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Haunted Athens Tour Provides History, Benefits Students
By: Paola Santiago
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After the block party and trick-or-treating, what's left to celebrate on Halloween in Athens?
The Theatre Association for Graduate Students hosts a tour for participants that takes them around several of Athens most "haunted" locations. The scripted tour makes a stop at all of Athens' cemeteries which, according to the script, makes a pentagram, a symbol of magic and power. The script suggests the reason for Athens' strange occurrences is because of this occult symbol.
Among other notable stops is the Ridges, formally known as the Athens Insane Asylum.
The driver for this year's tour, Jerena Cofed, said that the Ridges is their final and favorite stop.
"Athens has a pretty rich history of being haunted, some of the stories we embellish some of them we just don't need to because the story is scary enough," she said. "But we always just end up at the ridges."
Cofed said that of the 25 graduate students involved in the making of the tour, there are several that volunteer to act as the ghosts of Asylum patients.
"We'll have people dressed up in hospital gowns with make up on just kind of walking around. our drivers never acknowledge the fact that there are people around," she said. "It's a fun time."
The 45 minute tour incurs a small fee of five dollars. The money goes towards grant funds for the graduate students to offset their academic fees and traveling costs.