108 BOYS & GIRLS CLUB Charlie Boyd graduated from the University of Kentucky in Lexington in 1964 with a degree in animal science. He returned to Mason Co., and in 1973 he and his wife, Martha Donovan Boyd, bought a farm near Mayslick. Within nine years they had paid off the farm and had started to build a superior herd of beef cattle. Charlie judges shows throughout the United States and is considered the finest breeder of Hereford and Angus bulls in the nation. He is one of only two full-time beef breeders east of the Mississippi River. Boyd Heavy Hitter and Boyd New Day are the two champion bulls that have cemented the Boyd Beef Farm and Charlie’s reputation. Using modern tools, his knowledge of genetics, and business acumen, Charlie has been able to develop strains with the traits sought by his customers. The fertility rates of these strains are closely monitored, and the farm’s bulls are sought by commercial and local farmers for their ability to deliver superior offspring that bring good returns on the buyer’s money. The Boyds also sell semen and fertilized eggs from the herds. Some of the semen and eggs from their cattle have been shipped to Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Today the seven farms that are home to the Boyd Cattle Company’s herds are managed and run by Charlie, his son Charles II, Charles II’s wife Paula, Charlie’s son-in-law Andrew Matheny, and Andrew’s wife Suzanne. The family recently built its own sales barn in Mayslick, where spring and fall yearling bulls are sold to buyers from around the world. Charlie Boyd’s grandchildren are also now very much involved in the operation. Boyd, Charlie. Interview by Lynn David, October 3, 2006, Mayslick, Ky. Mitchell, Clifford. “Resources and Environment Build Bull Power,” Cattle Today, April 2005, www .cattletoday.com/archive/2005/April/CT387.shtml (accessed October 11, 2006).
Lynn David
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Cincinnati includes two units in Northern Kentucky. The first of the two was the Kenton Co. Club, now known as Marge Schott-Unnewehr Boys & Girls Club. Discussions about the creation of a Kenton Co. club began during the early 1950s, and by 1955 the Kenton Co. Boys Club was housed above a drugstore at the corner of Fourth and Scott Sts. in Covington. Initially, it had a membership of about 100 boys, who were given academic assistance, athletics, and life skills training. On August 11, 1957, the club broke ground for a daycamp facility on the Bromley– Crescent Springs Pk. In 1970 the Kenton Co. Club was required by the Boys Clubs of America (BCA) to merge with the Boys Clubs of Greater Cincinnati (BCGC). Just two years later, the club was moved into a newly constructed building in Covington at 26th St. and Madison Ave., which it continues to use today. On November 15, 1982, the BCGC began accepting girls as members and officially became the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Cincinnati (BGCGC). In 1984 the Campbell Co. Boys & Girls Club began meeting in Newport, in the basement of the York Street Congregational Church. The club in
Campbell Co. received its charter from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America on May 17, 1985, and it became the fift h unit in the BGCGC group. In 1996 the Campbell Co. club moved to its current location at 10th and Orchard Sts. in Newport. It was renamed the Clem and Ann Buenger Unit in honor of the former president of the Fift h Third Bank and his wife, both longtime advocates for children in Northern Kentucky. Today the BGCGC serves more than 3,000 youths per year in Northern Kentucky and attendance averages more than 300 children per day. Children from age 6 to age 18 are welcome to join for a nominal annual fee. Members receive a hot meal each day in addition to access to athletic teams and equipment, homework assistance and tutoring, and a variety of small-group activities that encourage personal development. A dedicated staff and volunteers support the children. Together, the employees and volunteers hope to create an environment that is fun, nurturing, and empowering for each child who walks through the door. Supported through private donations and funding from the United Way, the BGCGC provides an after-school environment that keeps at-risk children off the streets and gives them an exciting alternative. “Boys Club Dedication,” KTS, August 5, 1957, 1A. “Club Is Named for Donor Schott,” KP, July 5, 2001, 2K.
