Oh, Kentucky

Kentucky for sale:

Rock on, Hospice of Western Kentucky and Horse Haven, for Camp Courage for grieving children.

Here are the nine teachers vying for Kentucky's 2020 teachers of the year for elementary, middle and high school.

Kentucky's 2019 teacher of the year was not there for a ceremony in her and other teachers' honor at the White House.

No. 1 Louisville duPont Manual, No. 2 Louisville Brown, No. 3 Fort Thomas Highlands, No. 4 Murray, No. 5 Pikeville, ...

iPads for everyone (in the incoming freshmen at the University of Kentucky).

Hiring in Madisonville (at the old Rosenwald school next month).

Mellow out in Saint Matthews (and of Louisville altogether).

Counterpoint to the racists in Paducah.

Oh, Kentucky

Corbin's proposed, Kentucky Fried Chicken-reminiscent splash park has a new and apparently better home because the local Economy Inn owner "loves Corbin so much and wants to do something great for the community," Erin Cox reports in what in a fantastic Times-Tribune meeting story that has become typical of today's world of spartan community journalism in Kentucky (All Along™).

Hemp sales surge.

Man, oh, man ... everything's complicated (sun edition). 

Well, not everything: The state education minister gave 10 school districts until close-of-biz yesterday to name names. Bullitt County's superintendent, for one, was "still evaluating," per Shepherdsville's Pioneer News.

Rest in peace, John Horace Cox, born in Madisonville shortly after the Maroons' first Sweet Sixteen appearance in 1938, proud member of UK's "Marching 100,"  teacher in every Hopkins County school, Saint Mary's Episcopal organist, organizer of family "caveman suppers" and more.

Oh, Kentucky

On this last day of Black History Month, Madisonville’s Concerned Citizens Society details (in The Messenger) Hopkins County’s 1866-1941 history of schools, teachers, administrators and rules for its African-American students.  These reports have been fantastic all month. I've learned a lot; for example, I learned today there was a "Kitchen" in Hopkins County. Thank you, Concerned Citizens Society.

McCracken County High's alleged mishandling of sexual-abuse complaints prompts a Murray Ledger & Times review of policies in its local districts.

Hardin County Schools ups its ante against drivers who ignore those bus stop-sign arms.

Teachers are back in frankfort to protest a bill that would restructure the board of the Teachers Retirement System. @BGPolitics @heraldleader pic.twitter.com/zlGopPahKS

— Marcus Dorsey (@mdorseymedia) February 28, 2019

The protest "sickout" grinds to a halt public schools in (at least) Fayette, Jefferson, Madison and Marion counties.

Covington greases skids for commercialized urban farming.

Here's the long and winding road to Winchester's South Main Grocery.

Hiring in Louisville (for a Courier-Journal digital producer). 

Here's a fun FREE event for the kids this weekend! https://t.co/8xLnH6glp6

— WBKR (@WBKR) February 28, 2019

Hit the trails, in Dawson Springs.

Have some fun, in Henderson, courtesy of The Gleaner's Douglas D. White.

Oh, Kentucky

"They’ve been doing this for years to my ancestors and people of color and people who are poor. And if we don’t have access to this office and access to democracy, they’re denying democracy today.” … "We’re very up front to let them know that we’re being accommodating that we want them to be able to come into the Capitol to protest, to redress their government, but that protocols will be in place to maintain the security of the Capitol.” … Ryland Barton of WKYU hangs with the Poor People’s Campaign and Kentucky State Police in Frankfort.

Meanwhile, in Slaughters on Monday, the Kentucky State Police was shutting down highways and making sure a found grenade didn't blow up.

Good jobs news from Paris.

Hiring (for everything at the bowling alley) in Madisonville.

Dippin' Dots and Doc Popcorn are headed to China.

Rest in peace, Paul Gray, who died doing what he loved at the Kentucky High School Athletic Association baseball tournament last week and "was definitely more than just his camera."

Oh, Kentucky

Positions change over time for politicians who are in office a LONG time. In 1989 in the wake of the Standard Gravure tragedy, Sen. Mitch McConnell was an uncertain vote on banning assault rifles. He thought they were only good for killing people.
9-25-1989. pic.twitter.com/vQyyjsnmVl

— KYPoliticalHistory (@HistoryKentucky) May 30, 2018

 

For now, anyway, Sen. McConnell is supporting national-monument status for the Nancy site of the 1862/"Zolly's Folly"/Battle of Mill Springs/Logan's Cross/Fishing Creek.

Per the Kentucky State Police, via The Springfield Sun, the number of concealed handgun permits issued in the state increased by about 240 percent from 2007 to 2016, to about 437,000.

