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Your Community Recorder newspaper serving Union, Richwood and Walton
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017
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NKY communities unite after homes ripped apart Chris Mayhew cmayhew@communitypress.com
BURLINGTON - Morning storms ripped away 13-year-old John Harney’s bedroom wall in suburban Boone County while he slept. “I was hanging out the window and hanging onto my bed,” Harney said. Waking up screaming is all Harney said he can clearly remember of harrowing seconds that seemed like minutes when storms struck the family’s brick Colby Court home in Boone County shortly before 7 a.m. Harney’s mother opened his door to see him hanging onto his bed in the air where a wall had been on the home’s second floor. John’s mother, Tonya Crowe Harney, ran to her son’s secondstory bedroom after hearing a “boom.” She wondered if it was a tornado. “He was screaming ‘Mom! Mom!’,” she said. Blown insulation pellets filled what was left of her son’s bedroom. “I finally grabbed him and I started pulling,” his mother said. “I just pulled him back in and got him downstairs.” Luckily, all four family members inside the house were OK, she said. The Harney family home was the most severely damaged of about six homes on Colby Court walloped by storms before 7 a.m. March 1. By 10:30 a.m., roofers were fixing gaping roof holes atop two other homes on the street of
HOW TO STAY INFORMED The information is out there every day for anyone interested in finding out how to receive emergency weather notifications, Scheben said. » Enroll in the CodeRed notification system at www.boonecountyky.org
18 homes with a cul-de-sac in a subdivision off Camp Ernst Road in the Burlington area. About a mile away, storms damaged at least three houses and felled dozens of trees along the 7800 block of Pleasant Valley Road across from Woodcreek Drive. Further south, in the city of Walton, First Baptist Church’s steeple was blown off the roof. Part of the Walton post office’s roof was peeled back across the street on U.S. 25 from the church as well. The post office remained open. Back on Colby Court, neighbors leaped into action to help. Leslie Kittle ran from her home on Norbie Drive, the next street over, and saw part of the Harney house was missing. Business for the day for Kittle’s company, H Johnson Moving & Storage Co. in Covington, was canceled. A moving truck for the Harney family to load up belongings was there by 9 a.m. Kittle said she didn’t know the Harney family before Wednesday morning’s storms. “We’re friends now,” Kittle
THE COMMUNITY RECORDER/CHRIS MAYHEW
Tonya Crowe Harney grabbed her son John by the arm to keep him from being sucked out of his bedroom at upper left in the family’s Colby Court home in Burlington.
said as she hugged Tonya Harney. Kittle lined up people to bring in hot meals for neighbors put out of their houses around 11 a.m. “We’re blessed the storm actually went around our house and only tore down eight or nine
trees in our yard,” Kittle said. At the end of Colby Court’s cul-de-sac, Leah Alexander Angel said the storm struck suddenly. “You just heard a loud boom,” she said. Angel said everything was over by the time she got her children downstairs and safe.
The Angel family home suffered minor damage compared to others. The family trampoline was found several hundred feet away from their house in a pond. “Everyone in the neighborhood really pulled together and helped each other,” she said.
Charity Night at Tables benefits 8 nonprofits Laura A. Hobson Community Recorder Contributor
FLORENCE – Charity Night at the Tables returns to Turfway Park, 7500 Turfway Road, Florence, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, March 18. This fundraising event benefits eight nonprofit organizations that directly serve Northern Kentucky. These include: Boone County CASA, Dinsmore Homestead Foundation, Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky, Henry Hosea House, Parish Kitchen, Scarf it Up for Those in Need, Special Olympics of Northern Kentucky and Steinford Toy Foundation. These charities have a chance to win between $1,500 and $5,000, and the first charity to sell 50 tickets will receive an additional $500. A committee chooses Northern Kentucky charities based on need. Tickets are $80 per person ($90 at the door) and are available online at www.nkycharitynight.org or by calling 859-905-0392. Admission includes food, drinks, gaming, entertainment and a silent auction. Approximately $25,000 is raised each year. More than 400 people attend. Started in 2002, Charity Night focuses on Monte Carlo games where participating charities earn the chance to sponsor horses in Turfway’s Kentucky Derby prep race, the $500,000 Jack Cincinnati Casino Spiral Stakes. Players try their luck at roulette, poker and blackjack.
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The charity with the most “money” in chips at the end of the night gets first pick of horses running in the Spiral Stakes the following Saturday. The charity whose horse finishes best of those chosen receives $5,000 for its work. Several local companies support the event, including Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, The Yearlings and BB&T. The Yearlings Inc. is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization committed to providing scholarships for non-traditional female students at Northern Kentucky University, Thomas More College, Gateway Community and Technical College and the University of Cincinnati. Members help manage the event and provide volunteers. The location of the event, Turfway Park, is a thoroughbred racetrack in Northern Kentucky. Established in 1959 as Latonia, the park was renamed in 1986. The track hosts live racing from fall through spring, maintaining winter dates for Kentucky’s year-round live racing circuit. It also acts as host to qualifying races for the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks. Bill Koenig, co-chair of the event, said that one of the biggest outcomes is not the dollars raised, but the fact that the smaller Northern Kentucky nonprofits receive publicity they wouldn’t ordinarily have. Koenig, a Remax Realtor in Florence, co-chairs the 14th event with Barb Moran Johnson, a financial adviser with Wells Fargo in Fort Mitchell.
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File photo From left, Brian Huber, Shea and Jennifer Neace and Christine Huber, all from Union, play craps during the Charity Night at the Tables in 2015 at Turfway Park. Marty Whitacre for The Community Recorder From left, Brian Huber, Shea and Jennifer Neace and Christine Huber, all from Union, play craps during the Charity Night at the Tables on March 14 at Turfway Park in Florence. CHARITY NIGHT, MARCH 14, 2015: From left, Brian Huber, Shea and Jennifer Neace and Christine Huber, all from Union, play craps during the Charity Night at the Tables on March 14 at Turfway Park in Florence. Marty Whitacre for The Community Recorder
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