Who ya gonna call? — Part II

If you missed Part I, get caught up before you read any further. 

Dawn guessed that whoever was haunting the first floor might have been alive during the 1930s. She began to play a ’30s hymn on the piano in an attempt to rile up the spirit. No response. Perhaps the ghost was more of a Belieber.

Downingtown Area Paranormal Investigators examine Craig Brown's office.

Downingtown Area Paranormal Investigators examine Craig Brown’s office.

The team then moved into the office of a former employee who had brought in an Episcopalian priest to bless the building because of its history. Dawn dangled a necklace between her fingers and encouraged one of the spirits to move it. To everyone’s surprise, the necklace began to swing in circles but stopped after only a few minutes.

We ascended to the second floor where Courtney Rossi, our Human Resources and Traffic Manager, had an eerie encounter one morning two and a half years ago. Courtney was the first one in to work. She headed to her office, and spotted a very tall man standing in a doorway about 20 feet down the hall. Well over six feet tall, the man stood with his head down, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that covered most of his face. He was also wearing a dark, horse-riding cloak and large, filthy boots. Courtney couldn’t make out any facial features. When she took a step forward to get a better look, the phantom backed into the office and disappeared.Read full post...

Who ya gonna call? — Part I

Ghosts of AB&C 1

Plenty of people have had otherworldly encounters at 819 N. Washington.

Aloysius Butler & Clark has a full house these days. We’ve been steadily adding new clients, which means we’ve been taking on additional employees to handle our ever-increasing workload. So it’s time to kick out a wall or two — we want to keep everyone happy, right? And by everyone, we mean the living and the dead.

Why are we concerned about those who have crossed over? Let’s just say our building has a rich and eerie history. Constructed in 1904, it was originally the Yeatman Funeral Home. On the first floor, coffins were displayed and viewings took place; John and Lynda Yeatman lived on the second floor; and the third floor, which housed Goldey-Beacom college dormitories for a brief period, wound up as apartments. After the funeral home closed in 1990, the building was abandoned until 1998, when AB&C purchased it. And as we learned even before we moved in, the joint is jumpin’ with ghostly apparitions, unexplainable phenomena and mysterious noises.Read full post...

Don’t lick my taco: dealing with the knuckleheads of social media

It can take you years to build a good reputation, but just one knuckleheaded social media post to destroy it.

It can take you years to build a good reputation, but just one knuckleheaded social media post to destroy it.

Those of us in PR know that social media is a force to be reckoned with. We use it for the good of mankind, quickly (and inexpensively) getting important messages out there to millions of people and creating a sense of community.

Other folks, not so much.

Cyberspace is being polluted more and more with images of fast-food workers shoving food up their noses or licking a stack of taco shells “behind closed doors.” Luckily, companies can fight this reputation-damaging lunacy by harnessing the power of the very source of this chaos — social media. Here are a couple of recent examples.Read full post...