MANKATO — At Bethany Lutheran College, students still whisper her name — especially this time of year — and wonder if she’s haunting campus. And some know the truth of her fate.

Her name was Lenore, and she was a loner. Her quirky behavior drew the attention of the other girls, and it wasn’t the kind of attention anyone would seek out. Even in 1926, when Lenore was a freshman, girls at this “ladies college” knew how to exploit another’s weakness.

They tormented her and teased her. She was an outcast.

Then one day she found a stray cat wandering around campus. It was bedraggled. Lenore took it in. She knew she wasn’t supposed to have pets in the Bethany dorms, but she risked it anyway. She identified with it, as they both seemed to have gone through a rough time in their lives.

Eventually, however, the other girls on her floor learned of Lenore’s new friend. And it didn’t take them long to use the cat to torment her. They released the cat, prompting Lenore to run after it.

The cat ran up a flight of stairs to an attic used for storage, and Lenore followed in pursuit. But when she got to the top of the stairs, she turned to face the girls, who now were collected at the bottom of the stairs laughing.

She screamed, “I’ll come back and deal with you later!” and entered the attic. While inside, she stepped on some exposed electrical wiring and was electrocuted.

To this day, every 18 years she returns to campus to haunt the place where her tormentors led her to her death.

Or, at least, that’s basically how the story goes.

It’s been told since about 1962, and it’s seen a few variations. (The most popular variation ends with Lenore taking her own life, and an aghast group of girls screaming at the sight of her corpse hanging from a noose in the attic.)

It’s still passed on, too.

Jenna Bohn, a junior from Cambridge, said she’s heard versions of the tale, as well.

“Some people say something happened on the third floor,” Bohn said. “Something about a body hanging.”

Emma Bauer, a student at Bethany from 2003 to 2005, said the consensus among the girls on her floor was that the room she and her roommates had was Lenore’s room.

She recalled a few doors that had shut by themselves and a few other unexplainable occurrences. And as for the story of Lenore, she remembers this version:

“She was a loner that nobody paid attention to who used to hang out by herself in the attic of the dorms and practice piano on an old piano up there. Then one day she hung herself in the attic and has haunted the dorms ever since. I also remember something about her having a pet cat.”

One class at Bethany even used the ghost for a research assignment. Instructor William Kessel had his students survey a group of students on what they’d heard about Lenore.

Of those surveyed, eight said they’d heard Lenore had been hanged, five said electrocution, three said suicide, and one each said murder, jumped out the window and strangled.

Twenty said her ghost still haunts Anderson Hall. Thirteen said she had a cat. Six heard the story from a fellow student.

Enter Tom Kuster.

He came to Bethany as a professor in the early 1960s, and as he was the new guy, the staff at The Scroll student newspaper asked him to pitch in a Halloween story for the fall edition.

He agreed and pondered his contribution. And this is when Lenore was born. She is a product of Kuster’s mind and nothing more.

Like most colleges, Bethany had already had a few vague ghost stories, but nothing with substance, and nothing with a story.

So Kuster gave form and substance to those vague “I heard footsteps” stories. He also got creative about it.

The name Lenore came from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Lenore is the name of the narrator’s lost love, the love of which the raven only replies, “Nevermore.”

Also inspired was the “every 18 years” part of the story. Kuster said he used that number because, during that very fall of 1962, it would have been Lenore’s year to haunt campus again.

While the story of Lenore isn’t Kuster’s only contribution to Bethany, it may be the one that gives him the most amusement.

“There is some delight in spooking the new students,” he said.

And Kuster’s never been secretive about it. Over the years, to anyone who has asked, he’s told the story of that Scroll article he wrote.

He was unable to find a copy of that article, however.

Not in his archives. Not at the library. Nowhere.