26 Teams Left

Tonight is the last night of the Regional Tournaments.  Five Regional Titles -- including the important Eleventh and Seventh Regionals -- were decided last night:

SECOND REGION SEMI-FINALS (at Madisonville-N. Hopkins H.S.):

Henderson Co. 56, Hopkins Co. Cent. 55

Lyon Co. 80, Hopkinsville 56

FOURTH REGION SEMI-FINALS (at W. Kentucky U.):

(3) Warren Cent. 73, Barren Co. 38

S. Warren 54, Monroe Co. 51

FIFTH REGION SEMI-FINALS (at Green Co. H.S.):

Taylor Co. 52, Caverna 35

N. Hardin 68, Adair Co. 56

SEVENTH REGION FINAL (at Valley H.S.):

(4) Lou. St. Xavier 63, (9) Lou. Ballard 49

St. X takes the Seventh Region for the second year in a row.

EIGHTH REGION SEMI-FINALS (at Henry Co. H.S.):

Spencer Co. 59, Henry Co. 52

(5) N. Oldham 49, (20) Woodford Co. 33

TENTH REGION SEMI-FINALS (at Mason Co. Fieldhouse):

(6) Geo. Rogers Clark 81, Scott 53

Montgomery Co. 91, Campbell Co. 71

ELEVENTH REGION FINAL (at E. Kentucky U.):

Great Crossing 53, (7) Lex. Frederick Douglass 45

Great Crossing, the defending State Champion, will return to the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row.

TWELFTH REGION SEMI-FINAL (at Pulaski Co. H.S.):

W. Jessamine 49, Boyle Co. 48 (OT)

Danville Christian 62, Rockcastle Co. 41

THIRTEENTH REGION FINAL (at Corbin Arena):

(16) N. Laurel 51, Bell Co. 38

North Laurel takes the 13th Region for the fourth time in the last five years.

FOURTEENTH REGION FINAL (at Breathitt Co. H.S.):

Hazard 64, Powell Co. 57

The last time Hazard won the 14th Region was in 2020, and the State Tournament was canceled for COVID a few days later.  This year, the Bulldogs are scheduled to play in the State Tournament for the first time since 2010.

FIFTEENTH REGION FINAL (at Pikeville Expo Center):

Johnson Cent. 81, Pikeville 68

Johnson Central returns to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2019.

SIXTEENTH REGION SEMI-FINALS (at Morehead St. U.):

(10) Boyd Co. 76, Russell 71

Ashland Blazer 83, Raceland 55

Right now, the State Tournament draw looks like this:

(1) Cov. Catholic or Ryle v. (4) Lou. St. Xavier

(3) Warren Cent. or S. Warren v. (16) N. Laurel

N. Hardin or Taylor Co. v. Grayson Co. or Meade Co.

W. Jessamine or Danville Christian v. Great Crossing

(19) Lou. Butler or (13) Lou. Jeffersontown v. Hazard

(5) N. Oldham or Spencer Co. v. Henderson Co. or Lyon Co.

(6) Geo. Rogers Clark or Montgomery Co. v. Johnson Cent.

Marshall Co. v. (10) Boyd Co. or Ashland Blazer

18 Teams Left

Four more regional champions last night, and now the 4th and the 10th regions are the only ones left to be decided:

SECOND REGION CHAMPIONSHIP (at Madisonville-N. Hopkins H.S.):

Madisonville-N. Hopkins 34 - 52 Henderson Co.

FIFTH REGION CHAMPIONSHIP (at Marion Co. H.S.):

Adair Co. 62 - 48 N. Hardin

EIGHTH REGION CHAMPIONSHIP (at Henry Co. H.S.):

(15) N. Oldham 50 - 53 (11) S. Oldham (OT)

NINTH REGION CHAMPIONSHIP (at N. Kentucky):

(9) Cooper 53 - 38 (13) Erlanger Lloyd

128 Teams Left

Here are the quarterfinals for the First Region Boys' Basketball Tournament, which will take place at Murray State University.  MaxPrep rankings shown for teams in the top 20.  That's a tough draw for St. Mary, although at least they don't have to play on Ash Wednesday:

Wednesday, March 5:

Paducah Tilghman (16-11) v. Fulton Co. (9-13)

