Oh, Kentucky

On the Monday after Father's Day, Madisonville took a pass on Sunday alcohol sales. Opines Bro. Bill Adcock at SurfKY.com, "Isn’t it ironic that the day after Father's Day of honoring our earthly father, the Madisonville City Council was faced with honoring or dishonoring our Heavenly Father? ... My verdict is ya'll 'Done Good' fellas."

Resetting in Columbus.

Sheltering in Tompkinsville.

Restructuring in Glasgow.

"Not much remains of the home, except the UK sign, which was untouched by the slide. Now Bowen will have to start over, and the family is asking the community for help." Garrett Wyler of Lexington's WDKY Fox 56 heads to Powell County and comes back with a very gripping story.

"This megabuck competition may be Louisville’s to lose." There's millions in it, reports Dianne Timmering at The Lane Report--"it," being them thar aging people.

Kentucky lawmakers are skeptical that squirrels are to blame for a delay in spreading internet access throughout the state. https://t.co/GQNdJ5ZzxC pic.twitter.com/Jvz2tS31mW

— WDRB News (@WDRBNews) June 20, 2019

Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from Floyd, Johnson and Pike counties are STEM-ing it up this month at Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg.

New deals with Mattress Firm and Big Lots mean lots of hiring for Lexington-based Temper Sealy International.

Rest in peace, Mr. Kenny ("KY," "Shorty" or "Shortman") Short of Robards, friendly mentor to fellow millwrights, Henderson Moose Lodge 732 cards enthusiast, U.S. Army sharpshooter, Poole Missionary Baptist Church magi portrayer and hunting and fishing buddy of Sterling's. "To know Kenny," reads the beautiful obituary, "was to love him."

Oh, Kentucky

This Kentucky Housing Corporation article in the Northern Kentucky Tribune gives some great detail in the way the nation's agencies intended to aid homeless people in our cities and states are organized and one of the ways U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money flows into them. It makes me want to spend the rest of this Monday imagining a giant bi-vocational basketball league that is organized in two conferences and four divisions: the Cities Conference and its Lexington and Louisville divisions and the Balance of State (BoS) Conference and its East of Dixie Highway and West of Dixie Highway divisions. But I've got to get to work, and I don't have time to think about that right now.

Dear Lord, please let it be so that a corner has been turned in Kentucky's opioids epidemic.

Good jobs news from Robards.

Hiring in Graham (for a "packout operator" at the local provider of "innovative blasting solutions and quality explosives products") and in Hopkinsville (at the local hospital, and sign-on bonuses and gift-shop discounts are available!).

LOL!! The Shell station on 231 here in Owensboro has posted this message on its store door---> https://t.co/1MGpulmvT2

— WBKR (@WBKR) February 25, 2019

I was only vaguely acquainted with the remarkable story of Claysville-born inventor, businessperson and activist Garrett Morgan, but, as told by biographer William King, WKU history professor emeritus John Hardin and WKYU's Sydney Boles, it's even more remarkable than I suspected.

Clark County Public Schools is upping its literacy game. So are the "Real Men" of Lexington.

Thank you, TVA, for your support of (middle-school) Girls in Engineering (at Madisonville Community College).

But when I do take time to pretend about that bi-vocational Kentucky basketball league, sometimes I imagine that all of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregations decided in a big state assembly that we were feeling called to build, renovate or manage gyms in their towns to accommodate their teams as an act of discipleship. 

Oh, Kentucky

Christmas parades: Murray, Dec. 1, and Henderson (for Saint Valentine's Day, you could win a ride on the Corydon Civil Defense Fire and Rescue fire truck) and Scottsville, Dec. 7.

"In honor of young people (18 to 25) who show significant potential in developing as feminist, social change artists, and whose work has the potential to create change for women and girls in Kentucky, ..."

Today is #NationalBoyScoutDay! Founded in 1910, @boyscouts trains its participants in responsible citizenship, character development, & self-reliance. In this photo, Scout James Dickinson tells Lt. Gov. Wilson Wyatt that Burnside, Ky, claims to be the home of the original BSA. pic.twitter.com/eGcboClk0z

— KY State Archives (@KYStateArchives) February 8, 2019

Two Cadiz women are cutting short their medical-mission trip to Haiti and coming home today.

