece for us,” Noem said. “It’s been an impor-tant value to keep us grounded in our identity as human beings and to talk about and overcome the conventional stereotypes.”

Over the past three years, LXG has grown from 11 men to over 60. It seems to double in size each year, to the great happiness of Noem and the student mem-bers.

“We’ve spread virally, with the initial group telling everyone to join,” joked Kearney.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is meant to help men on campus get involved. With group discussion, community service and a uniting sense of brotherhood, LXG is working to reverse the negative male trend at UP and get guys involved in an extracurricular activity.

LXG explores timeless side of masculinity

LaurenSeynhaeveStaff Writer

[email protected]

Campus club fosters the pursuit ofauthentic male values and concerns

Courtesy of Creede Caldwell

Juniors Kyle Kearney, Stephen Kam and Nick Etzel, members of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, take a breather while on a recent hiking trip.

One day during lunch, Uni-versity President Rev. E. Wil-liam Beauchamp expressed to Dr. Thomas Greene, dean of the graduate school, his desire to see a certain faded and rusted sculp-ture on campus repainted. The sculpture is a red steel sculpture and sits by Buckley Center near the greenhouse entrance. Greene made sure this wish was honored.

He consulted the President on the color and went out and bought the paint. With the help of the physical plant team, the sculp-ture was given a fresh new coat of paint.

“Caring for what we have is good stewardship; it’s that sim-ple,” Greene said. “Restoring the piece to its original color also enhances the sculpture and the beauty of our great campus.”

The repainted steel sculpture

is entitled “Papa Sierra” and was constructed in 1980 by Tom Morandi. It was selected from a huge art exhibit that showcased the work of ten sculptors in April 1980.

This sculpture is one of the many sculptures on campus that offer artistic expression.

The Christ the Teacher statue is one of the more noticeable sculptures on campus and sits be-tween Franz Hall and Mago Hunt Center. Performing and fi ne arts professor Jill Hoddick was on a committee in 1989 that was given the task of searching for an art-ist that would create an original sculpture for the UP campus. The committee was lead by professor Mary Margaret, a former fi ne arts professor and comprised eight faculty members and staff.

The artist Donovan Peterson was chosen and it took him about four years to actually complete the sculpture. The University President at the time, President Thomas Oddo, was very sup-portive of the piece but died in 1989 before he was able to see it brought to campus.

“The Christ the Teacher statue was a memorial to our University President Thomas Oddo,” Dr. Mi-chael Connolly, performing and fi ne arts professor, said. “He was

much beloved by students.”

The sculp-ture was in-stalled and dedicated to the President in 1995.

“The sculp-tures arrived on a truck,” Connolly said. “They enlisted the baseball team to lift them.”

The sculp-tures are made of cast bronze and are thirty percent larger than the normal human size. The fl oor un-der the sculp-tures is made of stones called basalt that are indigenous to the Holy Lands. The artist called his work “fi gu-rative abstrac-tion,” which is a blend of both representational and abstract components.

“The fi gures have a universal quality,” Hoddick said. “No defi ni-tive race, but hu-man- every man fi gures.”

There are other elements of the sculpture that pass-er-byers wouldn’t normally notice. The negatives or spaces between the fi gures were thought out by the artist and work into the piece as a whole. The baby in the piece was modeled after Pe-terson’s son.

Since its install-ment, the sculpture has been more than just aesthetically pleasing to stu-dents and faculty on campus.

“I think it is a perfect sculpture for our campus community,”

Hoddick said. “It reminds us of the religious nature of the campus, our interest in educat-ing the whole hu-man being, and sharing our gifts with others.”

The doors and front columns of the Chapel of Christ the Teacher are another example of the fusion between art and religion. The doors and columns were sculpted by LeRoy Setziol out of solid black walnut in 1986. Religious symbols can be seen in the intricate carvings in the door.

“The lines of the sun’s rays all converge into the handle,” Con-nolly said. “And there are sym-bols of the life of Jesus like an ear of corn, snail and whale.”

The door also has images that represent the four gospels. A man represents the book of Mat-thew, a lion represents Mark, an ox represents Luke and an eagle represents John. In addition, the four columns represent the four gospels.

