Troy Public Radio listeners get "Spooked" for Halloween

Every year, Troy Public Radio (TPR) holds a scary story marathon when Halloween week comes around and invites friends to come and get spooked with them.

“Spooked” is a podcast series by Snap Judgment, led by Glynn Washington, that features readings of different spooky stories, often inspired by real experiences. Every year, TPR holds a marathon of these stories for Halloween and brings different guests to react to and talk about the stories. Quinton Cockrell, a Troy dance professor and friend of TPR, was the guest last Wednesday.

“I'm always looking for new experiences,” Cockrell said. “I've never done this particular program before; I've worked on other programs for TPR, but this was a first.

“I was invited, and whenever I am invited to Troy Public Radio, I try to make it.”

Without giving away any spoilers for the episode, the story Cockrell listened to was about a couple that frequently traveled and stayed in many hotels. One day, they visited a hotel suite and encountered a ghost that changed the course of their stay at the hotel.

“It was presented just as if someone was telling an occurrence that happened to them,” Cockrell said. “I honestly don't know if it was scripted or if it was real or what, but it felt real.

“That feeling of reality, that this happened to a real person, and it can happen to you, I really enjoy that aspect of storytelling.”

The story hits close to home for Cockrell because he is a traveler and enjoys having alone time and free time in hotels when he’s on the road or off the plane. That wasn’t a coincidence.

“Sometimes the approach is also: we ask them, ‘What are you scared of?’ and then we try to find a story that is on the same wavelength as their worst fear,” said host of the show, Reanna Wallace, a junior theatre education major from Butler, Alabama.

Occasionally, they get guests on the show that will scream, curse and jump out of their seats. Wallace said seeing and hearing the reactions of the guests is her favorite part of the show.

“My favorite part about it has been the conversations that we have afterwards,” Wallace said. “I always ask them the question, what scares you, or what truly terrifies you after we do it, just so we can just talk about our fears and phobias.”

The idea of the podcast was to take a tradition of radio and expand on it to give both the students and the listeners a more creative outlet.

“Spooky stories on the radio have been around since the beginning of radio, really, with ‘War of the Worlds’ being the most famous example of that,” said Kyle Gassiott, the operations manager for TPR. “Letting the students have their own spin and take on it is just kind of a natural extension of that.”

With how much the guests, students and listeners enjoy the show, Gassiott believes it is a staple that will continue to be around for the foreseeable future.

“I always say that we have better pictures because they're in your mind,” Gassiott said. “If you're hearing a scary story from somebody, and you're conjuring images in your head, it could be a whole lot scarier and more effective, so to speak, than if you were maybe seeing them, somebody else's vision of that.

“I think it's a natural thing, and I think that's part of the reason why we keep it going every year.”