Peter Upon the Wall

Peter Upon the Wall

Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Anecdotes
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville

This is an oral history about paranormal activity in Breckinridge Hall between 2004-08. In this interview, I talk with Valerie Mims about two brief experiences she had in Breck Hall during her time at Centre.

Mims, Valerie

2021/01/15

Gosper, Amanda

All Rights Reserved

MP4

English

Oral history (literary work)

Gosper, Amanda

Mims, Valerie

BRECKINRIDGE 'BRECK' HALL, Centre College, Danville

Amanda Gosper 0:00
My name is Amanda Gosper. And today I am interviewing Valerie Mims, who attended Centre in the early 2000s, and this is going to be about her experience with the paranormal on Centre's campus. So, we are going to jump right in. Today is the 15th of January 2021 and we are recording on Zoom as we can see here, and we are going to discuss all of her experiences at Centre that she has had with the paranormal. Alright. So, the first thing I'm going to ask is just tell your story. And if you have multiple stories, let us know what they are.

Valerie Mims 0:40
Okay, I have two as it turns out. I thought I would have only had one until I saw the the story that the gentleman who did maintenance, that he put out. And then actually that made one other thing become something, which I'll explain. So, my first year I lived in Yerkes, nothing really happened there. In my second year though, I moved to second floor Breck. I don't remember the room number. It's been quite a while. But if you were to go up the back staircase, it's in the alcove. There's two rooms that are in an alcove on second Breck and towards campus. And there were two rooms there and I was on the left-hand side. And I just remembered the room always, it felt okay, but just a little off. It kind of felt cold. But I didn't really think anything of it. You know, I was like 19 years old and, you know, fearful of nothing. So, I had nothing happen for the longest time. I lived there for half of the year, but one night, I woke up at, middle of the night, probably three o'clock in the morning or so because I heard something sort of like a plunk, like that, and I turned the lights on and all of my posters had come off the wall. And I had probably five or six different posters with sticky tack. And at the same time, they had all come off the wall. So that was one of my weird happenings that was in my sophomore year. In my junior year, and halfway through my sophomore year, and my junior year I lived in third floor Breck. And actually this room, I can tell you exactly which one it was because if you're walking into Breck from campus-side, so not where the art barn is, and look directly above that door there's a window that goes directly in between, I can send you a picture of it, in between the things that was one of my two windows. So I had the end of the hall dorm room. It was, it was a gorgeous room super tiny, is like kind of cut it out of where other rooms would be. But it was great. In that room, and this is the thing that I didn't know was potentially 'supernatural' until I heard his account, was that my my phone was ringing when I first moved in, so that had to have been my sophomore year. My phone would ring and no one would be there. All hours of the day and night. And I called maintenance and or DPS or something. I said, 'Okay, I don't know what's going on. I don't know if somebody pranking me', because this was back in the day. I don't know if y'all still do, but we all had room phones. We had landlines, probably not so much anymore. But we all had landlines and what you got was it was called the 'Centrefold,' and it was a listing of everybody's rooms, and what their extension number was. So, I thought maybe one of my friends was pranking me, you know, any number of things. And they just told me 'Oh, well, don't worry about it. It's probably nothing' and, you know, made it out to be a non-issue. And eventually it did stop. So, I just thought, well, either it was across the line, or, you know, they got bored or whatever. And I really just blew all this stuff off. And then I watched the maintenance gentleman who had been there for so long. I'm sorry, I don't remember his name from the video.

Amanda Gosper 4:43
I know what you're talking about.

Valerie Mims 4:46
You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, it made the circuit of all of the alums and I'm sure the current students. He talked about how there was a situation with the phone system where somebody had gotten--'somebody,' you know--had gotten to the to the circuit system and changed around some of that circuitry, or something like that to create a situation where there were errant calls going out. And so that was it just kind of like sparked a weird back-of-your-brain memory. And I thought, 'Oh, well, that's so strange.' I don't know if that was during the time that I was there, because I don't remember. I don't think he gave like a time period when that happened. But those were my two experiences. Essentially, we all had the story. And I'm sure you all do still too of someone died on campus. And it was in Breck and everyone thinks they know the room. And of course, you know, no one--Well, somebody knows the room--but none of the students really know what room it was. So

Amanda Gosper 5:54
the tight kept secret. Yes. Yeah. for either of these examples, like, how did this impact how you view the supernatural? Like do you believe in it now or is it just a big solid neutral?