LeRoy Setziol also completed wooden sculpture found within the lobby of Mago Hunt Center. It is 12 carved wood pieces made of Alaskan yellow cedar from the fl oor to the ceiling, resembling a totem pole. It was built in 1978 and is entitled the “Paul E. Ouel-lette Memorial Wood Sculpture.”

A sculpture that marks the University of Portland as a part of history would be the Captain William Clark Monument. The Clark Monument stands proudly at the edge of the bluff and serves as a symbol of exploration and discovery. The monument depicts

three men, William Clark, York, Clark’s black slave, and an un-named American Indian who was a member of the Cushook tribe.

The statue stands at the south-ernmost point of the Willamette River Valley, which, according to legend, is the area that Clark and his men fi rst sighted a dis-tant mountain, which Clark later named Mt. Jefferson.

“There is a marker on the ground in front of the sculpture that points to Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson,” Connolly said.

According to Connolly, this is also where Clark saw the Wil-lamette River and realized that it was a separate river from the Co-lumbia River.

“They learned about the Wil-lamette from native people out east by the Sandy River, where Troutdale is now,” Connolly said. “Clark came back overland and saw it from somewhere on the bluff, at or near our campus.”

The sculpture is cast in bronze, stands six feet and nine inches tall, and stands on a four foot concrete and stone base. Clark is seen pointing toward the moun-tain with his right hand, while holding his journal in his left. He is taking a step forward, both fi guratively and metaphorically. Clark’s windblown coat reveals four ermine tails given to him by Sacagawea as a Christmas gift in

1805. York, Clark’s slave, is shown

holding Clark’s left hand and pressing his right hand against Clark’s shoulder, as a sign of sup-port and friendship. The Cushook Indian is seen holding a wapato plant, symbolizing the Cushook heritage.

The monument was created by sculptor and muralist Michael Florin Dente in 1986. He had pri-vate collections in various places other than the Northwest such as New York City, Florence, Rome, Italy and Saudi Arabia. He also was a faculty member of the De-partment of Fine Arts at UP until 2000.

Hoddick believes that art plays a very signifi cant role on campus and hopes that students will real-ize this as well.

“I hope students will open their eyes to their surroundings,” Hoddick said. “This is a place of education and learning and what better way to learn about art than to look at it up close and person-al.”

Connolly sees art as some-thing that adds vitality and beauty to our lives when it can some-times seem repetitive.

“When you look at something beautiful it can take you out of the mundane,” Connolly said. “There are things much bigger than the day to day grind.”

Art, hidden and in plain sight

MelissaNipStaff Writer

[email protected]

Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON

The statue of Christ the Teacher, situated between Franz Hall and Mago Hunt Theatre, is one of the most familiar sculptures on The Bluff. Installed in 1995, the sculptures are made of cast bronze and are thirty percent larger than normal scale.

Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON

One of several carvings that adorn the columns of the Chapel of Christ the Teacher.

Art on campus ranges from the broadlyfamiliar to thediamonds in the roughIn over 100 years of

history, UP has a long list of otherworldly happenings

Page 2: Haunted UP

8 The Beacon October 29, 2009Living The Beacon 9October 29, 2009 Living

E TN ER T A I N M E

:)> >

enced the apparition said they were not particularly scared at the time, and they didn’t feel threat-ened.

“Two security people told me when the renovation was going on that they were in there late at night and they saw the young kid and they told him to get out,” James Covert said. “They walked toward him and he disappeared.”

According to Covert, Paul (sometimes called Peter) is very playful and he had a special at-traction to Zulema Blizinsky, who used to be a secretary in Wald-schmidt.

“Paul would infect her com-puter and play with her type-writer,” James Covert said. “She eventually cut out a heart and wrote ‘Please don’t interrupt my work.’”

According to James Covert, Hillgens was so attached to Bliz-insky that when she moved to work in Chiles Center, Hillgens followed her and was up to the same antics. She ended up leav-ing another note and Hillgens re-spected her possessions.

Hillgens is not the only pur-ported ghost to be heard in Waldschmidt. According to Karl Mitts, a Physical Plant foreman in charge of housekeeping, about 13 years ago as a janitor was clean-ing the fourth floor on Halloween night she started to hear some noises from the fifth floor.

“At first, she said she didn’t really think too much of it,” Mitts said. “But as it got closer to mid-night she started to hear a lot of

noise from the fifth floor like there was a dance party going on.”