Graves Co. (19-9) v. (4) Marshall Co. (27-2)

Thursday, March 6:

Carlisle Co. (14-16) v. Mayfield (20-9)

(6) Calloway Co. (28-3) v. Paducah St. Mary (23-8)

Meanwhile, here are the quarterfinals for the Second Region Tournament, taking place at Madisonville-N. Hopkins H.S.:

Wednesday, March 5:

Madisonville-N. Hopkins (15-12) v. Livingston Cent. (9-20)

Christian Co. (8-22) v. Union Co. (15-10)

Thursday, March 6:

Henderson Co. (22-6) v. Hopkinsville (15-15)

Lyon Co. (24-7) v. Dawson Springs (17-15)

MaxPreps has Henderson Co. ranked number 26, which is the highest ranking for any team in the Second Region.  (Lyon Co. is ranked number 61.)

Girls' Sweet Sixteen, Saturday

Gameday, baby! Hopefully for our McCracken County High School Lady Mustangs: Gamesday!

— KHSAA RPI No. 4 Louisville Sacred Heart vs. No. 9 Winchester George Rogers Clark at 10 a.m. Central

— No. 3 McCracken County vs. No. 14 Henderson County at 12:30 p.m.

— State championship at 6 p.m. 

As you can see, it's going to be hard to maintain focus at West Area Workshops ...

Comments flow ...

Girls' Sweet Sixteen, Friday

Today's quarterfinals in Rupp Arena with KHSAA RPI rankings:

-- No. 34 Owensboro Catholic vs. No. 4 Louisville Sacred Heart at 10 a.m. Central
-- No. 9 Winchester George Rogers Clark vs. No. 7 London North Laurel at 12:30 p.m.

-- No. 19 Ashland Paul Blazer vs. No. 3 McCracken County at 5 p.m.

-- No. 24 Louisville Mercy vs. No. 14 Henderson County at 7:30 p.m.

Comments flow ...

U.S. 41

I adore U.S. 60, U.S. 1 and a zillion other roads, but--#hottake--U.S. 41 is my favorite. 

This map of U.S. 41 is from 1929. So much personal history layered on this road for me. Written in my cells, I imagine.

My dad was 4 when the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (or whatever it was called then) published this map. He was living in Madisonville, on U.S. 41, then with his parents and older sister.

My mom was 1 when the map was published. She and her family lived in Evansville, Indiana, and they frequently were down and up U.S. 41 on Sunday afternoons because her dad's parents lived in Earlington.

In 1941, Dad and his family were living in Henderson, on U.S. 41, when, on their walk downtown to church, they got the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. (They canceled worship that morning, and everybody just walked back to their homes, he remembered.)

In 1947, my mom's parents sold their grocery in Evansville, Indiana, and took Mom and her best friend on a giant road trip that started down U.S. 41 and eventually went to Atlanta, New Orleans, Mexico City, the Painted Desert, etc. They spent so much money that my grandfather, who had delivered milk to the grocery before he bought it, went back to delivering milk to the grocery after he sold it.

Hopkinsville, on U.S. 41, is what brought you guys as little boys to Kentucky.

The first place I lived after college was in Henderson. I hated it. It wasn't Henderson's fault. It's a great town that extended warm hospitality to me in every way, but my being there was too engineered in the confines of my head, with little input from my heart. Under a tree on the downtown square (on concrete sidewalks my dad's construction company poured 40 years before), I decided to blow up my first career and move out of town.

My car broke down in Tennessee the night of one of my birthdays in my late 20s, and I ended up riding a Greyhound bus up U.S. 41 to Evansville to visit my mom, who had moved back there after Dad died. The bus took an extended break at a ratty former Holiday Inn at Madisonville, and I stood on the parking lot with everyone who had gotten off to smoke. I remember I kept hearing John Facenda narrating the stark (but not awful) scene in my head: "A good, hard look."

I ended up getting married in Madisonville (to a younger woman who was still living with her parents about two miles from that bus stop when I was there on my birthday), and our honeymoon started with a trip down U.S. 41 until its intersection with U.S. 68/Ky. 80 (another fantastic road that I adore) at Hopkinsville.

In 2011, I had probably the favorite pizza of my whole life at Crofton, on U.S. 41. 

