Paramount Artcenter - Ashland,Kentucky

It is said that during some early
renovation work on the Paramount Theatre, a death occurred there and
the man’s ghost has forever since haunted the Paramount. In the early
1940s, four construction workers from Boyd Theater Company in
Cincinnati, Ohio were working on a project inside the auditorium. It is
reported that all of them had gone to lunch except one man, a guy named
Joe. When the other three returned, they found Joe hanging from the
curtain rigging, dead. And since then, sounds have been heard, things
have gone missing, cold drafts have been felt, and some folks even
claim to have seen the image of a man appear on occasion. However, he
is by all means a “good ghost” - one who seems to look out for the
benefit of the theatre and its occupants. When Billy Ray Cyrus was here
filming his video for "Achy Breaky Heart," he was told about the legend
of Paramount Joe. Between breaks, Billy Ray would talk to Joe, laughing
and joking with him, sometimes even asking for his help. It is
customary to get 8 x 10 photographs signed by each performer that
appears at the Paramount and then hang the photo on the 'Wall of Fame'
in the box office. Billy Ray personally autographed large color posters
to each of the female employees working here at the time - and one with
a personal inscription to Paramount Joe, whom he now had a fondness
for. Each lady put her poster near her desk and Joe's was hung in the
box office, near all the other performers. As time passed and the walls
in the box office became too full of 8x10’s signed by other performers,
the executive director felt that some of the pictures and posters
needed to come down. Since there were so many of Billy Ray, she asked
the women to remove their posters since they were all so similar.
Nobody wanted to take their personally autographed picture of Billy Ray
down so they took down the one he had signed to Paramount Joe. The next
day, when the ladies came to work, every single 8x10 and poster that
had been hanging neatly on the walls the night before were now lined
strewn on the floor, many of their glass frames shattered! It was as if
someone had wiped each one off the wall. To this day, Paramount Joe’s
poster still hangs in the Paramount, in a very special part of The
Marquee Room, which is now the site of Paramount Joe’s Rising Star
Café’. There is another story about the time two new employees
wanted to investigate the basement in the Paramount and some old items
that had been stored there. To reach the basement, you must go through
a door that is located just inside the lounge outside the ladies
restroom. This brings you to the top of the stairs. At the top of those
stairs is a light switch that will light the first section of the
stairwell. As you progress, there is a switch that will light each area
in front of you. And, there is no partner switch. In other words, you
must turn the light off at the same place you turned it on. The
marketing director had offered to take the two new female employees
into the basement and turned on the lights at the top of the stairs.
The ladies hurried down the steps. At that moment the marketing
director was called to take a phone call inside the office. He told the
other two employees to wait, he would be right back. In their
excitement however, they did not hear him and they continued on.
Recounting the story later, it was at this point they called up to him
to turn on the next light for them. As it turned out, he was on the
phone longer than expected and met the ladies as they were coming back
up the steps. "Thanks for turning on the light for us," one of them
said, "but we can't get it to turn off." Puzzled, he explained that he
had not turned on the light for them – and in fact, could not turn on
the light. The expression on their faces revealed that they were not
kidding with him. They lead him back into the basement, only to be met
by darkness. 'Someone' had turned the light off again as well. "Well,
thanks Joe," called out one of the ladies, as she shivered. In 2004,
marketing director Tyson Compton was giving a tour to some high school
students. As he was relating the Paramount Joe story, he realized that
he was always talking about Joe, and not to him. So as he spoke to the
students, he stopped and called out, “Joe, are you here? Is it ok that
I tell your story?” While he swears that he then heard a seat squeak,
that is not the the most chilling part of this story. Compton relates
how he received a call the very next day from a psychic who lived in
the area. She asked him if someone in his family or a close friend had
recently died because she had gotten a message from “the other side.”
He said no that he could think of no one. “Well, she said, “I’m
supposed to tell you that Joe said he is here.