After that, the woman left the building and vowed never to come back to work out of fear the building was haunted.

“The fifth floor of Waldschmidt is where they had dances and ate their food a long time ago, so it could be possible,” Mitts said.

Mitts has also had his own per-sonal experience with a paranormal event in Wald-schmidt almost nine years ago. Mitts had been called by a co-worker asking if he was in the building. The woman who was alone in the building was try-ing to figure out who had pushed her cart all the way down to the other end of the hall.

“The cart would have had to go over a rubber carpet strip and travel about 12 to 15 feet before it could end up where it did,” Mitts said.

As Mitts and the housekeeper were talking about the incident, they both looked up to see the sil-houette of a man walking across the open doors at the other end of the hallway.

“He was wearing a large hori-

zontal stripped shirt and khaki pants. The shirt was, if I remem-ber right, kind of green with a pale yellow color, and the pants were a medium to dark tan color,” Mitts said.

Mitts later told other people of his experience and was informed that the spirit might have been that of former University of Port-land President Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C.

According to James Covert, this is a possibility.

“President Oddo died in 1989 in a tragic accident while go-ing out to the airport. He was

so revered and loved,” Covert said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him. If he could come back, he probably would try to.”

MagoHunt

Another ghost UP students and staff have encountered is that of a little girl who haunts Mago Hunt theater.

Performing and fine arts pro-fessor Larry Larsen, although he has never seen it himself, has talked to many students who claim to have seen a ghostly little girl.

“She plays on the stage, but the next time you look she is gone. She has also been seen down in the bottom of the vom stairways,” Larsen said. “Students claim to see her when working on shows just out of the corner of their vi-sion when working downstairs or backstage.”

But where did the little girl come from?

According to sophomore Katy Portell, the identity of the little girl is a mystery.

“The ghost is a little girl thought to have either died in the fire when the original Mago Hunt burnt down several years ago or have been a daughter of a profes-sor,” Portell said.

Acting professor Mindi Logan also thinks she has had a run-in with the little girl. One day while she was teaching a class in the theater, she was on the stage and her students were sitting in the audience. She looked up to say something to the class and saw a little girl in the audience. When she looked back the girl was gone.

After this experience, Logan has refused to hold class in the theater.

On top of these sightings, students have heard piano music coming from one of the practice rooms, only to find the music coming from a dark, empty room.

The sudden appearance of a mysterious doll’s dress in a buck-et of muslin in the shop has also mystified stage crew members. According to Portell, no one put it there, and there was not a doll in any of the shows.

“No one knew how it got there or why it was there,” Portell said.

HAUNTED: frequent sightingsContinued from page 6

We hold a strange and spe-cial place for the books of our childhood. We remember the stuttering steps we took from our parents reading to us to reading along with them to retreating un-der the covers with a flashlight until long after our bedtimes.

And as many of us age, I think, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the literal content of those books with the pleasures they gave us as chil-dren, of the ways they allowed us to unmoor our imaginations, even when they don’t satisfy our older selves. When I read “The Lorax” now, for example, the six-year-old Elliot rejoices for every time the 21-year-old Elliot cringes. It is the reason I predict that few people of my generation will be able to write any sort of meaningful criticism about the “Harry Potter” series: We grew up alongside Harry, and it would betray something very deep within us to renounce him.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is one of these books, albeit not solely for people my age. First published in 1963 by Maurice Sendak, “WTWTA” falls into the long tradition of escapist fantasies from “The Wizard of Oz” to “Narnia” to “Pan’s Laby-rinth,” and is now the subject of a full-length film of the same name, released in theaters two weeks ago.

It may be embarrassingly re-dundant to even offer a synopsis, but a quick and dirty one would

read as follows: Our pro-tagonist, Max, fights with his mother over dinner, runs away, sails a boat to an island, meets the Wild Things (of which there are seven, in vari-ous sizes and zoomorphic resemblances), causes an extended “wild rumpus,” has an extended falling out with the Wild Things, and sails home to find his mother and dinner wait-ing up for him.

