Oh, Kentucky

Bad jobs news from Shelbyville. Here was the best of the good from last year.

OK, now that the Christmas19 hustle and bustle are behind us, it's time to take it easy. For example, it's a perfect time to start thinking about your 2020 vacations, because this year's visitor's guide is out!

Per Angela Turner's reporting in the local Times-Tribune, there are at least three good reasons that Corbin is excited about its upcoming third World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) event in the last three years: One, the 2018 bash broke attendance records for The Corbin Arena; two, some wrestling fans reportedly say the scheduled card is more appealing than what Rupp Arena gets for Monday Night Raw, and, three, there's the building's improved sound quality.

Living in these troubled times demands creativity sometimes, and Marshall County got some, and now it has a Caring Community Center. Good play by play from Channel 6's Chris Yu.

Ready for the times to get better? Well, Danville's Advocate-Messenger says Kentucky's waiving testing fees for the General Education Diploma (GED) portends positively: "If just 50 more people earn their GEDs over the next two years as a result of this change, that could mean $420,000 more in annual income for some of Boyle County’s poorest residents."

Hallelujah, these people seem to love Burnside so! Christopher Harris on Somerset's Commonwealth Journal has a happy, fun story from the first city council meeting of the new year.

It's like we never said goodbye to Michael Scott and all of the gang. The Office! is coming to The Kentucky Center.

Oh, Kentucky

"Sadly the dream splintered along the way and the movement to dissolve denominationalism produced three separate denominations or brotherhoods of churches … But the dream of unity still lives. On Sunday afternoon May 15 at 3:00 PM hundreds of laypeople and ministers of all three streams of our movement from all over Central Kentucky and across the United States will gather in unity on the Courthouse Plaza downtown to praise our one Lord and to rejoice in our sisters and brothers."

Grid modernization comes to eastern Kentucky.

..but the person who stole the show was Miss Dee Jenkins of Lost Creek. 1st female to ever attend a UK clinic. pic.twitter.com/2k84IPuCAC

— bigbluehistory (@bigbluehistory) April 27, 2016

The funding gap between Kentucky's richest and poorest school districts has narrowed since 1990,  but the disparity is still stark.

Summer in Paducah.

Eight teams left

Quick question:  When was the last time the First Region won at least one game in the State Tournament for three years in a row?

Answer:   1951-53.  Cuba reached the final in 1951 and 1952, and then Tilghman reached the final in 1953.  But last night, Calloway County upset Knott Co. Central, meaning that we have a Jackson Purchase team in the quarter-finals for the third year in a row.


Quick question:  When was the last time that Regions 1, 2, 3, and 4 -- the four westernmost regions -- all advanced to the quarterfinals of the State Tournament?

Answer: 1960.  To give you a sense of how long ago that was, check out these scores:

Symsonia 69, Meade Memorial 60
Hopkinsville Crispus Attucks 64. Clinton Co. 62
Owensboro 77, Lincoln Institute 75
Beaver Dam 61, LaRue Co. 56

That's right:  three of the four Western Kentucky schools that went to the quarter-finals in 1960 no longer exist.

So live it up, Western Kentucky!  We don't get too many chances like this one.  Plus, the four Western Kentucky teams will be playing each other, so our end of the Commonwealth will have two teams in the semi-finals.  That hasn't happened since Tilghman and Henderson County reached the semi-finals in 1999.

Our gain is Appalachia's pain.  The 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th regions have all been eliminated prior to the quarter-finals.  This is the first time that's happened since 1989.

OK, here are the scores from yesterday:

(1) Lou. Ballard 83, Johnson Cent. 69
Boyle Co. 60, Lex. Catholic 59
Bowling Green 86, Elliott Co. 44
Calloway Co. 73, (4) Knott Co. Cent. 68 (2 OT)

And that sets up the following quarter-finals today (all times Central):

11 A.M:  (7) Owensboro (28-4) v. (8) Hopkinsville (27-5)
12:30 P.M:  (9) Cov. Catholic (30-5) v. Lou. Doss (27-6)
5:30 P.M.:  (1) Lou. Ballard (32-2) v. Boyle Co. (27-6)
7 P.M.:  Bowling Green (29-5) v. Calloway Co. (30-3)

'Undoubtedly the Greatest High School Basketball Player' from Western Kentucky and More

As of 1952, per John C. Miller of the Evening Citizen of Cairo, Ill., "undoubtedly the greatest high school basketball player to come out of this four state area of Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri and West Tennessee" was Phil Rollins of the Wickliffe High Tigers.

"Coaches, players and sportswriters have been singing his praises since he earned a regular position on his team as a freshman and every bit of the praise and more is deserved," Miller wrote in an article posted at the (fantastic) West Kentucky Genealogy Facebook page (5 stars, highly recommended). "One sports editor dubbed him 'Mr. High School Basketball' as a junior and in his final year he most definitely has lived up to this rating."

Wrote Miller, Rollins was "the best floor man ever seen in high school or college in this area," the holder of the state's four-year scoring record (2,478 points) and the only junior ever selected to Chuck Taylor's All-American high-school squad. The only off key in the entire article is that Rollins's Wickliffe teams never played in a Sweet Sixteen. The Tigers advanced to the First Region final each of Rollins's last three seasons--but lost to Paducah Tilghman in 1950, state-runnerup Cuba in 1951 and state-champ Cuba in 1952. According to the (fantastic) Bob Mays/Ideal Rocket Oil Company Kentucky prep-sports-history site (5 stars, highly recommended), Wickliffe consolidated with Bandana, Barlow-Kevil, Ballard County and Blandville highs to form Ballard Memorial High before the 1952-53 academic year. 

After his amazing career at Wickliffe, Rollins went on to an amazing career at the University of Louisville and three seasons of pro basketball. He captained the 1955-56 Cardinals squad that finished 26-3 and beat its three National Invitation Tournament opponents by 12, 10 and 13 points back when the NIT was still considered a rival to the NCAA tournament in terms of determining the true national champion. In 2000, U of L retired Rollins's jersey (but, I think I'm understanding this correctly, not his jersey number, 26).

I feel like an idiot for never having heard of Phil Rollins. He's 79 and, as of 2011, anyway, remained an ardent follower of the Cardinals. Here's hoping Mr. Rollins is getting ready to enjoy a very, very happy weekend.

UK v. Vandy Tomorrow

For the first time since 1951, the Vanderbilt Commodores have reached the final of the SEC basketball tournament. The Dores knocked off Ole Miss today, 65-53, to advance for a third game against Kentucky.

The last time these two teams met in an SEC Championship game was on March 3, 1951 at the Louisville Armory. Kentucky was the number one team in the nation and had only suffered one loss all season -- a one-point game in December. Kentucky had also beaten Vandy twice during the regular season. But the Dores stunned UK 61-57 for their only SEC Tournament Championship.

UK then re-focused its efforts, and a few weeks later the Wildcats won the National Championship.

We're Number Three

Kentucky fell to number three in the AP Poll after the loss at Indiana on Saturday. The Hoosiers entered the poll at number 18. U of L is at number 4, while Murray State cracks the poll for the first time since March 10, 1998. The Racers are number 24 -- with a bullet.

By the way, according to this web page, Murray's highest AP ranking ever is 16 -- a rank they reached in both 1951 and 1952.

UK's all-time record as the nation's number 3 team is 144-32.

Oh, and Kentucky and Louisville have never played a game when both teams were ranked in the top five.