Having a ghost to hang out at my Ghost Hunter Shop was a rather good deal.  Over the many years that I taught my Ghost Hunter Certification class there were many times Henry would come through and assist by sending us messages that we captured on audio as an EVP or appear as an apparition in a photo and guide us to other ghosts that needed our help crossing over. 

Shortly after I married Chuck, I became Marketing Director of his Art Gallery Business.  I managed his website, I was a representative to his retail clients, I organized and created his catalog which included equine horse art along with equine sculptures and other home décor items.  After about a week of coming into the gallery and working I started to feel that there might be a spirit lurking in the background of the building, especially up at the front desk.  Finally, I went to Chuck and asked if he had noticed any kind of weird, unexplained activity going on up at the front desk or down the halls.  He thought and responded with a no.  I explained to him that I had seen a figure out of the corner of my eyes appearing around the front desk and down the hallway.  He looked at me and said he just remembered that sometimes in the evening when he would work late and by himself, he could hear someone walking down the hall and thought someone had entered the gallery.  Once he checked it out there would be no one there, just himself in the building. 

I happened to be working in my office one day and the electric adding machine beside me started to sound out as if someone was entering figures to be added.  I must say that I jump a bit and turned to watch to see if it would happen again.  It just sat there quiet.  Hum, I thought.  I moved over close to the machine and asked, “If there is a sweet spirit here that would like to communicate with me please make the adding machine go off again.” Within seconds the adding machine made the sound again.  I looked at the paper in the machine and there were no figures printed as the sound would indicate.  I thought that maybe there was some sort of electrical problem, so I unplugged the machine and then plugged it back into the outlet.  Once again, I asked if the spirit is still here please answer by making the machine go off again.  The machine sounded out again as if someone was entering a figure and again there was no printed numbers on the paper.  I then took a closer look at the adding machine and saw where the paper had been turned off.  At this point I was so excited that I went down the hall and gathered everyone in Chuck’s office and took them back to my office.  I explained to them what had happened and explained that I thought it might be the ghost that I had been seeing over the last few day.  So, while I had everyone there, I asked the sweet spirit to make the adding machine go off again and it did.  The staff just looked at me and walked out of the office.  They were still adjusting to me being there let alone that I was going to show them that the building was haunted. No way was that going to happen.

Chuck was very supported of my skill to communicate with ghost and spirits.  Shortly, after I started teaching Ghost Hunting classes at our local Lexington Community College, LCC, he encouraged me I to open the first brick and mortar Ghost Hunter Shop in the US in 2000.  His gallery was over 8,000 square feet so he gave me a small area and I created the Ghost Hunter Shop.  This was a great idea.  Now after my ghost hunter classes I had a shop where my students could come and collect the necessary items for ghost hunting.  I supplied the shop with vests and other ghost gear, ghost instruments that included EMF meters, laser thermometers, audio recorders, books, and more.  I also included metaphysical items such as sage for smudging, stones for grounding, and rods and pendulums for dowsing just to name a few.

After 8 years of teaching both ghost hunter classes, Into to Ghost Hunting and Advanced Ghost Hunting, at the college I decided to leave the college and just teach the classes at my ghost hunter shop.  We had a large board room with a huge mahogany table that would sit ten people.  I invested in a 42” smart TV and hooked it to my computer with the PowerPoint presentation and it made the most awesome classroom.  The ghost hunter shop was just down the hall and was full of equipment that was not always easy to find at that time.  It was a real plus to have the Ghost Hunter Shop for the students.

As my classes continued, I met a wonderful psychic medium, Victor Paruta, the owner of the Victory of Light. His URL https://www.wvxu.org/term/victory-light He decided to take my Ghost Hunter Certification Class.  After the completion of the class, I would include a 2-hour ghost hunt inside the entire building.  During the ghost investigation I told Victor that our building was being haunted by a black man and when I would see him, he would be dressed in overalls.  Victor tapped into the ghost’s energy and told me that at one time he was on this property back in the 50’s.  Now this building was not build until 1985 so he had nothing to do with the building, just the property.  Victor said that he died of a heart attack when he was in his 50’s and strangely enough he said he was getting information that he died in the 1950’s.  He also said that he worked with animals.  He took care of them.  Since the building was so close to the Red Mile Racetracks, I thought that he might have worked with the horses.  When I mentioned this to Victor he disagreed and said he did not think it was horses.  He felt like it might have been more exotic animals, like lions, elephants, bears.  That was certainly a strange suggestion.  I told Victor that I had gathered that he was in his fifty’s and he was a black man, but I could not pick up on a name.  Victor said his name was Henry.