At this point, it’s fair to wonder exactly how, and if, all this can ac-count for a compelling two-hour movie; after all, the book consists of only a handful of sentences, where most page-to-screen adaptations suffer from an overload of lan-guage. Yet thanks to writ-er/director Spike Jonze (it was co-written with novelist Dave Eggers) and newcomer Max Re-cords, “WTWTA” works, astonishingly well at times, and the result is one of the most chal-lenging, beautiful and resonant films of the year.

Jonze, better known as the director of 1999’s “Being John Malkovich” and 2002’s “Adapta-tion,” treats Sendak’s canonical tale with all the reverence it de-serves, yet is unafraid to impose his own aesthetic vision upon it, taking things Sendak only hints at and placing them center stage. In most instances, this involves the Wild Things themselves, and the island they inhabit, which is expanded to include all sorts of

topography I don’t remember from the book.

Jonze shoots his subjects in-timately – the opening scene is a first-person sequence of Max tumbling head-over-heels down a flight of stairs – often to the point of resembling a grainy home video. The landscapes al-ternate between rocky crags to Tatooine-like stretches of sand dunes to dense, evergreen for-ests, and Jonze teases the respec-tive richness out of each of these, giving us one visual feast after another.

Records, on the other hand, is very much a passive voyager,

wide-eyed, rambunctious, but unfailingly sweet, and plays Max (the character) with the sort of open-armed acceptance that such an adventure must surely evoke in a child.

But it is with the Wild Things that Max sails headlong into a world which threatens his in-nocence, and the point where the movie takes a turn into a briar patch of tangled adult-ish emo-tions. Led by Carol (voiced by James Gan-dolfini), the Wild Things are a moody, fickle, oc-casionally funny bunch who resemble nothing if not a Support Group for Purposeless Adults, yet who flock to the roughly 10-year-old Max as their emotional lodestar.

The relationship be-tween these two camps is where “WTWTA” de-rives a good deal of its drama, and it’s also where

it lends itself most baldly to in-terpretation, especially Freudian ones. To do so, and to paraphrase the novelist David Foster Wal-lace, seems to be the equivalent of grinding a rose through a spectrometer to figure out why it smells so good. I’d rather re-frain.

I walked out of this film deep-ly ill at ease, with the vague feel-ing of concrete lining my stom-ach. I hadn’t expected to feel so confronted by a “kid’s movie,” or for it to hit so close to home, which is in no small part my own fault for having such fixed ex-

pectations in the first place. Why were the Wild Things so miser-able, adrift in an existential fog? Did Max help to save them, if they were salvageable at all? Is this supposed to be a commen-tary on the world of grown-ups? What kind of a children’s movie is this anyway?

Surprisingly, I found, if not answers, then some relief in the form of my twelve-year-old brother, who had gone to see it with me. I asked him how he liked it, and he told me that, yes, he thought it was good. As for me? Depressing, I told him. I feel confused. Oh yeah, he re-sponded – I guess it was kind of sad.

I realized then that he had seen an entirely different movie than I had, that he hadn’t picked up on the unexplained past be-tween Carol and his possible one-time crush K.W., for one, or on the half-angry/half-let-down looks which passed between them. Or the vague, listless angst that intruded on everything the Wild Things did. “WTWTA” is like a cinematic Rorschach blot: It’s a kid movie for kids, an ado-lescent movie for adolescents and an adult movie for adults.

If there is one thing that I think should be taken away from the film, it is, appropriately, the final shot. Max returns to his home and dinner and mother, waiting lovingly and anxiously up for him. She hugs him, and he begins to eat. Across the table from him, her greatest fear as-suaged, she dozes off. Here, in the real world, with the people who really care about him, is where Max belongs.

ElliotBoswellLiving Editor

[email protected]

COURTESY OF GEEKSTIR.COM

Students enter t-shirt business

Delicious food is scarce at 1 a.m. on chilly weeknights, save those nightly trips to the nearest 24-hour fast food joint. Though easy to attain and ambiguously delectable, some grow weary of their customary crunchwrap and reach for a zesty lemon/sugar crepe instead.

A slew of these adventur-ous eaters can be found chowing down on everything from freshly-cut fries to ham-filled pastries on the corner of Hawthorne and SE 12th Ave, amid the popular “un-derground cuisine” scene in Port-land’s Hawthorne District at all hours of the morning.

