ERMS Library Haunted?

Are there ghosts, poltergeists and other spirits haunting the East Ridge Middle School Library?  This was a question students used to ask when the library took up the entire front of the first floor of East Ridge Middle School.  It was a much larger space with shelves covering the walls and dividing the back of the library.  The portraits of past Principals hung on the wall of the library, which may have been the cause of stories that the library was haunted. The murals that used to decorate the top of the walls also gave the library a very different feel than today. (the photo is from 2008)

Rumors students from the past mentioned were books being moved, items out of place, whispers and noises, shadows in the library, and the eyes of the Principal’s portraits following them. (principal portrait at end of story)  Most of this can be attributed to students moving or misplacing books themselves, lighting in the library with the tall shelves, classes in the hallway on the other side of the wall and good old fashioned imagination.  When I asked retired night custodian, Mr. Herbert Elder, about this he would just laugh, but never gave a definite answer. He would smile and just say: “Maybe, it’s different at night.”

The Library was renovated with a new floor in 2017 and since then has grown smaller due to the need of additional classrooms.  With a wall added for a classroom and a moveable partition, it doesn’t have the same feel and since then the questions about it being haunted have long gone away.  Sometimes, I do swear things do get moved around, but that may be my age showing.