B OONE COUNTY RECORDER
Your Community Recorder newspaper serving all of Boone County
THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2012
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BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS
Gaines House opens for summer By Justin B. Duke jbduke@nky.com
WALTON — A Walton landmark has a new milestone. The Abner Gaines House will open for summer hours starting Sunday, May 6. The house will be open from 1-5 p.m. on the first and third Sundays of the month through the summer. Tours will cost $3 for adults and $1 for students.
On May 6, vendors will be on the property for a special event with demonstrations from a blacksmith, soap maker and other trades from the era the house was built. The city of Walton purchased the house, built in 1814, for more than $300,000 in 2006 with the goal of making it a history museum, and this will be the first time the Gaines House will have regular visitor hours.
“I think it’s a great accomplishment,” said Mayor Paula Jolley. Jolley served on the city’s Gaines House committee before becoming mayor and the house holds a special place in her heart, she said. “I’m glad to see it’s come this far,” Jolley said. A large reason the house will be able to welcome visitors over the summer is because of the Friends of the Gaines House
group. A group of close to a dozen volunteers, the Friends of the Gaines House do everything from cleaning up the house to giving tours. “Our big thing is just to educate the area about the history of the Gaines House,” said Cynthia Hurtt, co-chair of the Friends of the Gaines House. Hurtt fell in love with the house after visiting in November and talking with different visitors.
“Everybody had a story about the house,” she said. Whether it was a story about an ancestor or their childhood, the Gaines House is something that ties the community together, Hurtt said. “People want to come together for a house that pulls them together,” she said. For more about your community, visit www.NKY.com/walton
Construction continues on readiness center By Stephanie Salmons ssalmons@nky.com
Boone County Judge-executive Gary Moore, Sen. John Schickel, Shawn Feigh of the American Institute of Architects, former Sen. Dick Roeding, Boone Conservancy executive director Sherry Hempfling and Conservancy board president Sharon Elliston plant a tree at the April 27 dedication and opening of the Conservancy Park Belleview. STEPHANIE SALMONS/THE COMMUNITY RECORDER
Conservancy park opens Mine reclaimed on 45 acres on Ky. 18 By Stephanie Salmons ssalmons@nky.com
A reclaimed sand and gravel mine near Belleview has officially opened as a community
park. The Conservancy Park Belleview was dedicated April 27, an event commemorated with comments from Boone Conservancy and county leaders and the planting of a tree. The Boone Conservancy purchased the approximately 45acre property, located on Ky. 18,
near the Ky. 20 intersection in 2005. “It’s just the culmination of such fantastic team work,” Sherry Hempfling, executive director of the Conservancy, said before the dedication began. “It’s just amazing to me the extent of the work that enabled this to come together.”
JULEP DAY B3
TIME TO VOTE
See recipes for racing’s big party day. Derby Day is time for country ham, biscuits, spoon bread,and fresh mint juleps.
It’s time to pick your Recorder 2012 Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year. Full story, A12
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BURLINGTON — Construction is well under way on the new Kentucky National Guard Readiness Center being built in Burlington. The $19.5 million federally funded facility will be located near the Boone County Sheriff’s Department on Conrad Lane and Gateway Industrial Park. “We’ve been amazed and pleased to find out about this building because it’s not only a great asset as a readiness center for the Guard and the Guard unit ... it’s a great community building,” said Bob Green, senior vice president of manufacturing and existing industry for the Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corp. Ground broke on the facility in September, and according to Capt. Joseph Sloan, designs and projects manager for the Kentucky National Guard, construction should be completed by March 2013, if not sooner. “Usually we’re within that date to 30 days out before we’re moved in and fully operational,”
he said. This location was chosen because of the “gap in response times in this section of the state,” Sloan said. The closest unit is a “fairly small unit” in Walton, and then in Morehead, he said. “When you’re talking about natural disasters, we want to be close enough that we can respond, but not so close that we could potentially be involved in the natural disaster,” said Sloan, who highlighted progress on the project during an informal briefing April 25. The readiness center, encompassing some 77,000 square feet, will feature nearly 5 acres of parking, storage and administrative spaces, conference rooms, classrooms and an assembly hall. It will house the 1204th Aviation Support Battalion. “It’s a really massive building directly adjacent to farm land and some relatively dense housing across the street,” Sloan said – some of which conflicted with the National Guard’s misSee CENTER, Page A2
Construction continues on the Kentucky National Guard Readiness Center in Burlington which is expected to be completed by next March. STEPHANIE SALMONS/THE COMMUNITY RECORDER Vol. 136 No. 29 © 2012 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For the Postmaster
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