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.

Oh, Kentucky

A former Kuttawa city clerk is charged with stealing a bunch of town money and running off to Gatlinburg.

About the "squatters" in Hillview.

No library tax in Hardin County.

An Edgewood thoracic surgeon is to narrate a lung-cancer surgery he performed on a 34-year-old during a live Facebook broadcast Friday.

Good jobs news from Lexington and Pikeville.

"FARMERS NEEDED!" In Lyon County.

Christmas parades: Owensboro, Nov. 17; Ashland, Nov. 20; Brownsville, Nov. 24; Cumberland and Fredonia (grandly marshaled by the Faughns, wed 69 years), Nov. 30; Arlington, Berea, Cadiz ("WKDZ 106.5 will broadcast live, and will have live video stream if you just can't make it"), Calvert City (59th annual), Columbia, Jenkins, Lawrenceburg, Madisonville, Marion, Paducah, Salyersville, Somerset and Whitley City, Dec. 1; Bowling Green (rescheduled from the day before), Dawson Springs, Dec. 2; Lexington, Dec. 4; Greenup, Dec. 6; Frankfort, Monticello and Richmond, Dec. 7; Elkton, Eubank, Hopkinsville ("Get ready to text in your favorite float number for the PEOPLES CHOICE AWARD!"), Louisa and Stamping Ground (grandly marshaled by a Scott County sheriff's deputy paralyzed when shot responding to a suspected bank robbery in September), Dec. 8; Whitesburg, Dec. 14; Burnside, La Center and Neon, Dec. 15.

Oh, Kentucky

Gov. Bevin's budget proposal for the next two years, per Monica Kast in WKU's College Heights Herald: 6.25-percent reduction in spending, no funding for 70 programs and fully funded state pension. "Something has to give, where does this money come from?"

Here are the 70 programs Bevin is proposing to cut.

Full budget is here:https://t.co/lvDuqR7wpC pic.twitter.com/SccPG4Lh9h

— Ryland Barton (@RylandKY) January 17, 2018

Meanwhile, remember the governor's $240,000-a-year "adoption czar" ...? He's gone.

In other news, ... FREDONIA!

Meanwhile, over in Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 12: "DO NOT GET ON THE ROADS IN THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES: Lawrence, Martin, Johnson, Floyd, Knott, Pike, and Letcher. We don't mean to sound hateful, but conditions out there are seriously bad. ..."

Russellville's News-Democrat & Leader asked its readers to send in pictures of playing in the snow. "We had more than 230 submissions and they were all wonderful."

The Paducah Community Kitchen (and warming shelter) needs donations of winter clothing.

I hope you’re ready for visitors. #hospitalhill pic.twitter.com/U9ZpxUAxwn

— ☃️wxornotBG❄️ (@wxornotBG) January 16, 2018

Mari-Alice Jasper in The Fort Campbell Courier reports on how the hippies in the Warrior Transition Batallion are badgering the rest of the base to recycle. "What's causing other units to not recycle is my question."

Kentucky's overall incarceration rate is up to ninth in the country--and No. 2 for women.

Oh, Kentucky

Christmas parades: Irvington and Owensboro, Nov. 18; Central City, Nov. 19; Ashland, Nov. 21; Lebanon, Nov. 24; Brownsville and Danville, Nov. 25; Greenup, Nov. 28; Cumberland, London, Monticello and Richmond (more than 50,000 reached via Facebook), Dec. 1; Arlington, Barbourville, Beaver Dam, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Corbin, Fordsville, Georgetown, Glasgow, Harlan, Hartford, Henderson, Lawrenceburg, Madisonville, Marion, Munfordville, Murray, Paducah, Somerset and Winchester, Dec. 2; Dawson Springs, Evarts and Nortonville, Dec. 3; Mount Sterling, Dec. 4; Lexington ("the state's largest," per WTVQ), Dec. 5; Bardstown, Dec. 7; Frankfort and Fredonia, Dec. 8; Augusta, Berea ("A Star Spangled Christmas"), Burnside, Cave City, Edmonton, Elkton, Hanson, Hopkinsville (please note the "Hop." street closings), Paintsville, Salem and Whitesville, Dec. 9, and La Center and Oak Grove, Dec. 16.