I play basketball at the church on Thursday nights with several people who work for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, and a few of them now attend the Sunday-school class I lead. (#TWISS: Acts 2!) I sure appreciate their work. Gosh, I love to drive, and I love to look at maps of roads I might drive or have driven. 

I'm Reading a Book

It's When Cuba Conquered Kentucky by Marianne Walker.

Somewhere back in the comments archives of the HP--oh, how I wish those were still searchable on Google--I wrote about discovering this 1999 book while listening to the late, great Joe B & Denny Show. It was during a state basketball tournament, and they had on the author. Marianne Walker was a professor of English and philosophy at Henderson Community College, and I'm pretty certain this was her second book--after a book about the author of Gone With the Wind and Margaret Mitchell's husband. She had also written for The Courier-Journal's old Sunday magazine, but she was never a sports writer. I remember that she seemed a little uneasy about coming on the radio show with the coaches but then increasingly delighted as the program went on and it became clear that the hosts had absolutely devoured and loved the book, asking her detailed questions about deep-cut passages from it.

A friend got Marianne Walker interested in the story of Graves County's Cuba Cubs, the 1952 Kentucky boys' basketball champion, and it turned into a magazine story and then this book (and, since then, another book still, as well as one about Joe B). She's retired from teaching. Her husband is or was an attorney. My wife and I last night creepily looked up their house on Google Maps. It's a big place on the Ohio River in Henderson. It looks beautiful. I hope they are very happy, and I'll bet they are. She sounds like a happy person in her writing. It's hard for people to fake that when they're good writers.

Marianne Walker is a great writer.

She starts When Cuba Conquered Kentucky (brilliantly) at the Phoenix Hotel in Lexington after the Cubs had lost the 1951 state final to Clark County. The boys are back up in their rooms on the sixth floor:

Raymon, who had been brooding, stopped eating the peanuts he had been snacking on, brushed the crumbs off his shirt, and reared back in his tilted chair with his thick legs spread apart. With arms folded across his chest, he looked up and made rude comment about Joe Buddy's "forgetfulness." The two of them began swapping some rank insults until Doodle, stretched out on his back in his underwear, with one arm lying over his eyes, shouted, "Shut up! Damnit, y'all sound like a couple of plucked hens." He rolled over in the bed, swung his long hairy legs over the side, sat up, and yawned.

Then, leaning forward, he rummaged in the back pocket of his trousers that were lying across the chair and drew out a slender book of matches, a cloth pouch of Bull Durham, and a small packet of thin white paper. Carefully, he tore off a sheet, laid it in the palm of one hand, and gently tapped out a neat little row of tobacco. Doodle was an expert at rolling cigarettes, able to fix them so that they looked like store-bought ones. As the others were waiting for Doodle to say something else, he neatly rolled the paper around the tobacco, moistened the edge of the paper with his tongue, and with a flourish, struck a match on the underside of the end table. Inhaling deeply as if he was partaking of something divine, he blew out a cloud of smoke and said "Whew, that's good tobacco!" Then he looked around at each of them and dropped his voice to a whisper, saying, "I think we oughta quit crying about this year and figure on coming back next year and win the danged thing."

Chapter 2 is about the drive back to Graves County--a lunch stop at Horse Cave, the crowd meeting them at the Eggner's Ferry Bridge in Aurora, a transfer to Cadillac convertibles for the last stretch to the courthouse square in Mayfield:

A little west of Horse Cave, at Bowling Green, the motorcade got on Kentucky 80, which led them into Mayfield. As they traveled through each town--Bowling Green, Rockfield, Auburn, Russellville, Elkton, Hopkinsville, Cadiz, Canton, Golden Pond, and Aurora--they were met by another sheriff or constable who would then lead them through the town. Onlookers parked in cars on either side of the narrow main streets started blowing their horns once they spotted the sheriff or the constable leading the green Kaiser. To them, Cuba represented the dreams of all tiny communities across the great state of Kentucky--the Cubs' success was theirs, too. Stretched across plain wooden storefronts were wide paper banners proclaiming, "Welcome, Cuba Cubs!" Adults and children stood on the sidewalks, alongside the roads, or in front of houses, law offices, hardware stores, and other businesses, waving pennants and flags and yelling, "Yea! Cuba!" Dogs ran barking alongside the Kaiser as the Cubs' long, outstretched arms waved from the car windows. In some town squares, little high school bands played "Sweet Georgia Brown," the Cubs' theme song.

