The official online rumor mill at Southeast Missouri State University has been grinding away for five years, dispelling the ridiculous, acknowledging the benign and sometimes even confirming that what students have been whispering about is actually true.

It's called The Rumor Mill @ Southeast, and it is asked questions every day that run the gamut, from entertainment -- "Is Kid Rock coming?" -- to the practical -- "When is Cheney Hall getting new furniture?" -- to the serious -- "I heard a girl was attacked and raped in Pig Lot last week. Is this true?"

Since its inception in 1999, Ann Hayes, the director of the university's news bureau, has overseen The Rumor Mill, which can be accessed from Southeast's Web site at www.semo.edu. Hayes said they have received 545 questions since the site was invented.

"We really set it up as a way to open lines of communication and dispel any false rumors out there and correct information," Hayes said. "There's an archive, and if you look at it, anything and everything has been asked on The Rumor Mill."

Hayes said the most common themes are parking, food service and residence life -- issues that most closely affect students.

Students can anonymously post online questions, which Hayes then investigates and answers.

"I really just call and check it out," she said. "I call an office or a department on campus that has knowledge about a particular issue. I get to the bottom of it and get a response."

Doug Richards, who is director of public safety at Southeast, said his use of The Rumor Mill is limited to responding to the news bureau's questions. When a lack of clarity exists regarding parking, law enforcement or some other area he oversees, Richards gives Hayes an answer.

Students said they liked having the service, which is used often. Senior Jeremy Boyer, 23, has sent in four or five questions since his freshman year.

"I've asked everything from questions about parking to the most recent one -- about all the noise the power plant makes," said Boyer, who is from Potosi, Mo., and is majoring in music education.

The complaint was given a quick response, Boyer said. During the week he wrote the e-mail to The Rumor Mill, tests were being run on a boiler that required exhausting excess steam, which is a very noisy process.

"The Rumor Mill at least lets us know what's going on," he said.

"You constantly hear stuff around campus," said senior Mary Stinson of Jackson. "The Rumor Mill is somewhere you can go and submit a question and within one or two days you get back an answer."

Hayes said some of the questions are routine and some are more serious. The most serious one lately was the question about an alleged rape in Pig Lot. Hayes responded to that question by saying that a victim had not come forward, but campus police had received information concerning an alleged sexual assault. A campus alert flier was posted in numerous locations on campus.

"Those kinds of things surface from time to time," she said. "That's a more serious one than has been asked in the past couple of months."

Others are more frivolous. For example, one recent poster clearly got confused by a play that was coming to Southeast -- "Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends: An Evening with the Illuminati," and sent an e-mail asking if it were true that students are receiving things in the mail from the Illuminati.

"Some that I get are off the wall," she said. "I don't even know what they're referring to or why they asked the question."

She noted an example: "Do you know was a coaxial cable is?"

"I thought, 'Why are you asking this on The Rumor Mill?'" Hayes said. "Some people see it as the Bureau of Information. But it's really there to clarify and present information on that they don't know where to go."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611