February 2019 | Kentucky Monthly Magazine by Kentucky Monthly Magazine

P E NNE D LI TE R ARY CO N TE ST FEBRUARY 2019

2019 WRITERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Display until 3/12/2019

Gurney Norman Ed McClanahan

www.kentuckymonthly.com

™

in this issue

33 Guide to Colleges & Universities

Featured 13 Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame Profiles of 2019 inductees Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman, Alice Allison Dunnigan, Sue Grafton, Helen Thomas and Jane Gentry Vance 16 Penned: The 11th Annual Writers’ Showcase The best of reader-submitted fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and opening paragraph of a novel 30 A Slave’s Story Virgil Covington Jr. embodies the experience of William Wells Brown in presentations across the Commonwealth 38 New Course Wholesale changes have fueled Midway University’s explosive growth

Departments 2 Kentucky Kwiz 4 Mag on the Move

41 The Key to Options Satellite campuses and online courses expand access to higher education in Kentucky

6 Across Kentucky 8 Cooking

43 Landing in Sonora

12 Oddities at the Museum Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum

Charlie Thurman has converted his old home place into a tourism destination

49 Field Notes 50 Calendar

Voices

3 Readers Write 46 Past Tense/Present Tense 56 Vested Interest ON THE COVER Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame inductees Ed McClanahan and Gurney Norman; Guy Mendes photo

KENTUCKY

Kwiz

Test your knowledge of our beloved Commonwealth. To find out how you fared, see the bottom of Vested Interest or take the Kwiz online at kentuckymonthly.com. 1. Since its formal incorporation in 1932, how many people have been bestowed membership in the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels?

known Kentuckian was the primary sponsor of a bill to charter the town of Louisville in 1789 and 1780. A. Augustus Shelby C. Squire Boone

B. 85,000 C. 127,000 2. A century ago in 1919, Georgetown College did what twice for the only time?

7. Postmaster and horse breeder John Wesley Hunt has the distinction of being the first what west of the Appalachian Mountains? A. Undertaker

A. Held commencement on a Sunday

B. Surgeon

B. Sent ambassadors to Georgetown University

C. Millionaire

C. Beat the Kentucky Wildcats in basketball 3. Also a century ago, Sir Barton was the first Kentucky-bred horse to accomplish which feat? A. Have a street in Hamburg Pavilion named in his honor

4. Sir Barton was born on which Lexington horse farm?

8. Chris Holtmann, the head basketball coach at The Ohio State University, played his prep career for which central Kentucky high school? A. Scott County B. Jessamine County C. Bourbon County 9. While Sen. Henry Clay was known as “the great compromiser,” Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan was known as what? A. “The Great Debater”

A. Hamburg Place

B. “The Great Jurist”

B. Lexington Green

C. “The Great Dissenter”

C. Palomar 5. True or false: Jimi Hendrix, considered one of the most influential electric guitarists of all time and a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, once lived in Christian County. 6. A two-term member of the Virginia legislature, this brother of a well-

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

• FEBR UARY 2019

Editorial PATRICIA RANFT, Associate Editor DEBORAH KOHL KREMER, Assistant Editor MADELYNN COLDIRON and TED SLOAN, Contributing Editors REBECCA REDDING, Layout Artist CAIT A. SMITH, Copy Editor Senior Kentributors JACKIE HOLLENKAMP BENTLEY, ANNETTE CABLE, BILL ELLIS, STEVE FLAIRTY, GARY GARTH, RACHAEL GUADAGNI, JESSE HENDRIX-INMAN, KRISTY ROBINSON HORINE, ABBY LAUB, LINDSEY McCLAVE, WALT REICHERT, GARY P. WEST

Business and Circulation BARBARA KAY VEST, Business Manager JOCELYN ROPER, Circulation Specialist

Advertising

B. Win racing’s Triple Crown C. Race under Canadian colors

B. Luther Logan

A. 32,000

Celebrating the best of our Commonwealth

10. “Pistol-Packin’ ” Pearl Pace of Cumberland County was the first woman to be: A. Elected sheriff in Kentucky B. National target shooting champion C. Quick-draw expert

JULIE MOORE, Senior Account Executive LARA FANNIN, Account Executive MIKE LACEY, Account Executive JOHN LASWELL, Account Executive For advertising information, call (888) 329-0053 or (502) 227-0053 KENTUCKY MONTHLY (ISSN 1542-0507) is published 10 times per year (monthly with combined December/ January and June/July issues) for $20 per year by Vested Interest Publications, Inc., 100 Consumer Lane, Frankfort, KY 40601. Periodicals Postage Paid at Frankfort, KY and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to KENTUCKY MONTHLY, P.O. Box 559, Frankfort, KY 40602-0559. Vested Interest Publications: Stephen M. Vest, president; Patricia Ranft, vice president; Barbara Kay Vest, secretary/treasurer. Board of directors: James W. Adams Jr., Dr. Gene Burch, Kim Butterweck, Gregory N. Carnes, Barbara and Pete Chiericozzi, Kellee Dicks, Maj. Jack E. Dixon, Bruce and Peggy Dungan, Mary and Michael Embry, Wayne Gaunce, Frank Martin, Lori Hahn, Thomas L. Hall, Judy M. Harris, Greg and Carrie Hawkins, Jan and John Higginbotham, Dr. A. Bennett Jenson, Walter B. Norris, Kasia Pater, Dr. Mary Jo Ratliff, Barry A. Royalty, Randy and Rebecca Sandell, Kelli Schreiber, Christopher E. and Marie Shake, Kendall Carr Shelton, Ted M. Sloan and Marjorie D. Vest. Kentucky Monthly invites queries but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material; submissions will not be returned. Kentucky Monthly is printed and distributed by Publishers Press, Lebanon Junction, Ky.