Then, in Chapter 3, Marianne Walker takes us even further back. She opens a telling of Jackson Purchase history, 1818-1951, with a quote from Plutarch: "Men's customs differ; different people honor different practices; but all honor the maintenance of their own peculiar ways." And then she offers a lengthy, concrete discussion of the voting patterns and geographic characteristics that conspired to make the 1950-51 and '51-52 Cuba Cubs an embodiment of the curious relationship of their region to the rest of the state:

Surrounded by rivers on three sides, the Purchase was born in 1818, when Kentucky was already twenty-five years old. For a hundred years the state went on about its business as if the new section had not even been added to it. Until the late 1930s the political powers in Frankfort largely ignored the region because finding anything other than a registered Democrat in the Purchase was like finding hair on a frog's head. ... 

Until the late 1930s and early 1940s, the state politicians, for the most part, directed no funds toward building roads, schools, bridges, or state office buildings in the Purchase, nor did they set up the multitude of semi local agencies that are part of a state government. For example, Graves County in the late 1940s was given an agricultural extension agency but no laboratories or facilities. However, the agency in nearby Hopkins County, which is in western Kentucky but not in the Purchase, had a first-class operation. Just as it is today, politicians preferred spending state and federal money in those counties having balanced party systems. Politically speaking, you can say that the Purchase disadvantaged itself by adhering so strictly to its Democratic stand.

Until 1905, there were no bridges built over any of the three rivers that hem in the Purchase--the Ohio River on the north, the Mississippi River on the west and the Tennessee River on the east--and ferries were too inconvenient or expensive for most of the people in the region to use, Marianne Walker writes. The Purchase was cut off from the rest of Kentucky and any other land (except Tennessee to its south) until a locomotive bridge over the Tennessee River at Gilbertsville came along in 1905. The first bridge for automobile travel over any of the three rivers came in 1929, when the Irvin S. Cobb bridge was completed, linking Paducah with Brookport, Illinois.

For the most part, the Purchase people had no real interest in crossing those rivers. Having been ignored for so long by the state's political powers, they felt no real attachment to Kentucky, even after the state began to show them some attention. Their kinship was with Tennessee. Even after the Eggner's Ferry Bridge across the Tennessee River at Aurora was completed in 1933, finally linking the Purchase to the rest of Kentucky, few took advantage of it.

Marianne Walker writes that Coach Jack Story often told stories about Andrew Jackson of Tennessee to teach his young Cubs about toughness. Then there's a bunch of stuff about the Civil War, TVA, Thomas Scopes, Alben Barkley and the tug of industrial jobs in Michigan. I don't know enough about history to know whether Marianne Walker is right, but she certainly convinced me. Feels right. I read almost every word of this chapter twice through aloud last night to my wife. We loved it!

I'm just getting started with Chapter 4, and Marianne Walker is going through what each player and student manager's family did for a living and how they ended up at Cuba. Some of the other chapters are titled "On the Importance of Acting Right," "The Harlem Globetrotters in Cuba" and "A Pilgrimage." I can hardly wait.

Oh, Kentucky

Oh, Kentucky

6th District Basketball, 2010-2019

Here are the last 10 finals of the Sixth District Boys' Basketball Tournament:

2019:  Union Co. 64, Henderson Co. 55
2018:  Henderson Co. 64, Union Co. 42
2017:  Henderson Co. 77, Webster Co. 59
2016:  Webster Co. 47, Henderson Co. 36
2015:  Henderson Co. 59, Webster Co. 47
2014:  Henderson Co. 73, Union Co. 49
2013:  Henderson Co. 71, Webster Co. 63
2012:  Webster Co. 56, Henderson Co. 44
2011:  Henderson Co. 56, Union Co. 46
2010:  Henderson Co. 62, Webster Co. 47

Henderson Co:  7 (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018)
Webster Co:  2 (2012, 2016)
Union Co:  1 (2019)

Oh, Kentucky

Catching up ...

Oh, Kentucky

It's (almost) a wrap for Mayfield's first Fairgrounds Festival of Lights, and we have until Oct. 1 to sponsor a 2020 display.