Good jobs news from Hebron.

The (indispensable) Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting is hiring for a managing editor.

The U.S. Women's Open starts tomorrow, and I will be rooting for Princeton's Emma Talley.

Oh, Kentucky

Christmas parades: Bowling Green, Dec. 1.

The "Kentucky 120 United" Bible-reading marathon, kicked off by a Somerset minister, continues through Thursday.

"Kentucky is unique in a way that it's not sure whether it's Southern or Midwestern."

Wow! AmerAsia in #CovingtonKY is packed on this #Christmas night.
A line out the door! pic.twitter.com/YPpvWrtdKI

— The River City News (@theRCnews) December 25, 2017

 

"I can't get over how many times I've been invited to someone's home to eat."

"Who else in Logan County took their retirement and placed it on hold to tackle a city on the brink of backlash with its wastewater woes?"

"We are sad to say that Grant County Upward Sports has been canceled for 2018."

Noting the calendar turn in Corbin, Williamsburg and Barbourville.

The rare snowy owl in Wilmore, a probably-abandoned alligator in Harlan County.

Good jobs news from Madisonville and Marion.

Oh, Kentucky

Kentucky Community and Technical College System at sunset and it's 39.1 F pic.twitter.com/7hMCi8geET

— KCTCS WeatherSTEM (@KCTCSWxSTEM) December 5, 2017

 

Christmas parades: Irvington and Owensboro, Nov. 18; Central City (Rep. Melinda Gibbons Prunty (R-Belton) was there), Nov. 19; Ashland, Nov. 21; Lebanon, Nov. 24; Brownsville and Danville, Nov. 25; Greenup, Nov. 28; Cumberland, London, Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 1; Arlington, Barbourville, Beaver Dam, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Corbin, Fordsville, Georgetown, Glasgow (things got contentious), Harlan, Hartford, Henderson, Lawrenceburg, Madisonville, Marion, Munfordville, Murray, Paducah, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 2; Dawson Springs, Evarts and Nortonville (there, too), Dec. 3; Mount Sterling, Dec. 4; Lexington, Dec. 5; Bardstown, Dec. 7; Frankfort, Dec. 8; Augusta, Cave City, Edmonton ("Christmas Dreams Do Come True"), Elkton, Hanson, Hopkinsville, Paintsville, Salem and Whitesville ("One Team, One Family, One Holiday"), Dec. 9, and La Center (sixth-annual Ballard County parade) and Oak Grove, Dec. 16.

On JFK in the Jackson Purchase.

Anton International is expanding.

Oh, Madisonville

It was quite a weekend in Madisonville. Somebody beat up Wayne at Ferrell's on Friday night. The Lady Maroons won the state softball championship in Owensboro on Saturday afternoon. And there was an LGBT Pride event downtown Sunday morning.

I don't really know much about Wayne. I speak to him a little, and we always wave at each other. But that's no big deal because Wayne speaks and waves to most everyone when they're downtown. He lives somewhere down there, and he tends to show up at city parades and fairs and what-not--sometimes in costume as Batman or Superman. He waters flowers with the retired city manager sometimes. Sometimes he works around the downtown restaurants. I don't believe he drives. Anyway,  when word started spreading late Friday night around the Facebook locals that Wayne was in the emergency room after he had been beaten up at our town's 24-hour hamburger joint (since 1929), there arose a tremendous outpouring of support for the familiar face, testimonials to how nice of a fellow he is and a lot of dire talk about taking the business to whoever it was who did it. Well, thankfully, word got around pretty early Saturday that Wayne was doing OK and that someone had been arrested and charged in the crime. So, that elicited a lot of praise for the police, and we'll see where that story goes from here.

School has been out for a month, but they're still finishing off the 2016-17 KHSAA season. Our McCracken County High Mustangs play in the baseball state semifinals Friday, and they just finished the softball tournament on Saturday. The Madisonville-North Hopkins Lady Maroons won! It's a grueling, double-elimination affair played over three days in the June sun across multiple fields at Jack C. Fisher Park in Owensboro, and it almost always seems to go--as it did this year--very late Thursday and/or Friday nights with an extra-innings game or two and the maximum distance into Saturday evening with the losers-bracket winner extending things by winning the first game against the winners-bracket winner. Madisonville whipped through the winners bracket with 10-1, 12-0, 2-1 and 9-0 wins. But then Louisville Male beat the Lady Maroons, 5-1, to set up a winner-take-all final pitting the two one-loss teams, and I was nervous! I put the whole deal out of mind and enjoyed a giant pool party with steaks and cake in the Shake Rag area of northern Hopkins County, and then I was thrilled to discover when we got home Saturday evening that Madisonville held on to beat Male in the final, 5-3. 