Potato Champion is one of five different late-night food vendors sandwiched between a used-BMW dealership and the SE 12th Ave crosswalk. Work-ing diligently under a sign that reads “Dept. of High-Fives” Eric Hansen, a Potato Champion em-ployee, serves hungry Portlanders fries every Tuesday.

Hansen took a few moments to comment on the unique envi-

ronment that this little food cart coalition has created.

“It’s a great after-hours cul-ture,” he said. “It’s 2 a.m., but when you pick something up here, you have energy, you get fired up, you have potatoes!”

Having lived in the Hawthorne

District for five years, Hansen has had the chance to experience the atmosphere that the food carts provide firsthand.

“People get off late, or come back from shows and come by for late-night snacks. It enables them to party harder,” Hansen said. “If you’re full of fries, you won’t pass out as quickly.”

The food carts are housed under a tented and lighted area that provides customers a haven from the chilly Portland rain. Food cart owners even bring heating lamps with the onset of winter, making this an enjoyable attrac-tion regardless of the season.

“We have people come in every night,” said Sofie Buck, an employee of Perierra Creperie, another popular Hawthorne vendor. “Fridays and Saturdays are just slammed. It’s like a party at the carts.”

Buck notes that this is an area where the young and the drunk congregate.

“It’s a great place to meet new people, to hang out with friends and eat good food,” Buck said.

Among the Creperie’s menu items are smoked salmon crepes and even French classics, like

Nutella/banana crepes. There are also vegan and gluten-free op-tions.

Walking between the tables,

a couple can be overheard arguing next to the garbage can.

“You’re throwing away the last bite? That’s hor-rible!” the girl yells as her boyfriend hurriedly avoids the trash can. “I’ll eat it!”

Those who hang around Hawthorne’s food vendors agree that the food is good and reasonably priced. Though there is no dollar menu, a hungry individual can pick up a large steaming crepe, or even a vegan burri-to at El Brasero, a Mexican-food stand, for as little as four dollars, and almost all food items are priced under ten dollars.

Portland native Will Smart agrees.

“I love the food,” he said. “I come here to visit friends and always drag them over to the carts and I have never been disappointed.”

The selection ranges from Mexican food to crepes to fries to shrimp and sea food. Carts are open dai-

ly from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. and the culture is as eclectic as the food served. Move over McDonalds.

Norjak is the name of the file that holds the mystery of D.B. Cooper: his daring plane hijack-ing, unexplained disappearance and missing money. Norjack is also the name of sophomore Mi-chael Calhoun’s clothing compa-ny, which stars will be wearing on the next season of the MTV show, “Taking the Stage” that is sched-uled to air in January.

The MTV deal came unex-pected. This year, Calhoun met a friend at UP who had connections with a few producers, and he asked Calhoun if he would want exposure on the channel. Soon af-ter, MTV managers checked out the Norjack website, and gave Calhoun a call a few days later, explaining an opportunity for his clothing to appear on a show called “Taking the Stage” that was being filmed.

Calhoun and roommate soph-omore Steven O’Dowd quickly put together new designs and printed out a bunch of shirts which they sent to Cincinnati. They tried new, brighter colors than they usually do, such as hot pink, highlighter yellow and neon green, in hopes that some-thing would catch MTV’s eye. A few days later, Calhoun got a text message from the manager saying that MTV “LOVED” his stuff and they wanted more.

His reaction was nothing short of pure bliss. “Oh my God, MTV wanted stuff, and they loved it,” said Calhoun after receiving the text.

The show producers asked for more women’s clothing and sweatshirts, and Calhoun shipped out another box a few days later. After checking in with producers to see if they liked the clothing and pitching more design ideas, he was given the green light to go

ahead and do whatever he liked.

“It all happened so fast,” he said.

Norjack will be worn by the stars of the show and Calhoun will be given credit, but the details are still being worked out. He doesn’t know how of-ten or when the stars will wear his clothing, since the show has al-ready been partially filmed. In terms of be-ing given credit, the details remain fuzzy: it could be his name showing up in the cred-its at the end of each episode.

“I’m expecting a lot of doors to open from it,” said Calhoun. “It’s not popular yet, but I’m hoping it will be-come popular.”

His goal is to have Norjack clothing stocked in stores, and he plans to take ad-vantage of anything he gets. Cur-rently, he sells his shirts to friends and anyone who orders one for between $10-15 each. He also does sweatshirts.