The I-65 Mile Marker 0 welcome center in Simpson County, opened in 1974, is closed until probably fall.

Hoptown's Pennyroyal Area Museum targets Feb. 27 for its reopening.

Floyd County is optimistic the resurrection of Wheelwright's prison will take place, even with turnover in Frankfort.

Inez will be down to one grocery after the IGA's Monday closing.

Several Peebles, Goody's and other department stores around Kentucky are converting to Gordmanses this year, such as in Leitchfield and Winchester.

Paducah Police also is hiring.

World Trade Center Kentucky has named an interim executive director.

Kathie Stamps at Smiley Pete Publishing has an interesting report on a married-physicians couple's launch of "membership-based concierge medicine" in Lexington. Excellent name for the new biz: Downtown Drs. Brown. 

Jerry Sparks kicks off a three-part Jackson County Sun series on three people from McKee who were pardoned by former Gov. Bevin: "(M)ost of the pardons issued by the former Governor were not controversial at all. A great deal of the pardons issued were earned by the recipients through years of hard work and dedication toward turning their lives around. Unfortunately, the news cycle tends to focus on the sensational and the negative. In fairness, time should be spent addressing those people that honestly turned their lives around and earned themselves a second chance."

Huge in Kenton County: Liane Moriarity, James Patterson, Mario, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Alvin Schwartz, Lego, Game of Thrones and a bunch of Now That's What I Call Musics.

Oh, Kentucky

Catching up ...

Christmas20 parades: Versailles, Dec. 5.

Oh, Kentucky

Ninety-three and still counting, and one yet to go!

And, actually, we might be up to 94 parades, if this Daily Mail story--"Decline of the town that coal built ..."--is correct that Lynch was hosting one this month. But the town Facebook page that Ann Schmidt mentions appears to be on the fritz, and there is no specific date for the parade provided.

So, for now, I'm saying 93 confirmed Christmas19 parades: Sharpsburg, Nov. 9; Owensboro, Nov. 23; Central City, Nov. 24; Lebanon and Louisville, Nov. 29;  Greensburg, Guthrie and Pikeville, Nov. 30; Boyce, Dawson Springs, Murray, Salem and Sebree, Dec. 1; Bardstown, Dec. 5; Clay, Fredonia, Harrodsburg, Irvine/Ravenna, London, Maysville, Monticello, Pineville, Richmond, Smiths Grove, Stanton and Trenton, Dec. 6; Arlington, Barbourville, Beattyville, Berea, Bloomfield, Bowling Green, Bromley/Ludlow, Brownsville, Cadiz, Calvert City, Carlisle, Clinton, Columbia, Corbin, Cynthiana, Danville, East Bernstadt, Frankfort, Glasgow, Grayson, Greenville, Hawesville, Henderson, Horse Cave, Inez, Lawrenceburg, Leitchfield, Lexington, Madisonville, Marion, Middlesboro, Morgantown, Munfordville, Murray, Owingsville, Paducah, Paintsville, Prestonsburg, Rabbit Hash, Raceland, Russell Springs, Salyersville, Scottsville, Shelbyville, Somerset ("highlighted by football team's appearance"), Trenton, Versailles, Whitley City and Winchester, Dec. 7; Auburn, Georgetown and New Haven, Dec. 8; Augusta, Benton, Burkesville, Burnside, Campbellsville, Cave City, Edmonton, Elkton, Franklin, Hopkinsville, Louisa, Mayfield, Providence, Tollesboro, Williamsburg and Woodburn, Dec. 14, and Cerulean, Dec. 21!

In Prospect, they discovered gold--in a Salvation Army red kettle outside the Kroger.

Spreading Christmas "clipper love" in Paducah.

Meanwhile over in Harlan County, Hannah Reynolds from WYMT reports, there was no opposition voiced at the fiscal-court meeting when the Second Amendment-sanctuary deal came up (and quickly passed).

Curtains for curbside recycling in Warren County?

"Camp Restoration," a tiny-home community for homeless vets, is being planned off Dixie Highway in Louisville.

Quintessential American journalist Douglas White of Henderson's Gleaner delivers his typically stellar reporting and writing on local momentum toward large-scale solar-energy production. 

Elizabethtown's News-Enterprise weighs in on Vine Grove's city-hall crisis.

Cory Claxon in The Morehead News looks back on the busy first fourth months of the local Laughlin Health Building.

Oh, Kentucky

You got the wrong DJ's.

In Frankfort, Wilkinson Street School will be no more.

To Taylor Mill, Dunkin' is comin'.

I'm surprised Little League wasn't already in Paducah.

I love deadline extensions.

On the pardons ...

Henderson Police gets creative in how to cost-effectively address its officer shortages.

Turning to sports, our old friend Elijah Sindelar appears to be calling it a career. 

Ninety-one Christmas19 parades: Sharpsburg, Nov. 9; Owensboro, Nov. 23; Central City, Nov. 24; Lebanon and Louisville, Nov. 29;  Greensburg, Guthrie and Pikeville, Nov. 30; Boyce, Dawson Springs, Murray, Salem and Sebree, Dec. 1; Bardstown, Dec. 5; Clay, Fredonia, Harrodsburg, Irvine/Ravenna, London, Maysville, Monticello, Pineville, Richmond, Smiths Grove, Stanton and Trenton, Dec. 6; Arlington, Barbourville, Beattyville, Berea, Bloomfield, Bowling Green, Bromley/Ludlow, Brownsville, Cadiz, Calvert City, Carlisle, Clinton, Columbia, Corbin, Cynthiana, Danville, East Bernstadt, Frankfort, Glasgow, Grayson, Greenville, Hawesville, Henderson, Horse Cave, Inez, Lawrenceburg, Leitchfield, Lexington, Madisonville, Marion, Middlesboro, Morgantown, Munfordville, Murray, Owingsville, Paducah, Prestonsburg, Rabbit Hash, Raceland, Russell Springs, Salyersville, Scottsville, Shelbyville, Somerset, Trenton, Versailles, Whitley City and Winchester, Dec. 7; Auburn, Georgetown and New Haven, Dec. 8, and Augusta, Benton, Burkesville, Burnside, Campbellsville, Cave City, Edmonton, Elkton, Franklin, Hopkinsville, Louisa, Mayfield, Providence, Tollesboro, Williamsburg and Woodburn, Dec. 14!

Oh, Kentucky

Hiring at the pen (starting at $14.25 per hour). Seeking someone with "a sincere passion for Henderson and our region."

Locals take over Owensboro's Towne Square Mall. Paducah downtown is amid a makeover (including a possible influx of Louisville investment). I love malls and downtowns, as well as Paducah and Owensboro, so this is all great news by my score.

Lexingtonwise, Sav's No. 2 has opened downtown; Drake's No. 14, in Hamburg.

Garbage goes private in Liberty.

Christmas parades: Sharpsburg, Nov. 9; Owensboro, Nov. 23; Central City, Nov. 24; Lebanon and Louisville, Nov. 29;  Greensburg, Guthrie and Pikeville, Nov. 30; Boyce, Dawson Springs, Murray, Salem and Sebree, Dec. 1; Bardstown, Dec. 5; Clay, Fredonia, Harrodsburg, Hopkinsville, Irvine/Ravenna, London, Maysville, Monticello, Pineville, Richmond, Smiths Grove, Stanton and Trenton, Dec. 6; Arlington, Barbourville, Beattyville, Berea, Bloomfield, Bowling Green,  romley/Ludlow, Brownsville, Cadiz, Calvert City, Carlisle, Clinton, Columbia, Corbin, Cynthiana, Danville, Frankfort, Glasgow, Grayson, Greenville, Hawesville, Henderson, Horse Cave, Inez, Lawrenceburg, Leitchfield, Lexington, Madisonville, Marion, Middlesboro, Morgantown, Munfordville, Murray, Owingsville, Paducah, Rabbit Hash, Raceland, Russell Springs, Salyersville, Scottsville, Shelbyville, Somerset, Trenton, Versailles, Whitley City and Winchester, Dec. 7; Auburn, Georgetown and New Haven, Dec. 8; Augusta, Burkesville, Burnside, Campbellsville, Cave City, Elkton, Franklin, Louisa, Mayfield, Providence, Williamsburg and Woodburn, Dec. 14, and Tollesboro, Dec. 15.