Good jobs news from Leitchfield and Owensboro.

"Saying Goodbye to Louisville."

Oh, Kentucky

"In Paducah, we will be proactive and do the uncomfortable work of having honest dialogue about our own history, biases, and challenges."

One petition for, two against.

Acclaimed, Madisonville-based cartoonist and writer Chris Schweizer recalls Robert E. Lee of Virginia ...

Maligned, Louisville-educated U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decries the white-supremacist terrorists' plans to converge on Lexington.

CNN visits Paris.

The "a time of reflection and prayer to show our unity, love and respect for all people regardless of race, faith, gender, nationality, language, economic status, etc." is noon Eastern today in Campbellsville.

This sounds to me like a totally great way to limit our freedoms.

Bad jobs news from West Paducah.

Jackson Energy tells Jim Wilson of The Manchester Enterprise that the eclipse will illustrate why having a diversity of energy sources is so important.

He "hated it at the time," but all of that antique shopping on camping trips to London has paid off for the operator of a new antique shop in Latonia. Good, little staff biz feature Covington's River City News.

Big Rivers Electric is demo-ing solar in Draffenville.

Hopkinsville lights its new Alhambra Theater marquee.

"Jenkins 'pushes' new fire truck into service."

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

No. 3!

Danvillle @Kentuckyweather @micahharriswx @JimWKYT @jmloss81 @MikeLindenWX @danvilleky pic.twitter.com/Ef8ZgvZFTo

— Jolene Blevins (@BlevinsJolene) June 27, 2015

Every so often, the "You know you're from Paducah KY when..." Facebook group turns into detailed discussion of Paducah's donut landscape, and I always love it when that happens.

If you live in western Kentucky around you interact with any farmers/gardeners at all, it really is critical to figure out what to do with all of the squash and zucchini.

The Barren County Attorney has a bat problem.

Paducah's atomic plant is coming down.

Good jobs news from Robards.

Foggy morning for @TigerWoods and @GovSteveBeshear @GbrClassic pro-am. #pgatour pic.twitter.com/XbjoH4suFN

— PGA TOUR Media (@PGATOURmedia) July 1, 2015

How to, in Lebanon.

Celebrating the Fourth, in Fairview.

Rest in peace, Laurie Davison, passionate director of the Salato Wildlife Education Director, the "epitome of a conservationist" and parent of two.

Oh, Kentucky

Good jobs news from Bowling Green and Paducah.

The state's first utility-grade solar-generating project is going up in Mercer County. 

My primary exit will become 116!

Today is filing deadline for state elections, and the Fark.com founder is in!

Arriving in Owensboro to head up 14 News team coverage of Former Sen. Wendell Ford's funeral at First Baptist. pic.twitter.com/5dv17l9Jnr
— Randy Moore (@Randy14News) January 27, 2015

Oh, Kentucky

"Our hearts are heavy in Fredonia tonight."

“Let them pull that stuff in other places if they want, but not in Jackson County, Kentucky.”

“This is not elevating any group above another, this is just making everyone equal.”

Given to hospitality in Hoptown.

"Cash mom" in Muhlenberg County.

Onward and upward for Dippin' Dots.

Louisville Ballard and Marion County top the KHSAA basketball polls.

Cadiz and Franklin are both expanding their fiber-optic infrastructures.

President Clinton is coming back to Owensboro.

The Edward T. Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway was closed for several hours yesterday between Slaughters and Hanson, and so traffic was detoured to U.S. 41. Northbound lanes were actually reopened before I started around noon to Evansville to see my mom, but, what the heck?

That's downtown Hanson, which, according to one of my college teachers, was a hotbed of basketball in the early 1940s. Today, it's home to a great elementary school, the Western Kentucky Veterans Home, an outlet mall, a good fish restaurant and a guy from whom I once bought--via eBay, when I was living in North Carolina--an awesome Munro All-Star Hockey Game.

I felt sorry for the folks in this car, who decided to spin around and backtrack. I imagine that they didn't realize they were within three-quarters mile of the end of the detour.

