At a school with over a century of history, we can find remnants of the past everywhere: the Great Book signed by every newly matriculated Bishop’s student, relics from old dormitories like the showers and odd doorways scattered among classrooms, black and white photos lining Upper Gilman — echoes of a community that is long gone, yet ever present.
How much of the past truly lingers in our midst, and in what form? Skeptics of all things paranormal may dismiss campfire stories about ghosts, but at our school, we’ve got a fair few accounts of ghostly encounters to share.
The ghosts who roam freely across campus
Head of Security Mr. Danny Newsom began hearing ghost stories from various faculty and students in 2013, when he first started working at Bishop’s. One such story was “about a woman and her dog around the area on the quad between the Head of School Office and the Chapel,” he explained. “Told to me at their respective times, by two separate accounts, were that the woman resembles Miss Cummins and her dog, a cocker spaniel that she had with her all the time.” According to these accounts, she was described as “looking over the campus with a ‘joyful, proud smile’” or “focused on her dog playing around.”
Miss Caroline Seely Cummins was, in fact, the Headmistress of Bishop’s for thirty years, from 1921 to 1953, according to the San Diego Historical Society.
In an interview she gave to the Society’s Spring 1987 issue, she had pointed out how students — under her philosophy of school being a “boot camp” for learning how to be “orderly” and “prompt” — would never be “seen lying on the grass looking ‘like slain bodies on a battlefield.’” She had a particular “nostalgia” for the quad, as she described in one interview following her retirement. Coincidence? Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff,” said Security Guard Mr. Mike Ellenburg, raising his eyebrows and nodding sincerely. He has been working the 10:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. shift for around 20 years.
“I’ve heard talking inside one of the buildings on the second floor. And before I went inside, I knocked on the door. Nobody answered,” Mr. Ellenburg described. “They kept yelling — it was an argument. There was a man and a woman arguing inside this room. And I kept knocking.”
Oftentimes, teachers stay late on campus to work or catch up on grading, but when Mr. Ellenburg finally opened the door and went inside, “there was nothing in the room. It was dark. No noise, no nothing.”
One night at around 10:00 p.m., he recalled that a woman who used to work on the custodian staff “came screaming, talking about how she saw some woman inside [Ellen Browning Scripps]” Dining Hall. When Mr. Ellenburg went to check, he didn’t see anything, but felt “cold parts” in the air. According to a research article in Frontiers of Psychology studying 20 years-worth of ghost folklore and stories, “the most reported temperature anomalies” in paranormal encounters are, in fact, “cold spots, i.e., a distinct perception of localized coldness.”
Our security guards take their jobs of keeping our campus a safe place very seriously, which means they are always carefully surveilling security camera footage — and the guards have often spotted their ghostly friends on their monitors. Mr. Ellenburg was told by his coworkers that they had seen a person in the Draper Lot, near the tennis courts, loitering around the loading dock by the dumpsters.
“They kept thinking a person was just fooling them, but every time they would go out [to see], this person would be gone,” he said. The security guards kept watch for “three nights in a row,” and kept seeing “that same person in that same spot. And every time they would go there, they’d be gone.”
He, too, “caught something on the camera one time.” He explained, “It was a guy going out in South Cuvier. I thought it was a student who snuck in, but as soon as he got outside the gate, he disappeared. There was nothing. No person, no nothing.”
The two or three ghosts who enjoy a good show
Students who spend a lot of time in the theater often stay late at school — like theater tech crew members Ariadne Georgiou (‘26) and Sophie Zeng (‘26), costume designer Lela Felix (‘26), or actors Naveen Hernandez (‘26) and Jackson Weisser (‘26). They’ve built a theater subculture around the common consensus that ghosts are occupying their space.
“If any ghosts would live anywhere, it would definitely be [the theater basement],” said Naveen. “All the props down there have been used many times, and I feel like all the different characters embodied with those props would leave some sort of imprint.”
Jackson and Ariadne both agreed, separately, that there are “two or three” theater ghosts who live in the Taylor Performing Arts Center (TPAC), both in the basement and the theater, which are connected. “People definitely say that when they’re alone in the theater, sometimes if you’re on the stage focusing lights and it’s dark, you feel like ‘Oh, maybe there’s an extra presence around,’” Ariadne explained.
Technical Director Mr. Kyle Melton is convinced that there are ghosts in the theater. “There was one time I was sitting there, and I got a really interesting chill that was different from a regular one,” he described. He has never seen a ghost directly, but affirms that “there are definitely sounds.”
Ariadne explained that “the basement feels a little creepy sometimes because when people step on the stage, the sound distorts in a way where it sounds like it’s behind you rather than above you.” She, too, has never seen a ghost, but she “does not doubt that they’re there.”
Lela, who has been working on costumes for three years, agreed that while she hasn’t had any “direct encounters,” there is “more [of] a feeling of a ghost” in the theater space. “We have a superstition that we have to say ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to the basement ghosts so they don’t curse or follow us,” she said, chuckling.
