Catch C.J. Rauch on the streets of Gettysburg, and he might tell you a story.

For about 10 hours a week, the 19-year-old Gettysburg College student from northern New Jersey works as a guide for the Ghosts of Gettysburg ghost tour company.

He said storytelling isn't in his background, but it will probably be in his future.

He's majoring in political science with minors in French and education and plans to be a teacher after he graduates.

So, 10 years from now he might be telling stories in front of a class to explain how the U.S. government works or how to pronounce a word in French, but for now he scares the bejesus out of his customers.

He applied to work for Ghosts of Gettysburg after he spotted an advertisement for the job, he said.

He said he already knew a lot of the stories about his campus, and the company trained him in their stories and tours, but he still felt nervous when he led his first tour - a group of Girl Scouts.

But he loosened up before long.

"Once you start going, you know you know the stories," Rauch said.

He said he can tell when customers enjoyed the tour by watching them after the tour ends. As they walk back to their cars, he said, they peek into alleys.

He said he achieved his favorite ghost-story telling moment in the last week of June.

He had a tour group at the base of the clock tower on the Gettysburg College campus and told them the story of a couple who plunged to their death on that spot.

He checked his watch as he told the story, and held the last phrase - "and they jumped" - to coincide with the clock striking the hour.

"The whole tour jumped," Rauch said. "It was pretty cool."

He takes day-time tours past the same spot, he said, though not for Ghosts of Gettysburg.

When it's not dark enough to tell ghost stories, Rauch works as a tour guide for the college's admissions department.

He said the jobs are similar at their core - bringing people through an area and telling them about it - but that's where the similarities end.

He said the college tours are "more like a conversation." He said he typically works with one family at a time as opposed to a large group, and answers their questions factually.

On ghost tours, he said he has wiggle room, and can gear the stories he tells to what he thinks the group will enjoy.

He said he did this with one group he had trouble with.

The group of middle or elementary school children took a tour on a stormy night, and "for whatever reason, these kids were screeches," he said.

He said they screeched at lightning strikes, and even when a stick snapped under someone's foot.

"It got a little old very quickly," Rauch said.

But he played into the group while they were on the Gettysburg College campus. He told stories that fueled their screeching, until he reached a residential area where he worried about the volume.

So then he quieted them. A chaperone suggested he tell them a story about the hotel they stayed in. He did, he said, and the kids went quiet.

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