www.kentuckymonthly.com (888) 329-0053 P.O. Box 559 100 Consumer Lane Frankfort, KY 40601

VOICES TREASURED BAND

If ever there were a Kentucky treasure, it would be the McLain Family Band. What joy to catch up with the McLains in the October issue of Kentucky Monthly (page 30) and to see this talented family celebrated. One of my nicest memories is a surprise party in 1989 at Shakertown to celebrate my 50th birthday. “Young” Raymond—as we referred to him because we had been friends and admirers of his grandfather, also named Raymond—played and sang his beautiful music for a group of dear friends who had come from far and near, and he was incredibly gracious, talented and entertaining. He was a crowning glory to a special evening, and we were all in awe. We’ve followed the young McLains for years and glory in their continued longevity and success in so many areas, in addition to their musical talents. This family has long been an integral and influential part of Kentucky’s history. Dr. Raymond McLain was president of Transylvania College (now University) from 1939-1951, and Bicky (Beatrice) McLain was associated with Berea College’s dance department for many years. They were truly a Renaissance couple with broad interests, who left an awe-inspiring legacy via their talented children and grandchildren. Betsy McGehee, Spartanburg, South Carolina MISSING THE WEST

I absolutely loved the piece Steve Vest wrote about Calhoun (October issue, page 56). I miss western Kentucky so much! I’m from Madisonville but live in Frankfort now. Keep up the good work! Melvin Nicholson, via email FAULKNER AND PAPA I enjoyed the article on Henry Faulkner that appeared in the November issue (page 24). Lexington resident Faulkner was quite a controversial figure when I attended the University of Kentucky in the late 1960s, but I will admit that I knew little about his artistic prominence until much later.

On a tour of the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West a few years ago, I saw hanging over “Papa” Hemingway’s bed in the master bedroom Faulkner’s painting of the house, complete with several of the author’s beloved cats. Faulkner and Hemingway were great friends during the time Hemingway lived in the house, from 1931 to 1939. Jim Miller, via email INFLUENTIAL KENTUCKIANS

Regarding Bill Ellis’ article on the people who made Kentucky and America (November issue, page 38), I respectfully submit the following for consideration: 1) Judge Mac Swinford (1899-1975) – lawyer, federal judge, subject of William H. Fortune’s biography, Call Me Mac. Swinford was the judge most responsible for carrying out the mandates of Brown v. Board of Education in Kentucky. 2) Florence McDowell Shelby Cantrill (1888-1981) – politician, delegate to the 1920 Kentucky Democratic Convention, second woman to serve in the Kentucky Legislature, first woman to serve as mayor pro-tem of Lexington, instrumental in the passage of the Kentucky Child Labor Law. 3) William Thorton “W.T” Lafferty (1856-1922) – educator, first Dean of the College of Law, University of Kentucky. 4) Mary Hanson “Cissy” Peterson Gregg (1903-1966) – author, columnist. One of the first women to graduate from UK’s College of Agriculture, 1924; nationally known food columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, her portrait hangs in the Kentucky state Capitol building gallery of “Kentucky Women Remembered.” 5) Mary Desha (1850-1911) – co-founder of the Daughters of the American Revolution. 6) Sgt. Charles Clinton Fleek (19471969) – posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions in Binh Duong Province,

Readers Write Republic of Vietnam, while serving as a squad leader in the U.S. Army. G.B. Wieman, Lexington Regarding Mr. Ellis’ article on Kentucky’s most influential people, I would nominate Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds, Jefferson Davis and Robert Penn Warren, all of whom were born in my native county, Todd. Todd County is almost never shown on your featured Kentucky map, yet it has spawned three important Kentuckians. Carol Berryman, Marietta, Georgia CUSTOMER NOT ALWAYS RIGHT When I read Bill Ellis’ Article in the September issue (page 40), I had a flashback to a conversation I witnessed between my grandfather and a customer in Silver Grove (Campbell County). In the summer of 1953, at age 12, I began pumping gas at my uncle’s service station located next to my grandfather’s home. My grandfather spent much of his time at the station and often pumped gas as I lifted the hood; checked the oil, battery and radiator; and wiped the windshields. All of the customers knew my grandfather and called him “Pop.” Back in 1953, the price of regular gas was 17 cents—not 17.9 cents! And back then, no one had credit cards, and it was rare that anyone would say, “Fill it up.” