{"id":264,"date":"2022-10-17T03:26:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T07:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/?p=264"},"modified":"2023-11-22T15:31:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T20:31:41","slug":"southern-ohio-legends-and-lore-the-strange-and-spooky-world-of-james-a-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/2022\/10\/southern-ohio-legends-and-lore-the-strange-and-spooky-world-of-james-a-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Ohio Legends and Lore: The Strange and Spooky World of James A. Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Kara Reedy—<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When people think of American legends, most don\u2019t think about Ohio and all of its spooky tales. In celebration of the season of Halloween, James A. Willis, who prefers to be referred to as \u201cWeird Willis,\u201d came to the Middletown campus recently to discuss some of the more mysterious stories of our region of Ohio. Mr. Willis is an acclaimed author with several books to his credit, the most recent being the highlight of his presentation: Southern Ohio Legends & Lore. Willis exposed his audience to several tales from the region. Some of the stories were familiar, but many were entirely unknown to his audience. It was an extraordinarily chilling night with a mixture of ghost stories, UFO sightings, and monster encounters. Willis went into detail about not only the events but also his process of discovering them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWeird Willis,\u201d much like his nickname suggests, is interested in exploring the strange and unknown. Time outside of writing often included ghost and monster hunting for Mr. Willis, and both of these hobbies made an appearance during his presentation. Where others might run with fear of the unknown, Willis chooses to run towards that bump in the night. Even though Weird Willis believes in supernatural concepts, he still prides himself on discovering if what he captures is genuinely paranormal. This skeptical take on his adventures is a breath of fresh air in a dramatic field where many other ghost hunters shriek and point at the smallest of events, claiming them to be influenced or caused by a ghost or some other spiritual entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willis’s interest in the strange and spooky stems from a childhood fascination with legends. He was born near the infamous town of Sleepy Hollow, otherwise known as Mount Pleasant, New York. The little village has become widely recognized in America due to the popularity of Washington Irving\u2019s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. During a field trip to the town, Mr. Willis was made aware of the truth of the tale. In true Irving fashion, the legend was entirely fictional, with the use of a real town and the names of real people meant to inspire intrigue in his readers. After this discovery, Willis decided to make it his life\u2019s mission to find a true legend. He attempted to find a few \u201ctrue legends\u201d here in Ohio, and it looks like he might\u2019ve found some after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southern Ohio Legends & Lore encompasses numerous tales of the region. Mr. Willis discussed nine of the stories he found in the South, some of which were his particular favorites. The tales are diverse, revolving around many of Willis\u2019s interests regarding the supernatural. Willis spoke of monsters like \u201cThe Loveland Frogman\u201d and creepy locations like the \u201cAthens Mental Asylum.\u201d He even talked about a few Miami University-related stories, such as the \u201cPhantom of Oxford\u201d and \u201cThe Oxford Rider.\u201d The intriguing part of Willis\u2019s discussion is that many of the tales he presented had factual aspects, such as the \u201cAthens Mental Asylum,\u201d which people can still visit. Stranger still is the story of the \u201cPhantom of Oxford,\u201d which is about a student who disappeared and is still listed as missing several decades later. The student’s name is Ronald Henry Tammen, Jr., just in case you\u2019re curious and want to know more about his mysterious disappearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James A. Willis\u2019 Contact Information and Personal Websites
<\/strong>Email – jim@strangeandspookyworld.com
Blog – https:\/\/strangeandspookyworld.com\/
Twitter – https:\/\/twitter.com\/jamesawillis
Facebook – https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/strangeandspookyworld\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kara Reedy— When people think of American legends, most don\u2019t think about Ohio and all of its spooky tales. In celebration of the season […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5833,"featured_media":305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-entertainment","category-our-communities","post_format-post-format-aside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5833"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/mu-regional-pulse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}