FINAL: Madisonville-North Hopkins 5, Male 3

Alyssa Case flies out to deep left to end the game. Congrats @lady_maroons on your championship pic.twitter.com/VqTxBmWHnQ

— Chad (@ChadBlue83) June 10, 2017

Also, it turned out that the city was organizing a fire-truck escort through town for the team bus when it returned from Owensboro about 9 Saturday night. We talked about going. But my wife would be preaching at Providence Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) on Sunday, and all of us were tired from swimming and partying in Shake Rag. We decided it was best to get to bed at a normal hour. Nonetheless, I talked with my wife about this parade route through town. She played flute in some of the Marching Maroons' 3A-state-championship-runnerup bands back in the 1990s, and she told me that, when they did those bus tours, they'd be met by the fire trucks in Nortonville and then come straight up U.S. 41 on through Earlington, the south part of Madisonville along South Main Street/Frank Ramsey Drive, across downtown and up through the north end of town and out to the high school. However, the band championships were contended in Richmond, Lexington or Bowling Green, so the buses came home on the Western Kentucky Parkway, which enters Hopkins County at its south end. The Lady Maroon softball bus from Owensboro would, of course, enter Hopkins County from the north; indeed, Twitter reports were that the fire trucks intercepted the bus at the Hanson outlet mall's parking lot, escorted it south into downtown Madisonville and back out north to the high school for a pep rally at the school softball field. 

The PARADE WAS AMAZING! Walking up to the field UNBELIEVABLE!!! Thank you Madisonville pic.twitter.com/7H5ao8mo15

— Lady Maroon Softball (@lady_maroons) June 11, 2017

Madisonville has had a high school since the 1800s, and, by 1907, anyway, it was playing interscholastic sports and using the nickname "Maroons"--it had never won a state championship in any sport until Saturday.

Thank you to @MessengerOnline and @jgms88 for your coverage of our softball program. Today's paper said it all! #mnhsb pic.twitter.com/GuNvVqqjgc

— Lady Maroon Softball (@lady_maroons) June 11, 2017

So then came Sunday morning and the Pride event. It was one of several first-ever events in towns around Kentucky. There is some talk about trying to get a local fairness ordinance to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination, but, among grassroots chatter among participants here, the primary purpose of the Madisonville event seemed to be simply a joint declaration of presence--we are here, and we matter, too. 

I didn't make it. The announcement I saw indicated that the event was to carry on until 2; I got downtown about 1:30, and everything was wrapped up. I came home and caught up on the happy Facebook reports, and it turned out that a 50-some-odd-year-old friend I go to church with spoke. He said he has lived in Madisonville his whole life. He said he talked about his kindergarten teacher warning his dad that the 5-year-old boy was "a little too in touch with his feminine side," about being called "every ugly word" (sometimes to his face), about threats of physical harm, about feeling cast out by his boyhood church home (twice) and about his mid-30s thoughts of suicide. "I know in my heart that God created me, that God knows my heart and that God loves me and who I am. And here's another word for you--God loves you, too."

I am humbled by my friend's courage; I am embarrassed to think about my own sins of commission and omission that have made other LGBT people around me feel isolated and lonely, and I am mostly struck at how sad and scared I would've felt living in a town that so often (or even once ever) rejected me for merely being me. I hope for 50 more years for my friend of feeling loved and supported in his Madisonville hometown, and I imagine I'd be game for whatever legislation would help him feel that way.

Oh, Kentucky

Looking much better now from @AAASystems DopplerCam but winds will be gusty today. #wbkowx #kywx pic.twitter.com/tbAF96WYvm

— WBKO Television (@wbkotv) May 1, 2017

Good jobs news from Bowling Green, Covington, Hazard, Louisville and South Shore.

"This is definitely a business that survives on an immigrant workforce."

Channel 6 reports that there's a shortage of school-bus drivers in the Newsbeat 6 area.

The national uptick in highway fatalities from 2015 to 2016 was more pronounced in Kentucky, per the Kentucky State Police and Kentucky Office of Highway Safety.

"Welcome to Virginia."

Kentucky Tour 8

(Evansville, Indiana)--Henderson--Madisonville--Hopkinsville--Guthrie--(Nashville, Tennessee); U.S. 41, U.S. 41-A and U.S. 41, Dixie B-Line.

HENDERSON, 6.6 m. 

DIXON, 31.8 m.

MADISONVILLE, 55.6 m.

EARLINGTON, 59.7 m.

MORTONS GAP, 63.4 m.