After learning his name, we started saying good-bye to Henry every evening as we were leaving the shop.  On the holidays we would say things like, “Merry Christmas Henry” or “Happy New Year Henry”.  If we notice anything out of place or hear strange noises we would ask, “Is that you Henry”.  After a while I began to include talking to him during classes and I would ask him to join us.

On one occasion, during one of our ghost hunts after class, one of my students, Vicki Hogan, was walking down the hall and decided to turn around and take a picture of the front desk at the end of the hallway.  We were so thrilled to see the photo of an apparition.  As we observed the image and had it enlarged you could see that the apparition was dressed in black and had dark brown skin on the face and arms.  Since this is the location where I saw Henry the most, I felt sure that this photo of an apparition was Henry. 

At another class, I had just started our investigation when we got this awesome EVP and after listening to it, I felt sure that it was Henry.  He was becoming more active as we continued having my classes at the shop.  We had cleared the hallway and was about the enter the area of the employee lounge.  In the EVP capture you can hear me laugh and say, “This is my favorite room, the employee lounge” and then I laugh at myself for saying a funny, when I heard with my natural ear, “Look behind me”.  I turned to look at the group of 6 women and I asked if anyone was whispering.  I always tell my student before we start a ghost investigation not to whisper.  If they want to express themselves do it in a regular voice so we will not think it is a ghost speaking.  I then admitted that I heard a voice that said, “Look behind me”.  At that point I turned off my audio recorder and rewound it and sure enough we heard the EVP of a male voice say, “Look behind me”.  It is so important to me that anytime I do a ghost investigation I record the entire hunt.  This is what I advise my students to do because I always get so many more EVPs this way. 

One day I was in my shop restocking and around the corner I saw someone walked in.  I went over to greet them and there was no one there.  I had this hair on the back of my neck rising and felt that Henry was present.  I asked him, “Why do you stay here?  At the end of the ghost hunt we always do a cross over session, but you do not go, and you remain here.  Can you tell me why?”  He told me that he was helping me with the students to learn firsthand how to cope, communicate and understand some of the ghost and spirits that we had encountered at the shop.  He said he was a facilitator and would find the troubled spirits and bring them to us.  This made good sense.  I did wonder how it was that no matter how often I did these ghost classes and hunts that we always got such good evidence.  We always had a good variety of spirits that would come through and tell us their stories through EVPs or dowsing.  I felt so blessed to have Henry helping me with my students.  What a great way to learn about these sweet spirits.

I also had created a Mystical Paranormal Fair back in 2010.  We had vendors and psychic and different therapist to join the event happened once a month.  This was another place for my students to come and learn more about the metaphysical side of life.  One day during this event I had a former student show me a new phone app that she had downloaded to her iPhone.  It was called Ghost Radar.  As she was walking down the hall she asked if anyone was with her that would like to give her a message.  Within a few seconds a dot appears on the radar and a word flashed onto the screen.  It was a name, and the name was Henry. 

Most of the ghost hunts you hear about or watch on TV have something that I notice was a common link.  In some hauntings you might have an idea of who the ghost might be by local stories or folklore that is connected to the location.  Sometimes you go into a haunted place and have no idea who it might be and why they are haunting it.  Also, when you do get some strong evidence of a haunting of a location what comes next?  Do you just leave knowing that it is haunted, or do you try to help lost spirits that are stuck in that location if that be the case?  I guess what I am getting at, it is exceedingly rare to have a ghost hunt that will include a beginning, middle, and an end.  At the beginning would include the history, the middle would be what activity it has created, and the end would be how the fate of the ghost haunting the place is helped.  This combination makes the best lesson learned while ghost hunting paranormal activity.

One day a gentleman came into the building to visit the art gallery and he needed a frame for one of his aerial photos.  When Chuck began to talk to the man, he noticed that the 1950 aerial photo was in fact Chuck’s property where the gallery building stands.  He noticed that in the center of the property, instead of his building, there was a big top circus tent.  Chuck asks the man what that tent was used for. He told Chuck that years ago the lion’s club would bring in the circus that was featured at the Red Mile Racing Tracks.  Since the property was so close to the Red Mile, they put the tent in this clearing for all the large animals.  What a wonderful discovery.  Now it made sense what Victor said when he explained that Henry took care of exotic animals.  What an awesome validation. 

LEX 18 News contacted me in October 2013. They needed a good ghost story to air so I told them about Henry.  I think because we had all three elements that makes a good story, beginning, middle, and end, I knew Henry’s story would be the best.

The story of Henry was featured on the Mystery Monday LEX 18 about the story of Henry who haunts the Ghost Hunter Shop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWdcsDDBOPc   

It was a melancholy day when I had to close my doors to the Ghost Hunter Shop in 2016.  The last time I left the building I turned and said, “Goodbye Henry. Thank you for all the love. Now you are free to leave and complete your journey.  I hope you find joy and peace as you go and join your loved ones.”