Jennifer Hedger
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA, DAN BEARD COUNCIL. It seems only appropriate that the local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America began in the boyhood home of one of the scouting organi zation’s founders, Daniel Carter Beard, who resided in Covington. From 1918 through 1923, the Dan Beard Council (the home office of the various local scout troops) was called the Covington Council and served only that city. In January 1925 the council reorga nized as the Northern Kentucky Council, serving Boone, Campbell, and Kenton counties from its headquarters in Covington. Bracken, Grant, and Pendleton counties joined the council in February 1931 as the popularity of scouting grew. A year later Mason, Owen, and Robertson counties were added. The council’s headquarters was moved to Newport in 1941, and in 1944 Gallatin Co. joined the council. In 1951 Bracken, Mason, and Robertson counties transferred to a scout group based in Portsmouth, Ohio. In 1952 the council’s headquarters returned to Covington as its name was changed to the Dan Beard Council. In October 1956 the Dan Beard Council consolidated with the Cincinnati Area Council to form the Dan Beard Council, No. 438. Since that time some Ohio counties have been added to the council; its headquarters is located along Victory Parkway in Cincinnati. The United Way agency partially funds the scouts in this region. The scouts in the Northern Kentucky–Cincinnati region operate campgrounds at Camp Edgar Friedlander in Clermont Co., Ohio, and Camp Michaels (formerly Camp Powderhorn) in Union, Ky.,
where members of each of the three divisions of scouting, the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts, and Venturing (formerly the Explorers), gather for events. Scouting has changed in recent years as the organization has returned to the inner city, providing counseling and self-improvement for boys along with the traditional activities of camping, crafts, hobbies, and civic involvement. For many years in Northern Kentucky, most Boy Scout troops were neighborhood- and church-based, generally directed by male volunteers from the church membership who led the troops in all sorts of prescribed scouting activities. The first scout troop in Northern Kentucky was organized in 1911 by Rev. Harlan C. Runyan at the Latonia Christian Church. During the next decade, prominent Covington civic leaders such as Richard P. Ernst and J. T. Hatfield were active in the scouting movement, as was the Baker-Hunt Foundation. Local places where scouts gathered during those years included Camp Hill and Camp Hatfield in Morning View, the Latonia Racecourse, and Goebel Park in Covington; out-oftown trips were often made to Mammoth Cave National Park and to the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort. Boy Scouts of America. “Dan Beard Council.” www .danbeard.org (accessed October 28, 2006). Covington Troop 6. “Adventure in Scouting: Covington Troop 6, 1911–1936,” Kenton Co. Public Library, Covington, Ky. “Dan Beard to Return to Childhood Home . . .” KP, August 18, 1934, 1. Franzen, Gene. “Daniel Carter Beard Statue,” KE, July 30, 2000, B2.
BRACHT. Never incorporated, this community in southwestern Kenton Co. appears on maps today at U.S. 25 (the Dixie Highway) and Ky. Rt. 14, on the Bracht-Piner Rd. Before 1840, when this area was a part of Campbell Co., it was called Key West and was the childhood home of Kentucky statesman John G. Carlisle. The Covington and Lexington Turnpike (the Dixie Highway) ran along a natural dry ridge from Central Kentucky to the Ohio River. Drovers guided cattle, hogs, mules, and even turkeys up the dirt pike, stopping to water them at a natural spring near Key West. In the late 1870s, the Cincinnati Southern opened its railway along this ridge. By 1883, from a depot with stockyards called Bracht Station (named for Maj. F. B. Bracht of Grant Co.), trains transported farm produce and animals, tobacco, fresh milk, passengers, and mail. A post office operated at Key West from May 1877 until February 1910 and afterward at Bracht Station, a half mile north. Businesses sprang up: general stores, a blacksmith, oneroom schools, a trotting course, and taverns, but no churches. After labor shortages created by World War I, the paving of U.S. 25, and the Great Depression, rural commerce declined, and the railroad depot and post office at Bracht closed. An Atlas of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell Counties, Kentucky. Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1883. Kleber, John E., ed. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1992.