Oh, Kentucky

Is steel coming back to Ashland? Is bourbon coming to Somerset?

A fire at Farmington, former home of the blue-and-white Region 1 Wildcats. An auction of McDowell, former home of the blue-and-gold Region 15 Daredevils.

"Our group is an unfortunately growing group that nobody wants to be a part of, or should have to be a part of. But at the same time, once you're a part of it, you're glad it's there."

The next 10 years might be a pretty good time to move to Scott County.

Christmas parades: Sharpsburg, Nov. 9; Owensboro, Nov. 23; Central City, Nov. 24; Lebanon and Louisville, Nov. 29;  Greensburg, Guthrie and Pikeville, Nov. 30; Boyce, Dawson Springs, Murray, Salem and Sebree, Dec. 1; Bardstown, Dec. 5; Fredonia, Harrodsburg, Hopkinsville, London, Monticello, Pineville, Richmond and Trenton, Dec. 6; Arlington, Barbourville, Berea, Bloomfield, Bowling Green, Bromley/Ludlow, Brownsville, Cadiz, Calvert City, Clinton, Columbia, Corbin, Cynthiana, Danville, Frankfort, Glasgow, Grayson, Hawesville, Henderson, Lawrenceburg, Lexington, Madisonville, Marion, Middlesboro, Morgantown, Murray, Owingsville, Paducah, Rabbit Hash, Scottsville, Shelbyville, Somerset, Trenton, Versailles, Whitley City and Winchester, Dec. 7; Georgetown, Dec. 8; Cave City, Dec. 10; Burkesville, Burnside, Elkton, Mayfield, Providence, Williamsburg, Dec. 14, and Tollesboro, Dec. 15.

Rest in peace, Gene Clabes, Kentucky print-journalism serial entrepreneur, online-journalism pioneer and his wife's hero. "What we do know is that there will be a party."

Oh, Kentucky

Here's your new (Distinguished Rural) Kentuckian of the Year.

Here's your new Paxton Media Group president and CEO.

No more Saturday Herald-Leaders.

Bad jobs news from Cadiz. Better from Hopkinsville.

"This Is What The Trade War Looks Like In Bourbon Country." Steve Matthews from Bloomberg's Federal Reserve/economy reporter checks in.

Coal no longer qualifies in Henderson's "least-cost portfolio" for energy. Ryan Van Velzer from Louisville's WFPL brings back the story from down river.

"For those of you who have expressed concerns and a genuine curiosity, I would like to unveil the truth as it pertains to me about the Kentucky Fried Sisters (KFS), Capital Pride Kentucky and the queer community as a whole." The founding abbess of the Kentucky Fried Sisters speaks his piece in Frankfort's State Journal.

"A belief in the possible." Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands eyes footprint in Kentucky, reports Nina Shapiro of The Seattle Times from across the country.

"Doctors are under tremendous pressure to prescribe, and patients wear you down." Robert Smith with Kaiser Health News--via Valiant News--goes deep and dark into drugs in and around Clay County.

The Courier-Journal is promoting a 24-page special section planned for its Thanksgiving edition that it indicates will show how the tentacles of a crazy Mexican drug gang have reached throughout the United States and specifically Lexington's famous Calumet Farm.

Martin County's water crisis appears headed to a turning point this week.

Turning to sports, I've been doing a lot of deep thinking about these #ohkys and what I should be doing with them, and I think I need to always include one of these turning-to-sports items. Anyway, here's a link back to GoHeath on No. 2,296, and WKU is 4-0.

Christmas parades: Sharpsburg, Nov. 9; Owensboro, Nov. 23; Lebanon and Louisville, Nov. 29; Pikeville, Nov. 30; Boyce, Dawson Springs and Murray, Dec. 1; Bardstown, Dec. 5; Fredonia, Harrodsburg, Hopkinsville, Monticello and Pineville, Dec. 6; Berea, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Calvert City, Columbia, Danville, Frankfort, Glasgow, Henderson, Lawrenceburg, Lexington, Madisonville, Owingsville, Paducah, Scottsville, Shelbyville, Trenton, Versailles and Whitley City, Dec. 7; Georgetown, Dec. 8; Cave City, Dec. 10; Burnside, Elkton and Williamsburg, Dec. 14, and Tollesboro, Dec. 15.