NORTONVILLE, 66.7 m.

HOPKINSVILLE, 91.4 m.

GUTHRIE, 114 m.

Oh, Kentucky

Small pieces of hail being reported in Paintsville. #ekywx #kywx pic.twitter.com/3Lu8Y4dPJS

— Kyle Collier (@KyleWYMT) March 1, 2017

Stop feeding the geese at Etown's Freeman Lake Park.

I'd never even heard of Russellville's West Kentucky African American Heritage Museum and Research Center.

Nor did I know there is a Northern Kentucky Music Hall of Fame (or that Adrian Belew went to Ludlow!)

Madisonville’s Breathe Youth Arts Program—"a community-based, youth development program of Light of Chance that is geared toward fostering artistic expression, leadership and social skills through visual arts, music, dance and creative writing” among children in grades 5-12—is in its spring semester.

"Can we change the way people look at life and make their decisions?" Moral Reconation Therapy—“a cognitive-behavioral treatment system that leads to enhanced moral reasoning, better decision making, and more appropriate behavior”—appears to be coming to the Clay County Detention Center.

Fish and Wildife is hiring officers.

A Berea Republican decided things might be moving a little too quickly in the (real) legislature around a move to repeal (and replace?) the state's net-metering regulations (Smart Grid!).

"Do not be friends of coal; be friends of coal miners." And rest in peace, Nathan Gabriel Phillips of White Plains and Rickey Allen Thorpe Jr. of Dawson Springs.

Oh, Kentucky

Merry Christmas from Paducah:

Merry Christmas in Paducah, after all.

Christmas parades: Owensboro, Nov. 19; Ashland, Nov. 22; Lebanon, Nov. 25; Brownsville and Sebree, Nov. 26; Bardstown, Dec. 1; Maysville (the KHSAA girls' golf champ and her Mason County High teammates will serve as emcees), Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 2; Arlington, Beaver Dam, Beaver Dam/Hartford (but the party starts Friday), Berea, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Clinton, Columbia, Flatwoods, Frankfort, Glasgow, Harlan, Henderson, Horse Cave, Madisonville, Manchester, Munfordville, Murray, Paducah, Paintsville, Paris, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 3; Boyce, Nortonville ($100 top prize), Owenton and Schochoh, Dec. 4; Hickman and Lexington, Dec. 6; Augusta, Burnside, Cave City, Crofton, Elkton, Hopkinsville, La Center, Livermore, Nicholasville and Pikeville, Dec. 10, and Auburn, Dec. 11.

F. Kathleen Foley in the Los Angeles Times: "To her credit, Winkler never condescends to her Southerners — a welcome departure from other recent playwrights who fetishize their characters’ regionalisms. The characters in ‘Kentucky’ may be wildly eccentric and speak with a twang, but they are otherwise people, coping as best they can with the detritus of disappointed lives. Given a more assured staging, one suspects that this ‘Kentucky’ could more effectively express the soaring musicality of a colorful and misunderstood state."

The Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame aims to open July 1, 2017, in Elizabethtown.

Happy 60th, Greer's Florist of Glasgow.

Mapping WKU's "safe spaces."

The unemployment rate went down in 82 Kentucky counties from October 2015 to October 2016, up in 33 and stayed the same in five. The low was 3 percent in Woodford County; the high, 14.1 in Magoffin. And statewide, it was 4.6 percent--a tick better than the national (4.7).

Toward more construction workers in and around Louisville.

Oh, Kentucky

The Trigg County Sheriff's Department hopes to give out about 200 bicycles this Christmas, reports WHOP.

Christmas parades: Owensboro, Nov. 19; Ashland, Nov. 22; Lebanon, Nov. 25; Brownsville ("great crowd") and Sebree, Nov. 26; Bardstown, Dec. 1; Maysville, Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 2; Arlington, Beaver Dam, Berea, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Clinton, Frankfort, Glasgow, Harlan, Henderson, Madisonville, Manchester, Murray, Paris, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 3; Boyce, Owenton and Schochoh, Dec. 4; Hickman and Lexington, Dec. 6, and Augusta, Cave City, Elkton, Hopkinsville, La Center, Nicholasville and Pikeville, Dec. 10.

Kentucky for sale:

The Rankin in that 1911 map is not the Rankin of the famous 1876 Kentucky Meat Shower.

There's a darkness on the edge of Bardstown.

Oh, Kentucky

Pictures of Paducah.

Handling homelessness in Williamsburg and Gray.

Meanwhile, at Kentucky's only provider of legal abortions, ...

And, in Nortonville, ...

Undoing Obamacare?

Casey County is an eBay hotspot.

