I thought I went to a party school. Turns out I attended college at one of the Scariest Places on Earth.

        At least according to a Fox cable channel. (Consider the source).

        The premiere of the week-long Scariest Places on Earth (9 p.m., Fox Family Channel) opens with a 15-minute report saying that Athens, Ohio, home of Ohio University, “harbors a history of horror.”

        The special, hosted by Linda Blair (The Exorcist), quotes the British Society for Psychical Research saying that “the 13th most haunted place on Earth is Athens, Ohio.”

        Maybe that's why so many kids who went to OU with me never completed their degree. Yeah, that's the reason: Ghosts. Not cheap Goebel's or P.O.C. Beer, hangovers, Halloween street parties or the Vietnam War.

        According to the show, Athens is doomed because five cemeteries form a pentagram around the Southeastern Ohio town.

        Fox cameras follow Jim Michnowicz from OU Student Services as he takes four students on a poorly lit, Blair Witch-style tour of two of the scariest places in town:

        • The former 1873 Athens Lunatic Asylum, known as the Athens Mental Health Center during my days on campus (1971-75).

        • The haunted fourth-floor Wilson Hall dorm room where a female student committed suicide in 1981.

        Wilson apparently wasn't haunted when I lived next door in James Hall in 1971-73. It was a men's dorm them. By the late 1970s, Wilson was co-ed. (The girls grew flowers in the urinals.)

        OU has since torn out the bunk beds and converted the fourth-floor corner room into a boiler room. During Mr. Michnowicz's tour, a board falls in the corner, and a girl screams. Someone knocks on the door, and the girl shrieks again. Right on cue.

        “You hear stories about stuff ... but that was one of the most chilling places I've ever been,” Mr. Michnowicz says outside Wilson Hall.

        Yes, you hear stories and stuff, but I don't believe them. Maybe it's because I'm from another era.

        My OU contemporaries talked about the haunted dorm at Miami University. A student actually vanished from Fisher Hall in the 1960s, never to be seen again. But Fox couldn't film at Miami, because Fisher Hall has been demolished to make room for the Marcum Conference Center.

        I'll admit that Athens almost turned into a ghost town. One-third of the enrollment vanished from OU during my four-year stay, as the Vietnam War and the draft were ending.

        Enrollment plummeted from 18,000 to 12,600. Kids dropped out when they no longer needed a student deferment to avoid fighting a war they didn't believe in.

        The Vietnam War? To my classmates, that was the scariest place on Earth.

        No go: Kimberly Ray from WVMX-FM (94.1) won't be one of Regis Philbin's sidekicks this week when female radio personalities audition on Live with Regis (9 a.m., Channel 9).

        Ms. Ray, whose audition video was broadcast Oct. 11, says Live producers didn't pick any DJ whose audition video was broadcast on the show. Live selected five nationally syndicated radio DJs, including Delilah from Seattle carried week nights by WRRM-FM (98.5).

        Queen for day: Camille Goetz, the 5-year-old Forest Park girl who saved her mother's life Feb. 26, will be on the Queen Latifah show Tuesday (2 p.m., Channel 19) with her parents, Christina and Steve Goetz.

        The Enquirer reported last spring that Camille called 911 when her mother had a convulsive seizure. Queen Latifah's topic: “I Want To Thank A Hero.”

        Warner plans: Greater Cincinnati Time Warner cable subscribers will be offered two new innovations next year — video on demand and high-definition TV signals.

        Virgil Reed, Time Warner franchise manager, recently told the Cincinnati Advertising Club that many of his 340,000 customers will be able to order movies on demand through his cable system next year.

        “In a few months, you will have the ability to order a movie, or other programming, when you want it, by your remote (control). You'll never have to rent or return a videotape again,” he says.

        Time Warner also will provide “HDTV from both broadcast and cable networks” to subscribers next year, he says.

        Around the dial: The Great Performances pre-empted earlier this month, Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2000 with the Cleveland Orchestra, airs 9-11 p.m. today on Oxford's Channel 14.

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