In fact, rather than ghosts being merely the subject of creepy stories, many performing arts students have welcomed them as members of their community, who simply exist alongside the living. Sophie mentioned that the crew always leaves a “ghost light” on for “when the theater is empty, so the theater is never completely dark and unoccupied, because it’s supposed to ward off ghosts.” She explained, “If you’re the last one leaving the theater, you have to make sure the ghost light is on before you leave.”
“We recognize that when the last person leaves at the end of rehearsal or at the end of the night, there’s still someone in the theater,” Ariadne added. The ghost light also doubles as a safety measure, ensuring people can still see where they’re stepping with other lights off.
Ghosts also serve as an explanation for any random occurrences that happen in the theater. “Those are the games they like to play to trick you,” Mr. Melton shared. “Every now and then, there’s a fun one, which is probably just a neglectful someone who picked up a prop and didn’t think about it.”
“It’s not like weird things are happening in the theater all the time, but if something does get strangely misplaced and there’s no explanation for it, then people might be like, ‘Oh, yeah, the theater ghost moved it or switched it,’” Ariadne said.
When Mr. Melton used to work later in the evening, he would “hear things” — doors closing, something moving on the roof. Sometimes it’s security — other times there’s truly no one else there to explain the sound. “And so when I hear those things, I just say, ‘I hear you, I’m sorry. I’ll be done in a few minutes,’” Mr. Melton said.
Ariadne said, “I’ve been involved in theater tech since I was in seventh grade, and as long as I’ve been here, we’ve all been talking about ghosts. They’re a commonly accepted thing.”
“And theaters have had a bad reputation of trapping people inside and tragedies occurring. So this idea of life and death, art — all of that radiates this feeling that there’s definitely lingering spirits around,” Mr. Melton said. “Any true theater becomes a true theater when it has a ghost.”
He added, “As for how it gets a ghost, I think it’s through connections of people who have been there for a long time. If you ever walk into a deceased family member’s house, there’s still this feeling of them. To me, that’s kind of the same thing.”
The ghosts whose legacies we honor through our beliefs
Mr. Ellenburg, despite spending so many nights alone on campus with the ghosts and their shenanigans, doesn’t feel scared of them, in large part because the ghosts are tied to previous community members. He described the school as a “sponge for memories” of students and teachers past.
“I thought about that so many times. All those memories, all those spirits being left behind — the student spirit is what we thrive on,” he explained. “I tell myself that, when the seniors graduate, they leave that spirit here. And y’all get to absorb it over and over. It’s the most gracious feeling in the world. No spooks or anything could ever scare me away.”
Naveen explained that the crew always “leaves an empty chair at every performance for the ghost of Ellen Browning Scripps,” or any ghost who lives on campus — up in the catwalks, on the balcony, or somewhere in the house. After all, “they need a place to sit down.”
This tradition not only honors theater ghost culture, but is one way for Bishop’s to keep its past alive in the present. Mr. Melton started working at Bishop’s in 2016, and he was close with performing arts faculty who have since passed away — Dance Teacher Ms. Donna Cory and Accompanist Mr. Jared Jacobsen. “There’s definitely more than one [ghost] in our theater. I know Ms. Cory is definitely one. Not one to mess with us, but I always leave a seat up there, especially for her shows. Because I know she’s here,” he explained.
“That’s the way I look at ghosts. There’s something about Ms. Cory that I just know there’s no way she’d leave. She loves the kids too much, and she’s keeping an eye on us while she’s gone,” Mr. Melton added. “I think that of Mr. J, too. We lost him, but he’s still here. Every time I see that piano bench, I know there’s candy in it.”
Mr. Jacobsen passed away in 2019, when the current senior class had just begun sixth grade. Ms. Cory passed away in 2022. But Mr. Melton thinks, by continuing to acknowledge the presence of their ghosts across campus, we can resist “losing contact” with them through the passing of time.
Mr. Ellenburg also described instances where the ghosts were former members of the Bishop’s community. For example, he heard from one guard that a volleyball had been kicked over their head in the middle of the night, which was hypothesized to have been kicked by “a student who died in a plane crash and was a very good soccer player for this school.”
Having ghosts around campus is also a reminder of how many people, stories, and history came before us — a unique feature of our school. “The campus is kind of like the theater, in the fact that it has so much history. There are definitely more spirits about. Because we’re such a historical place, I feel that there are a lot of people who are coming back to keep an eye on us,” Mr. Melton said. “As long as you appease them and you stick to the rules and everything, the ghosts should play fair. I think it’s just a fun, extra thing to think about.”
Mr. Ellenburg experiences our ghosts on a daily basis, but has absolutely no intention of leaving. “You can hear keys jingling in one of the buildings, and nobody is there, and [another time] I felt somebody touch my shoulder,” he said. “You do get those feelings, but if you get used to it, it’s not that bad. Matter of fact, the feeling is a friend of mine.”
So, whether you’re a believer in ghosts or you’re not quite on board — the supernatural has always been debated — consider taking time to look out for the spirits of this school who look out for you, and appreciate the lasting legacies of our small but historically rich community.
Who knows? You might just catch one in action!