Valerie Mims 6:11
I, I'd always kind of believed before of that. But in a very neutral kind of way. So not benevolent, not malicious, just kind of, 'well, it's there."' It's just something that happens. It's leftover energy. And actually, the girl who got me in touch with you, not Jennifer, her friend, Cassie, who texted me, she—I was telling her I said the funniest thing about when all my posters popped off the walls is I just went, 'eh,' and I went back to sleep, which looking back, it's a very strange reaction. I don't know if I was just exhausted from finals, and I was like, 'whatever, I can't deal with this right now I'll just, it's fine.' But I just kind of blew it off and moved on and thought, 'well, it's, you know, I'm not injured. So, it's fine.' And I don't know. But I wouldn't say that it changed my, my feelings towards the supernatural at all. But it's definitely in my repertoire of weird things that have happened in my now 35-odd years on the planet. So

Amanda Gosper 7:20
yeah, absolutely. And how did that impact how you saw the room that you were in from that point on? Like, did you change like, how you're interacting with the room or anything like that?

Valerie Mims 7:32
Not really. I just put the posters back on the wall. I know, this isn't the maybe the answer that you're looking for the big revelation answer. But I kind of just kept going, I don't think I had time to stop and really think about it. And think, 'Wow, this was really weird. I should probably, uh, you know, tell lots of people that.' I was just like, 'okay, that happened.' And then, you know, you kind of explain it away. And then the thing on the third floor of Breck, honestly, at the time, I didn't know that that was potentially anything. I just, I was, I was actually more bothered by that than the other because it kept waking me up. And so yeah, no, I'm sorry. I loved, I loved the third-floor room, something about it was so it was very comfortable. It just felt really comfortable there and really safe there. And I don't know if that's because we put a lot of effort into really making it homey, to the point where my mom and I were actually laughing about this today because I told her I was doing this and she said, 'Oh, well, did they find any random people,' because my friends would come up and say, 'Oh, you're going to class, I'll just take a nap in your room.' And so the room was just, it was homey. And it was comfortable. And it was just, I don't know, to this day I love that room. The second-floor room. I never really had any connection with. I don't know, it just felt claustrophobic. It was very small. It had a, I think if I remember correctly, it had one of those windows where it's been cut, you know where the wall was created later, and kind of slices the window. So, it just felt small and cold and claustrophobic. But not malicious. Just you know, not comfortable.

Amanda Gosper 9:30
Like a dorm room.

Valerie Mims 9:32
Well, yeah. There's that. By the way, from the looks of it, either you're living off campus or they have gotten significantly better.

Amanda Gosper 9:40
Oh no. I am off campus right now.

Valerie Mims 9:43
I thought you might be

Amanda Gosper 9:45
Yeah, my room is tiny. So, it would not be looking like this.

Valerie Mims 9:49
Do you live in Breck?

Amanda Gosper 9:51
I have no experience at all with Breck. I haven't even walked into Breck.

Valerie Mims 9:55
Oh, you've got to go to Breck. Yeah, go in the basement. If you want to have a fun experience where the washer and dryer used to be, I don't know if it's still there.

Amanda Gosper 10:06
Basements are always creepy.

Valerie Mims 10:09
Yeah, it was particularly--it's just dark and damp and, I don't know, unpleasant down there. I don't even know if they still let people go down there, to be honest.

Amanda Gosper 10:20
I have no idea. Um, did you guys tell anybody of this, like of the phone lines, besides just DPS or whoever after that?

Valerie Mims 10:32
No, because they told me that it was essentially just either somebody playing a prank or some issue with the phone system, and then it stops. So, I figured, 'you know, okay, it probably was an issue with the phone, and they looked into it and fixed it.' No, I wasn't like I keep going back to it never felt malicious. Even when I thought somebody was pranking me and never felt like, 'Oh, you know, this is a problem. This is something I should be scared of.' It was more just like, 'eh', I know a lot of people one of them's probably just, you know, give me a hard time. So..

