This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
In a darkened room, Trinity Tillett pulls on a cat-shaped eye mask and headphones plugged into a small black device.
The device, called a spirit box, jumps around, scanning different radio frequencies and producing words and fragmented phrases.
Tillett relays what she hears back to a huddle of other Dayton Independent Schools students, who writes the language down and spouts back questions, trying to decode messages or meaning from ghosts or other spirits.
This is a weekly practice at Dayton High School where members of the Paranormal Club gather in the library to hunt and research paranormal beings from ghosts to Bigfoot.
For Tillett and her peers, those things aren’t scary.
They’re actually the foundation of the safest and most inclusive community they’ve found on campus.
“Everyone that has weird interests and gets bullied for it, we’ll just come here talk about it … and no one here will judge us for it,” Tillett said.
Despite what it may sound like, Dayton’s Paranormal Club isn’t a just handful of maverick teenage ghost hunters, but rather one of the district’s largest clubs in history — reaching 136 members when it first launched five years ago.
Since then, the club’s founding advisor Jon Taylor has had to rein in membership to around 45 students spanning 7th to 12th grade.
But even so, word of the club has spread off campus to the professional paranormal community in Kentucky and beyond.
A club is born
Dayton’s Paranormal Club was born during detention.
While supervising the period, Taylor talked to students trying to understand why they landed there.
One of them, he found, was struggling with reading.
So when he learned the student was also into local Dayton folklore, he arranged for them to meet after school to practice reading literature on the topic.
To keep his reading struggles under wraps and protect himself from any embarrassment, his student started calling their tutoring sessions the “Paranormal Club,” Taylor said.
Taylor, a first-year teacher at the time, also needed an after-school club to lead as part of his teaching duties.
When he saw his tutee improving, he decided to try it out with a larger group, having no clue how many students he’d reach.
“I saw the student I was meeting with growing and I was trying to catch lighting in a jar,” Taylor said.
“And honestly, I think I have,” he said.
To entertain an overflowing library of students that first year, Taylor tapped a science teacher to coach students on using the scientific method to research paranormal activity.
Taylor then began personally purchasing thousands of dollars’ worth of ghost-finding gear, like spirit boxes and electromagnetic field meters, for students to use.
During club meetings, members split into groups to use the equipment to collect data, which they then try to contextualize with historical records and literature.
Taylor has also invested in the club’s origin — building an entire library of ghost and folklore books to lend to interested students.
“At least they’re reading,” he said.
He’s also noticed a positive impact on attendance, with students eager to continue their paranormal explorations after school.
If making attendance, research, history and reading fun wasn’t enough, Taylor said he’s most touched by the club’s ability to bring together students across all grade levels.
“It’s literally the most positive environment I’ve ever been in,” Taylor said.
Groups of mixed-age students have registered for library cards and carpooled to the Campbell County Library to research their paranormal findings together, he said.
“When I was in school, we wouldn’t even talk to people in the grade below us.”
“This is probably where I feel like I most belong”
Whatever interest in ghosts or goblins brought members to Paranormal Club in the first place, it’s the humans that made them stay.
Tillett originally joined because her sister had introduced her to crystals and ghost hunting and she wanted to keep busy after school.
One 9th grader, Eric Radcliff, joined when he started middle school because his grandma was a Kentucky ghost hunter.
Another student joined because of firsthand experiences with the ghosts of family members, but stayed because they found belonging.
“Growing up, I’ve always felt like I’ve been out of place, like I don’t belong here. And this is probably where I feel like I most belong,” Neveah “Ozzie” York said.
Kalli Coomer, a 10th grade club member, shared the same sentiment.
“It’s a great opportunity for community, especially in your teenage years, which is when it’s most important to find a community that you can feel safe and confident in,” Coomer said.
Spirits booming
Dayton’s Paranormal Club is becoming a known quantity in the professional paranormal community, as Taylor works to increase exposure for students.
He’s invited professionals to club meetings, and helped plan two club trips this year to the Kentucky Bigfoot Conference in Lawrenceburg and GoblinCon, a paranormal expo in Hopkinsville, in August.
On Tuesday, members proudly sported purple and green T-shirts reading “abductee” from the event.
Taylor said he’s hopeful the club can also participate in three other events they’ve been invited to this year, including the Red River Gorge Bigfoot Festival.
Taylor said growing energy around the student club is because it’s possibly the only one of its kind in the country, according to paranormal professionals he’s met over the years.
“They’ve never heard of anything like what we’ve done, and they travel the country,” he said.
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