It was a gloomy and rainy day on Oct. 14 — the perfect setting for some spine-chilling tales to fire the Binghamton University community up with some Halloween spirit. At 1:30 p.m., alumni and students alike gathered together in the Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center Multipurpose Room to listen in closely as Libby Tucker, distinguished service professor of English, divulged some of Binghamton’s most well-kept secrets with the Homecoming crowd.
During her talk, Tucker provided a mantra for the creepy stories to come.
“School spirit is reflected by school spirits,” Tucker said.
Tucker’s TIER talk, titled Campus Ghost Stories and Other Folklore: A Conversation with Libby Tucker, was just one alumni-focused event in a series of activities centered around last week’s Homecoming weekend. The Binghamton TIER talks are a speaker series focused on alumni and faculty in order to give viewers insight into the thought-provoking topics on the minds of people today.
Matthew Winston Jr., one of the coordinators of Homecoming weekend and executive director of alumni engagement, spoke about the TIER talk and explained the role of events like this in the context of an alumni-centric weekend.
“This discussion really just gave us an opportunity to connect the intellectual resources of our faculty with students and alumni who took classes here,” Winston said. “This whole weekend around Homecoming, and highlighting and showcasing this faculty member, is just a great way to continue to engage and make those connections between alumni and the experiences they had as students.”
Winston later discussed the topicality of this conversation, which was timed so perfectly in the center of the Halloween season.
“Halloween season for me has always been about the folklore,” Winston said. “Everything that’s been traditionally associated with Halloween. The horror stories, ghost stories and that kind of thing.”
From Charlene the laundry lady in Hughes Hall, to the tall, shadowy figures that wander the nature preserve late at night, this talk was filled with ghouls and frights for everyone to indulge.
Janine Bryant, BU ’84 and Denise Reinalter, BU ’83, spoke on their experiences listening along to the spooky campus legends.
“The first thing [Tucker] talked about was the silver mines in the Susquehanna River,” Bryant said. “The thing with the guardians haunting it, that’s a story I actually heard when I was here, so that clicked something — you could see them late at night, coming home from Downtown [Binghamton].”
Reinalter agreed and included some of her own perspective on the subject.
“I just think it’s very interesting,” Reinalter said. “I’ve never been to an event like this. It’s [scary] on college campuses, especially in basements when it’s late at night — it gives you a different perspective on [Binghamton].”
Both agreed upon the undeniable importance of engaging with legends like the ones discussed by Tucker over the course of the afternoon.
“It gives you a good feel for the actual culture of the community,” Bryant said. “The stories that people like to tell reflect how they like to live and how the culture is.”
In an email interview, Tucker went into detail about the significance of folklore to a community and how these kinds of stories can build real character into a locale.
“Community folklore helps us become part of a group and interact with others in a meaningful way,” Tucker wrote. “For example, when first-year students arrive at college in the late summer or fall, their RAs or other older students may tell them stories about exciting, eerie things that have happened in the past. On our campus, such stories have described the Lake Lieberman monster grabbing first-year students at Newing [College] and the child ghost Lilly playing tricks on students in the halls and staircases of Cleveland Hall at Hinman [College].”
One fun fact Tucker shared is that the creator of “The Twilight Zone,” Rod Serling, grew up in Binghamton and drew inspiration for some of the thematic elements from his experience in New York state’s Southern Tier. She discussed why Broome County and the Greater Binghamton Area is such a hot spot for scary stories.
“When I arrived here in 1977, I heard that the Southern Tier is a place of power because the convergence of the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers creates good energy,” Tucker wrote. “Being in a river valley, we get fog, rain and dark skies, all of which are conducive to ghost story telling.”
Tucker included some details as to how she is preparing for this year’s spooky season.
“This year I’m going to wear a costume that I purchased at our local Halloween Spirit shop,” Tucker wrote. “The ‘Trick r Treat’ shirt is related to the classic ‘Trick r Treat’ movie, which came out in 2007. I have been interviewed this fall by several producers of podcasts who want to learn about the supernatural. Starting at 5 p.m. on the evening of Halloween, I have candy ready at home for trick-or-treaters.”
The TIER talk was an engaging way to learn a little bit more about the Binghamton community. When wandering campus late at night, ghostly figures may wander the grounds, one might just run into Sam the Snacker, Charlene the pink laundry lady or the Lake Lieberman monster. In Binghamton, it’s hard to tell when those crunching leaves are really a creature just waiting to creep up …