Ghosts of Russell County

Aron Houdini and the guillotine that once belonged to Houdini

Ghosts of Russell County was held at the Star Theater on October 23rd. Roberta Simpson Brown and her husband Lonnie Brown are usually part of the program, telling their ghostly tales. This year they were unable to participate in the program due to emergency bypass surgery that Lonnie had to undergo. Lynwood Montell (author of Ghosts Across Kentucky and Ghosts Along the Cumberland) usually participates as well, but this year had a prior commitment and was unable to take part.

So this year we had to do things a little bit different. We had several guest readers who read selections from Roberta Simpson Brown and Lynwood Montell's books. We also had Nash Black (the husband and wife writing team of Ford Nashett and Irene Black) with us and they brought along their new book Haints and treated us to a few stories from it.

Cody York reading "A Father's Faith" from Haints

Elizabeth Wright reading "The Touch" by Roberta Simpson Brown


Renee Daffron reading "Flower Girl" by Roberta Simpson Brown


Lea Turner reading "Don't Go There" by Nash Black


David Smith reading death lore from Montell's book, Ghosts Along the Cumberland


Benjamin Foster and I singing acapella version of "Oh Death"



Ford Nashett reading "Death Mines" from Haints

And then to close out the show we had a young man who bills himself as "The World's Only Living Houdini", Aron Houdini. Aron, who is a master of magic and illusion treated us to a few feats of magic and then gave a presentation with slides about his experience in the Death Tunnel at Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville.

• For those of you interested in finding out more about the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, please click here. Another good site is spookedtv.com

And if you are REALLY interested in ghosts

• Try this site.

And one last site I can't help but mention, because it has to do with haunted libraries.

• Check this one out here.

See you all next year at Ghosts of Russell County!