Haunted Museum Program offers entertainment, education

Volunteers in costume bring depicted characters to life.

By Katherine Miller

Published Oct. 27, 2008

Watching works of art come alive was just as educational as it was scary at the Haunted Museum tour.

The Museum of Art and Archeology gave a haunted tour on Saturday that educated guests on famous works of art. Upon entering the museum, guests received a ticket for the tour, which ran every 10 minutes. Coloring pages, temporary tattoos and two movies, "Scooby Doo on Zombie Island" and "The Wizard of Oz," were provided during the wait.

This year was the fifth annual Haunted Museum tour.

The event also featured various animals. Juniors Jessica Zoellner and Elizabeth Matye, from MU's Raptor Rehabilitation Project, brought various birds for guests to observe up close.

"We bring our birds out to educational programs like this, to educate the public and to show them these wonderful birds and why we need them in our areas - why they're an asset to our world," Matye said.

MU biology lab coordinator Richard Daniel also brought a variety of reptiles, amphibians and arachnids for the event.

The main feature of the night was the actual tour itself. Guests were led through the galleries, stopping to hear speeches from five characters. Volunteers dressed up in costume told stories of their lives and more importantly, their deaths, while highlighting the corresponding art.

"The people who give the presentations dress up as something that is in the museum to literally make the art come alive and to educate people and have it be entertaining at the same time," tour guide Anne Griffith said.

Six tour guides led the guests through the dark galleries.

Cathy Calloway, the Museum Educator and head of the event, discussed the Haunted Museum Program's purpose.

"The neat thing about it is that it's not your run-of-the-mill haunted house," she said. "It's characters. It's very educational, so if you find that scary, then maybe it's scary. Otherwise, we make an effort not to scare people. We do it in the dark, so that's the haunted part."

Despite the Homecoming football game being at the same time, coordinators of the event were optimistic.

"We had more than 300 people last year, and right before we opened I was like, oh, we're not going to have that many people, and the student volunteers are going to be so disappointed, but it wasn't a problem," Calloway said.

The event attracted more than 200 people this year.

Overall, the event was an opportunity for MU and Columbia to learn more about art in a Halloween setting, Calloway said.

"I hope people got out of the event a love for art, especially the art we have represented upstairs," Calloway said. "What I also hope they got is an appreciation for the museum - that they feel comfortable coming back because, really, museums are for everyone."