“Anything that goes big was small at one point, but I definitely l wasn’t expecting to do stuff for MTV within the year,” Calhoun said. “I just want to take this Nor-jack thing as far as I can.”

Norjack was casually born during Calhoun’s senior year in high school. While surfing the internet, Calhoun saw a contest on bustedtees.com for people to design a shirt and potentially win

$100.He designed one, but later saw

his design on another website. So he decided to make and sell his own shirts instead of enter-ing the contest, and make more

than $100. He and his friend then stumbled over the mystery of D.B. Cooper and the missing money.

“We wanted the name tied to something local,” Calhoun said.

After coming up with their name, they set out to design a logo, which also came as a sur-prise. Calhoun was experiment-ing with drawing lightning bolts,

and realized that if he put two of them together the open center cre-ated the shape of a tree.

“It’s a tip of the hat to Harry Potter,” Calhoun joked about the lightning bolts.

In keeping the company as lo-cal as possible, they saw the logo as perfect, “because there are so many trees in the Northwest.”

“It’s simple, but unique,” Cal-houn said.

That summer, Calhoun and his friend bought a screen printer off of Craig’s List, and taught them-selves how to make shirts. They bought a book about it, but most-ly learned by their mistakes.

“We got more and more effi-cient the more we did it,” he said.

Calhoun works out of his home, using the garage as his t-shirt print shop. Buckets of open paint cans with brushes sticking out sit on a table. The paint is a special kind that doesn’t dry until it is heated to over 350 degrees. The screen printing process Cal-houn uses to make Norjack shirts is the same as other brands; like Nike. The only difference is that Norjack shirts are handmade, and Nike shirts are done exclusively

by machine. After painting on the design, the paint must be cured in order to dry.

According to Calhoun, it usu-ally takes about 30 to 40 seconds, “or until it starts smoking.” He has numerous screens, and boxes of shirts that he prints to order. Until a few weeks ago, Calhoun used a heat gun to dry the paint, which sometimes left spots un-cured. He recently acquired a flash unit that distributes the heat evenly over the entire shirt, in-stead of having to use a gun to dry the design by hand.

“If there was anyone in school what would become a millionaire, even out of sheer luck, it would be him,” said sophomore friend and Norjack fan Julie Rilling.

Neither Calhoun nor his room-mate are business majors. Instead, they are both pursing degrees in engineering, skipping the busi-ness thing and straight up doing business. Wanting to do things right, Calhoun and his partner got a business license though the city of Portland, making them an official business, which enables them to get blank shirts at whole-sale prices from makers such as American Apparel.

Norjack also has its own web-site that allows people to order shirts. All of the profit goes right back into the company’s account. His partner, who currently attends the University of Montana, is ma-joring in business and eventually plans to take over the accounting side of the enterprise.

“But I did sign up for that business etiquette dinner,” Cal-houn said. “I should probably learn how to eat.”

Last year, Calhoun printed shirts for all kinds of things. Besides making shirts for fun, he made shirts for The Beacon staff, UP Democrats Club and the Guam Club. He also made shirts for his high school and “I heart Kayla” shirts for a friend who had cancer, giving the proceeds to help pay her medical bills.

“To go from negotiating with RA’s about doing hall shirts to negotiating with a manager to do stuff with MTV pretty much overnight, it’s pretty sweet,” he said.

Student’s clothing company will be seen on MTV’s “Taking the Stage” show

ElizabethTertadianStaff Writer

[email protected]

Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON

Sophomores Michael Calhoun and Steven O’Dowd work on shirt designs for Calhoun’s clothing line, Norjack.

“Anything that goes big was small at one point, but I

definitely wasn’t expectingto do stuff for MTV.”- Michael Calhoun, sophomore

Hawthorne offers late-night bitesOlgaMosiychuk

Staff [email protected]

“If you’re full of fries, you

won’t pass out as quickly.”

- Eric Hanson, Haw-thorne food vendor

Erica Ellingsen | THE BEACON

A couple enjoys a night-time meal in the Haw-thorne District. Food carts are open daily from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Reilly Hourigan | THE BEACON

The fourth floor of Waldschmidt is rumored to be the site of multiple ghostly sight-ings, including the purported spirits of former student Paul Hillgens and former University President Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C.