Amanda Gosper 11:05
It's college, right?

Valerie Mims 11:08
It doesn't get better.

Amanda Gosper 11:13
So, would you say if this had no real significance on your time in college? It was kind of a thing that happened?

Valerie Mims 11:22
No, not really. Um, it just kind of was part of the story. I mean, it kind of sits right there between, you know, you did this and then did this. It was just like, oh, and also, I think a lot of people kind of had that feeling where it's like, weird stuff kind of happens in Breck. Breck just had a weird history, and everybody knew about it, and everybody kind of expected it. And everybody kind of had a story too. I don't know, I can't think of anything offhand where I can, like, you know, point you in the direction of another person. I'm sorry. But it was more just like everybody kind of knew somebody who had some kind of story. Either from Breck or one of the quad buildings that might not even be there anymore. Or at least not housing. And of course, you know, the blood stain at Old Centre and things like that.

Amanda Gosper 12:19
Wait, there's a blood stain Old Centre?

Valerie Mims 12:23
Yeah, from the Civil War.

Amanda Gosper 12:24
I didn't know about that.

Valerie Mims 12:25
Oh, yeah. From when it used to be a hospital. There's still a blood stain on the floor, supposedly.

Amanda Gosper 12:30
Oh, I have never even been in Old Centre, soo..I'm just over here—like I was in Wiseman, but I did not know about that Old Centre.

Valerie Mims 12:39
Um, yeah, I can't tell you. It's in the wood floor. Like it seeped into the—I don't know if this is true. I should probably say that. I don't know if this is true. I don't know if I've seen it. That was like, a kid in a million jobs in grad school ago--But yeah, supposedly, there was, from the Civil War because it used to be used as a makeshift hospital, some blood seeped into the floor, and it's just still there.

Amanda Gosper 13:07
Oh, wait, I might have heard about this. I think it's the Dean's office now.

Valerie Mims 13:14
Probably. I kind of remember it being somewhere in that like, admin location.

Amanda Gosper 13:21
Yeah.

Valerie Mims 13:22
All of the, you know, the like, you don't you don't step on the Old Centre seal or kissing on the seal at midnight, you know, all of those little fun things. And of course, you know, the flame and stuff like that, you know?

Amanda Gosper 13:38
Of course.

Valerie Mims 13:39
Yeah, you've got a lot of history at that college. Things are going to evolve.

Amanda Gosper 13:45
It's only 200 years, but it's a lot of stuff in that 200 years.

Valerie Mims 13:48
It's a lot of 200 years. There's a lot of people in 200 years, so yeah, a lot of creative people.

Amanda Gosper 13:55
Yeah, that would be about it. That'd be what I really just needed to hear from you and see how you deal with this because it's very different. Like for me personally getting phone calls on a landline, especially a landline, like you know, middle of the night that would freak me out.

Valerie Mims 14:16
It's a different world, honey.

Amanda Gosper 14:19
Oh yeah.

Valerie Mims 14:19
Um getting phone calls on a landline in the middle of the night the first time is startling and, then after that you're good. You know you're also in college so at 3am is just kind of part of your day sometimes. So yeah, college is college is wild, but in a fun way. So weird. I look back on it. Yeah, look back on this when you're 35 and go 'Okay, now it all makes sense.' When who knows what they'll be talking on then. You know?

Amanda Gosper 14:53
Absolutely. Yeah.

Valerie Mims 14:54
Probably be implanted in our brain and they'll be like, 'what is a cell phone?'

Amanda Gosper 15:01
'I just have this chip.'

Valerie Mims 15:01
Yeah. To give you a reference, I did not get a phone that had internet until I was working my first job and about to marry my husband. So 2013, I believe, was the first time I had a phone with internet, so the world changes very quickly and you just kind of hold on for the ride.

Amanda Gosper 15:23
Yeah, you're just going with it.

Valerie Mims 15:25
Yeah, buckle in.

Amanda Gosper 15:27
Oh, yes. Well, I'm going to go ahead and stop recording now. we are about where we need to be timewise and information wise, so—

END OF INTERVIEW

MP4

15:37