Good news: A new HUD study indicates homelessness in Kentucky is down this year 5 percent since 2016 and 39 percent since 2010.

Two years ago, Kim Davis denied David Ermold a marriage license because he was gay, despite it being legalized.

Today, she had to watch as he signed up to run against her in the next election. pic.twitter.com/y6HSoThcNi

— Cole Ledford (@ColeLedford11) December 6, 2017

 

We parents of Kentucky schoolchildren need to be getting our Hepatitis A game in gear.

Per this Richmond Register report, about 20 percent of all the aluminum cans that are recycled in the United States are recycled at the Novelis plant in Berea--and now it's expanding.

Oh, Kentucky

Woodland Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Lexington is souping up a rest stop for monarch butterflies just in time for their autumn travel season from Canada to Mexico.

Looks like a new pair of tennis shoes that needs some breaking in! Join us for GAME 1 on September 3 at 6:00pm! pic.twitter.com/FvYeCICyOU

— Murray State Sports (@MSURacers) June 19, 2015

Trigg County's Canton Hotel is re-opening.

Speaking of Canton, LaFayette, etc., Joe Dorris did in the June 20, 1969, Kentucky New Era of Hopkinsville:

Oh, Kentucky

Post by McCracken County Public Schools.

The Disciples are getting ready to hit Hoptown next month. 

The 2007-08 and 2010-12 KHSAA Class 6A champs are getting ready for kickoff next Friday!

The skies are gray at Trinity's football practice today. pic.twitter.com/nAAnxrnwgp
— Jason Frakes (@kyhighs) August 14, 2014

Meanwhile, Broadbent's of Kuttawa racked up its 16th state championship. 

In 2012, 13 percent of people living in Kentucky were from Ohio or other states in the Midwest; 7 percent, from Tennessee or other states in the South.

"I started this because my dad is always at work and I wanted him to come home, so we can all be together."

Franklin's getting a new farmers' market.

List price for The Ballard County Weekly is $15,000.

Oh, Kentucky

Still a VERY Foggy Morning in McKee... Live View from PRTC Cam..@Kentuckyweather @micahharriswx @socstudiestchr pic.twitter.com/maNqGq20oi
— McKee KY Weather (@McKeeKYWeather) May 28, 2014

"There is no telling what will be found" when the site of the Christian County courthouse burned down in 1864 is exhumed.

Noble Park's Duck Island will be no more, but the Duck House's future is safe.

An old orphanage is up for auction in Glendale.

For 70 years, "Presley" Driskell traveled around the country collecting farm trucks and tools; on Saturday, they'll be up for sale in Fredonia.

Duncan Hines: How a Traveling Salesman Became the Most Trusted Name in Food is back on your local bookseller's shelves.

The clerk at Hodgenville's city hall appears to be out--the clerk at Springfield's Lincoln Homestead Golf Course, too, but with a lot less drama.

Unemployment was down in 100 Kentucky counties from April 2013 to April 2014. The lowest rate was recorded in Boone County; the highest, in Jackson.

Rest in peace, Mrs. Fraley, a well-known face and voice around Hazard and a "Bulldog at heart all the way."

Oh, Kentucky

This church is an outlier.

County-fair season, continued, in Bedford: "Float line up begins at 11:30 a.m. at the high school and the parade will route through town ending at the nursing home. ..."

It's also time again for the 400-mile yard sale, along U.S. 68.

Touring Boone County's "Rural Treasures."

"A Walk Through Fredonia's Past."

Is Elizabethtown the Philadelphia of Kentucky?

The cougars around Leitchfield were inspired by the Lions around Eddyville.

Liberty and Casey County are working together to re-ignite business at the Goose Creek Candle Company. 

All-caps is common for copy to be read on the radio, but this WCLU report on a North Carolina man's world-records-breaking performance at the Glasgow Highland Games is particularly worthy.