Hey, Painstville made The Washington Times!

Christmas parades: Hazard and Owensboro, Nov. 21; Ashland, Nov. 24; Russell Springs and Williamstown, Nov. 28; Lexington, Dec. 1; Louisa, Dec. 3; Central City, Harlan, Maysville, Shepherdsville, Smiths Grove and Walton, Dec. 4; Arlington, Bowling Green, Clinton, Frankfort, Grayson, Hopkinsville, Lawrenceburg, Leitchfield, Madisonville, Middlesboro, Munfordville, Murray, Paducah, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 5; Hickman, Dec. 8, and Benton, Elizabethtown, Elkton, La Center, Nicholasville and Princeton, Dec. 12.

Oh, Kentucky

Iced bowls?

#TwinSpires to glow orange, white in support of football title bid by neighboring DeSales High http://t.co/jMca3Ykwyi pic.twitter.com/JOOzaX5vx7
— Churchill Downs (@ChurchillDowns) December 4, 2013

If I was a student in the Mayfield schools, I would be so appreciative of the high-school football team.

Plaque time for the WJHS Colts statisticians!

Les Johns of the Kentucky New Era delivers a compelling Q&A with Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio.

Good jobs news from Bowling Green and Wickliffe.

Christmas parades: Bardstown, today; Elkton, Lebanon and Maysville, Dec. 6; Beaver Dam/Hartford, Bradfordville, Clinton, Columbia, Greenville (themed), Henderson, Hopkinsville, Lawrenceburg, Madisonville (marshaled), Marion, Middlesboro, Murray, Paducah, Princeton, Shelbyville and Somerset, Dec. 7; Evarts and Owenton, Dec. 8; Nortonville (canceled), not Dec. 8; Clay (rescheduled), Dec. 13; Benton, Cave City, La Center and Stamping Ground, Dec. 14, and Central City, Dec. 15. 

Oh, Kentucky

More bad jobs news from Hazard. Good from Hopkinsville and Louisville.

How the bad in Paducah might impact the 57th Telethon of Stars.

Building a better "sortation" solution, in Glasgow.

Achieving "clean note retention," in Grayson.

Luring "more companies to the mountains," via Pikeville.

Eighty-five years of Sears in Lexington.

Christmas parades: Owensboro, Nov. 23; Ashland, Nov. 26; Inez, Nov. 30; Nortonville, Dec. 1; Elkton, Lebanon and Maysville, Dec. 6; Marion, Dec. 7, and Evarts, Dec. 8. 

Oh, Kentucky

WKYT reports that a Middlesboro pastor was pulled over on I-40 in Knoxville, and police found in his vehicle three rattlesnakes and two copperheads--poisonous snakes, the possession of which is against Tennessee law. The pastor wants back the snakes, and his court date is Feb. 25.

A veteran defensive back from Paducah was hopeful that he would spend his entire career with the Buffalo Bills. But he told The Buffalo News that he didn't expect that to happen, and he doesn't sound surprised that his departure from the team took place after last season.

The Courier-Journal reports that most of Jefferson County's "persistently low-achieving schools" aren't improving.

The Harlan Daily Enterprise delivers compelling play-by-play of a compelling argument at the Cumberland city-council meeting about job responsibilities among city workers.

Meanwhile, The Middlesboro Daily News is on the scene as the Pineville city council discusses the local stray-cat problem.

Kentucky is coming off a record year for exports.

All clear from Woodford County for the opening of a restaurant in the castle outside Lexington.

It's on to the next round of American Idol! for Owensboro's Jenny Beth Willis.

Meanwhile, Ben and Angela Roberts of Hodgenville, who met in middle school, won a second honeymoon on The Newlywed Game.

And, finally, we await news of Nortonville's Loman Scarbrough at the National Wild Turkey Federation Call Convention (owl-hooting division).

Oh, Kentucky

Asking and being denied in Louisville.

Asking and receiving in Hustonville.

Asking and waiting in Pembroke.

Good jobs news from Owensboro.

“From intern to editor in only 30 short years.”

"A natural banjo-plucking host, full of stories and bubbling cheer, the perfect optimist to breathe new life into the inn and once again provide an oasis of joy for the modern day pilgrim."

“A teacher and farmer in the tradition of Robert Frost, Wendell Berry and the like.”

The sounds of Hopkins County, the smell of Mount Washington.

Henderson County's library is getting a new director, too.

Eleven months and two days until Christmas, and Evarts is getting ready.

Prom season is around the corner, and two Union Larry A. Ryle girls are cashing in.

As a Lady Top fan, it's crushing that this girl is going to Duke.