In the darkness of night illuminated by a lamp, students and families followed Raider Power of Paranormal’s Haunted Tour of Texas Tech Campus to learn of the university’s spooky side Friday evening.
The event was hosted in collaboration with the School of Theatre and Dance and the Military and Veterans Program. RPOP members took students and families around campus to share stories about supernatural Tech legends.
Emma Pitts, a fourth-year English and Chinese major from Las Cruces, New Mexico, said the organization has been planning this event since summer.
“We’ve had this tour for a few years now,” Pitts said. “This specific one we have been, the current executive council has been working on this since July.”
With the tours happening once a year, she said a lot of preparation goes into setting everything up, such as getting permission for the event, setting up a ticket system, holding auditions for storytellers and promoting the event.
Pitts, one of RPOP’s primary coordinators, said this would be her final haunted tour before she graduates. She said seeing the event one last time shows just how much the organization’s work has paid off.
“I really love the club, and I really love this event,” Pitts said. “I’m excited to just have one last moment where all of our hard work from the last four months is kind of rewarded.”
Tours around campus are led by investigators — RPOP members serving as the guides for the groups — as they encounter storytellers to tell of Tech’s supernatural tales and mysteries.
Eryn Galan, a third-year biology major from New Braunfels and lead chief investigator for the tour, said the event relied on a rigid schedule to make sure the tour was as engaging and dramatic as possible.
A lantern sits on a table during a haunted campus tour Oct. 24, 2025.
Jadon Chesnutt
“Basically we would practice stopping at every tour stop while the dramatic storytellers would give their story,” Galan said. “We would practice on where we’re going to stop, things we’re going to say, how to handle certain situations.”
Claire Carbajal, a fourth-year civil engineering major from Houston and tour attendee, said she checked out the tour to hear of the spooky side of Tech campus, which is something she hadn’t known much of previously.
“My parents come up once a semester so I was like, ‘Let’s just do something spooky and fun,’ and we’ve never done this before,” Carbajal said.
Kaitlyn Burke, a fourth-year history major from McKinney, attended one of the first tours of the night and said the event came at a perfect time for the holiday season.
“I just am really into Halloween, haunted, spooky stuff, and it seemed really fun,” Burke said. “I was looking at all the parent, family weekend stuff, so I was like oh that seems fun to do with my family.”
As a history major, she said the tour was interesting and she learned new things about campus.
Burke said it’s important to support organizations at the university and encouraged others to participate or attend as many events as possible.
“I feel like contributing to any clubs and organizations on campus is super fulfilling,” Burke said. “Just being out here and spending time on campus with a lot of other students and community members is super fun.”