138 BUTLER ROSS, TRACEY school employed 24 teachers; a librarian; a principal; 8 cafeteria, custodial, and mechanical workers; and 11 bus drivers. In the fall of 1959, the Pendleton Co. Board of Education consolidated the upper grades from Butler and Morgan high schools into the newly constructed Pendleton Co. Memorial High School, and Butler High School ceased to exist. Throughout the history of Butler High School, at least 22 principals served the school. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Philip A. Sharp was attending the Butler High School when it closed and was transferred to the new county high school. From fall 1959 until the early 1970s, the Butler High School building served as a county elementary school, offering grades one through eight. For many years afterward, the building contained apartments, primarily for low-income persons. Around 2005 the building was damaged by fire and now remains vacant. Belew, Mildred Bowen. “History of Pendleton County Schools.” www.rootsweb.com/~kypendle/school history.htm (accessed September 29, 2006). Butler Woman’s Club, comp. As I Remember Butler. Butler, Ky.: Butler Women’s Club, 1975. Dennie, Debbie, and Patty Jenkins, comps. Forks of the Licking, Bicentennial Edition, 1798–1998. Falmouth, Ky.: Falmouth Outlook, 1998. Hornbeek, Carolyn Pape. Interview by Aprile Conrad Redden, September 23, 2006, Butler, Ky. Hornbeek, Carolyn Pape, and Bobby Nordheim, eds. The Farewell, 1959. Butler, Ky.: Butler High School, 1959. Moore, Virginia Stevenson, ed. School Daze, 1937. Butler, Ky.: Butler High School, 1937. Morris, Linda S. Thornton. Interview by Aprile Conrad Redden, September 23, 2006, Butler, Ky. ———, ed. The Pendleton Echo, 1960. Falmouth, Kentucky: Pendleton High School, 1960.
Michael D. Redden and Aprile Conrad Redden
BUTLER ROSS, TRACEY (b. June 5, 1966, Kittery, Maine). Tracey Butler Ross, the first woman African American dentist in Northern Kentucky, is the daughter of George T. Butler and Beverly Dickerson Butler. As a U.S. Air Force “brat,” Butler lived in California, North Carolina, and Florida, before moving in 1975 to Covington, Ky., the childhood home of her parents. She attended the Covington public schools, graduating at the age of 16 from Holmes High School in 1983. Two teachers at the Sixth District Elementary School in Covington provided the support that launched her onto the road of success. At age 9, she was encouraged by her fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Gebhart, to be an obstetrician-gynecologist instead of an obstetric nurse. At age 11, at the insistence of Mr. William Gray, she was promoted into the eighth
grade, thus enabling her to enter Holmes High School the next year, where she later graduated with honors. During those early years, she already had the goal of becoming a medical doctor, and she excelled scholastically as a result of her mentors. Butler attended Kentucky State University (KSU) in Frankfort on a full four-year presidential scholarship. In 1987 she graduated from KSU with a BS degree in biology; but while at KSU, she had inadvertently missed the application deadline for entry into the University of Louisville (UL) Medical School. On the advice of her mentor, Dr. Kathy Peale, a local Frankfort attorney, Butler decided to apply to the UL Dental School for her first year, intending to apply to the Medical School to begin her second year. It was this pivotal decision that introduced Butler to her lifelong calling as a dentist. She obtained her DMD in 1991. Wanting to give back to her community, Dr. Butler returned to Covington immediately after graduation. She began employment with the Northern Kentucky Family Health Center and stayed there for more than 12 years. Butler married Covington resident Richard Ross in 1996, and they reside in the Main Strasse neighborhood of Covington. In 2001 she and her husband cofounded New Horizons Christian Ministries Inc., and currently they serve as its pastors. With the everpresent desire to bring excellence to a waning community, Dr. Butler Ross began her private practice in 2003 at 1044 Scott St. in Covington. At the close of her first year in practice, she proudly boasted a clientele of more than 1,000 patients, a number that continues to grow. She continues with her desire of “changing lives, one smile at a time.” Butler Ross, Tracy. Interview by Ted Harris, July 2006, Covington, Ky. Devroomen, Sacha. “Dentist to Serve Hometown,” KP, April 20, 1991, 25K.
Theodore H. H. Harris
BUTLER-TURPIN STATE HISTORIC HOUSE. The Butler-Turpin State Historic House belonged to one of Kentucky’s foremost military families from Colonial times through the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. The estate, which was originally owned by Kentucky’s first adjutant general, Revolutionary War hero Percival Butler, is located at General Butler State Resort Park, Carrollton. Butler and his wife, Mildred Hawkins, settled at the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers in 1796 at what was then known as Port William Settlement in Gallatin Co. On April 12, 1797, Butler purchased land from John McKinley to farm and build a home. Today, a portion of that farm makes up the western side of the General Butler State Resort Park. The Butlers built a two-story
log house, barns, and other outbuildings. Gen. William Orlando Butler, the man for whom the park is named, and Maj. Thomas Langford Butler, who resided at the Butler-Turpin State Historic House, were among the 10 children raised in this log house. The house was destroyed by fire in 1863 but has been preserved as an archaeological site. In 1859 Thomas Langford Butler, the eldest son of Percival Butler, along with Thomas’s daughter Mary Ellen and her husband Philip Turpin, built the second-generation home, now the ButlerTurpin State Historic House. Thomas was aide-decamp to Gen. Andrew Jackson and commanded the city of New Orleans, La., during the famous battle fought there on January 8, 1815. Butler was given a military officer’s commission of brevet major for his ser vice. President James Madison (1809–1817) later appointed him surveyor and inspector of the Port of New Orleans. Thomas Butler resided at the home in Gallatin Co. with his sonin-law Philip Turpin, an influential farmer and state legislator, until Thomas’s death in 1880. Built of native masonry construction laid in common bond with a stone foundation, the ButlerTurpin State Historic House is in the Greek Revival style. It is a three-bay, two-story structure commanding a view of the Kentucky River valley. The house is a traditional four over four with central hallways and paired interior brick chimneys located at the north and south ends of the block. The entryway, a one-story porch on substantial square posts, is located in the center bay. Ornamental brackets and dentils are used on the porch and throughout the cornice-work. Stone sills and lintels frame the six-over-six sash openings. Smaller four-over-four pane sash windows are located at the peak of the gable ends. The original interior floor plan and details remain intact along with the stairway dogleg plan on the north side of the central hall, the Greek “ear” door and window moldings on the first floor, and the segmental arches on the second floor as well as on the fireplace mantels in all the rooms and the high baseboards. The historic items displayed in the house include original military documents along with family furniture and other objects. The house was first opened to the public as the Butler Mansion, Butler Memorial Park, in 1933. The house, the detached kitchen, the family cemetery, and the site of the first-generation Butler log house were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Biographical Encyclopedia of Kentucky. Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong, 1878. Carroll Co. Deed Book 2, p. 385; Book 3, p. 43; Book 6, pp. 439–40. Gallatin Co. Deed Book D, p. 431.
Evelyn Welch