Fun to think about how exciting it must've been to purchase this camper originally and all of the neat places that it might've gone.

I love seeing those giant swarms of black birds. I'm uncertain whether these are officially blackbirds, however.

Here's Sebree, which is not the seat of Webster County. This town lost one of its more recognizable citizens this past fall. Rest in peace, Mrs. Darr, owner-operator of the Friendly Market for 52 years and unabashed fan of President and Mrs. Carter (just as is my mom). 

Sebree is home also to many Mexicans. Saint Michael Catholic Church there offers Sunday mass services in both English and Spanish.

I'm fascinated by monuments like this one to Milton Ashby in the Sebree Post Office. I'd like to know more about him; for example, how's he connected to Brandi Ashby, Kentucky's 1992 "Miss Basketball" and a Lady Topper who eventually transferred to the University of Hawai'i? I did find his dad's obituary--but nothing about Postmaster Ashby specifically.

It was a stone-cold joy to discover that Bell's Drugs hadn't yet totally dismantled its prodigious Christmas window display. Bell's Drugs is on the north side of Main Street/Ky. 56 through downtown Sebree.

The Purple Opry, Cadillac Jack's Billiards and the Sebree Banner ("Webster County's Oldest Newspaper") are along the south side. 

Back out on "The Dixie B-line" (sort of, anyway--that nickname really applies to the original U.S. 41, which runs through Dixon, which is the seat of Webster County, and is now U.S. 41-A) stands the American Legion post, which is housed in the old African-American school. 

There's a significant concentration of industrial concerns between Sebree and Henderson, and this one photograph, of course, fails to do it justice. (It's hard to capture big buildings in a cell-phone-camera frame while you're driving at 60 miles an hour.) For example, there's a big aluminum smelter, a chicken processor and a power plant through there. 

I first saw this eatery just inside the Henderson County line 23 years ago, and I've failed to stop there about 50 times since. Some day, I'm excited to try their strombolis. 

I hope Sebree's late Mrs. Darr got to see President Carter when he visited up the road in Henderson in 1975 and Robards in 1980. Said the president on that second trip: "You have a special opportunity in Kentucky, in the future, for another aspect of our Nation's security; that is, energy security. We've become overly vulnerable to a heavy dependence on foreign oil. This year we will import $90 billion worth of oil from overseas. That's a lot of money, hard to understand. It amounts to $400 per man, woman, and child throughout the United States. I want to depend not on foreign oil at the end of a 12,000-mile uncertain pipeline into a doubtful area of the world, but in the future I want to depend on Kentucky coal." 

Henderson is one of Kentucky's great towns, and that's the southern edge of it. 

But exploring Henderson is for another day and another post. I bailed off old 41 and jumped on the four-lane toward Mom here. The end.

Oh, Kentucky

I've seen only one of the five "Films That you Should Have Seen By Now."

"Best of" Paducah?

75th anniversary of the 1937 flood.

Bison replenishing at Big Bone Lick State Park.

"Seinfeld meets Shrek" in Etown.

More Chase Spreen love from Columbia.

Good jobs news from Morganfield.

The 1,300-plus workforce at Tyson Foods in Robards reportedly "is 57% Caucasian, 17% Black, 12.5% Asian and 12.4% Hispanic. 66% of the workforce is men, 33% are women and 1% describes their gender as 'other'."

Rest in peace, Mr. Bailey, the "Duke of Louisville."

Oh, Kentucky

The Heath Post Kentucky Bureau will be officially rooting tonight for Lexington Bryan Station High School's Shelvin Mack and Butler University.

I have seen the future of journalism, and one of its names is ColumbiaMagazine.com.

Good jobs news from Columbia?

It's springtime, and, for western Kentucky, that means all manner of severe-weather watches and warnings. My wife and daughter and I go all out for these. Huddling with the ladies of the house and supplies in an interior closet is my favorite thing about these alerts; my second-favorite is hearing the names of the Kentucky towns covered. A severe-thunderstorm warning in effect until 11 Central this morning for Daviess, Henderson and McLean counties encompasses Beech Grove, Calhoun, Knottsville, Masonville, Robards, Saint Joseph, Stanley and Whitesville. Not sure I've ever been to Knottsville.