Ah: "If I can face my old friend one more time in 2013, it will be a great Friday night regardless of the score."

Remember the Trojans ...

Monticello School athletic uniforms, including cheerleader will beavailable ( for $5.00) today at the school from 8 to 2 and6 to 8.
— WKYM News (@wkym1017) June 5, 2013

Rest in peace, Coach Tabor, a Crittenden County native who guided the Union County Bravettes to the 1996 Girls' Sweet Sixteen championship, who was an All-OVC performer at Murray State in 1957 and who lived less than half a year after his wife of 49 years died in January.

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

Kentucky's flags are at half-staff today.

The return of yard-sale season was hailed just last weekend by my wife.

Farmers-market season, too.

Just one more week until Beef Month.

All of the above. All. All?

Again: the good jobs news from Cadiz. Bad from Wheelwright.

Toward the goal of good in Edmonton and Columbia.

Hoptown is home to one of Toyota's top technicians.

Oh, man, I would so love to be hitting the Saint Paul Lutheran German-food booth Thursday and the Metropolitan Hotel fish fry Friday.

John Mellencamp is coming to Bowling Green by a bank.

A simply terrific story (even with the "University of Western Kentucky" gaffe) on Morganfield's Dwane Casey, coach of the Toronto Raptors.

The 5th District Tournament in 1975

Continuing our look at 1975, here was how the Fifth District Tournament played out that year: 

Trigg Co. 68, Livingston Central 44 

Crittenden Co. 74, Lyon Co. 65 

Trigg Co. 82, Caldwell Co. 69 

Trigg Co. 92, Crittenden Co. 57 

By the way, the last school merger in this part of the Commonwealth took place at the beginning of the 1972-73 season, when the Fredonia Yellowjackets merged into Caldwell County. 

Other facts about this district: 

Princeton Dotson, the school for African-Americans in Princeton, merged with Caldwell County at the beginning of the 1963-64 school year. 

During the 1957-58 season, Salem High School merged with Livingston County to form Livingston Central. 

Before the 1957-58 school year, Marion High School merged with Crittenden County High School. 

Before the 1950-51 school year, Shady Grove H.S., Tolu H.S., Mattoon H.S., and Frances H.S. merged to form Crittenden County High School. 

In its last year of existence (1950), Frances High School won the Sixth District Tournament with big wins over Mattoon (75-29), Marion (75-30), and Livingston County (59-38). In the 2d Region tournament, Frances beat Lyon County 59-55 to reach the semi-finals. But in the semi-final, Frances lost to Guthrie 47-45 in its final game. Frances ended the year with a record of 32-4. 

Before the 1947-48 school year, Kuttawa High School and Eddyville High School merged to form Lyon Co.

Oh, Kentucky

The KHSAA wrestling championship starts tomorrow. Union County is defending champ.

Morganfield is so huge right now.

Gov. Beshear renews his grim pen-pal relationship with U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu.

A happier activity for the gov, in Crittenden County.

A ">new twist in the old story of the Eggner's Ferry Bridge.

The fifth Gov. Louie B. Nunn Kentucky Teacher Hall of Fame class has a strong Richmond flavor.

Coyotes and hogs in Somerset Wild Turkey in Corbin.

Transitional housing in Owensboro.

And the LHLKSo11 is ...

Oh, Kentucky

Kind of a sad Christmas story from Paducah.

These are busy times on the Christmas-parade beat, but we Christmas-parade people are a tough lot. On tap: Louisville, 6 p.m. Nov. 25; Mayfield, 6 p.m. Nov. 26; Mount Vernon, 2:30 p.m. Nov. 27; Maysville, 6 p.m. Eastern Dec. 2; Clay, 6:30 p.m. Dec. 2; Walton, Dec. 2; Hopkinsville, 10 a.m. Dec. 3; Independence, 5:45 p.m. Dec. 3; Richardsville, 1:30 p.m. Dec. 4, and Slaughters, 3 p.m. Dec. 4.

What a ripoff.

Caldwell County, represent!

Mad props to Berry Craig!

Clash of the Flash II.

Rest in peace, Lenny Lyles.