HPIR at the Conference for the Cure

This is another reason why I love the HPIR team!  Several months ago, I had received a FaceBook invitation for a paranormal conference that was being held at the Nitro Moose Lodge.  The conference, hosted by the Original West Virginia Paranormal, was a benefit event to raise money for a two-time cancer survivor, Carri-Ann Simmons.  I had planned on going...and then totally forgot all about it until it came up on my calendar.

With only a little over a week to go until the conference, I asked the HPIR crew if anyone wanted to come with me, just as a public guest.  I was expecting maybe one or two at most, but SEVEN us decided to go!  Since admission was $15 a person, but a vendor table with two adult tickets was only $30, we decided to go ahead and pick up two tables--one for HPIR the investigation team, and another to specifically showcase our Haunted and Historic Guyandotte Tours.

Melissa, our group founder and president, put together some wonderful displays, and our new signage arrived on Friday, just in time!  Our tables were definitely bright and cheery...and very professional looking!  They definitely were noticeable, and our group was recognized right away during a local news station's cut-away.

There were some interesting speakers at the event, and HPIR even got a chance to be a part of one of the speakers' presentation!  Robyne Marie, a well-known "photo scryer," actually used some of our display photos  to "read."  What she came up with was pretty interesting.  Her analysis of one of our photos can be found below.

Robyne Marie is also a psychic medium, and several members of our team had readings done, which turned out to be eerily accurate.  In fact, one such reading sparked this weekend's trip to the cemetery to track down a little boy that one of our investigators had following her!  More on that later.

Another favorite speaker of the group was Billy Bean, a gentleman who was featured on A Haunting.  He told his terrifying story, and conference-goers were treated to a screening of the television show.   Mr. Bean was quite an interesting and compassionate guy.  HPIR's Lynne and I met him afterward, got several photos with him, and even bought his book (which I haven't had time to read yet).

Aside from the book and some nachos, I was able to control my spending, although it was pretty tempting. There was a guy selling dolls, and well, PIECES of dolls, lol.  There was also some beautiful jewelry on sale from Mountain Mama's.  Since it was for charity, I did splurge a little on raffle tickets.  I bought one $5 raffle ticket, and 4 $1 tickets.  It definitely paid off!  I won the $5 raffle for 3 tickets for a daytime historic tour at Moundsville!

I wasn't the only HPIR member that got lucky with the raffle tickets!  HPIR definitely won its fair share of prizes, including two more of the $5 prizes.  Unfortunately, as we were leaving, I had given my remaining raffle tickets away and from the elevator, I could hear them call my number for another $1 prize, lol.  Oh well...we had fun together as always, contributed significantly to a wonderful cause, and represented HPIR all at the same time.  We even managed to set up a joint investigation at one of our favorite locations, TBA.

A big thank you goes to the Original West Virginia Paranormal for putting on this conference and contributing to such a worthy cause!

Robyne Marie's analysis of our Bruce Chapel Photo


All photos property of Melissa Stanley and HPIR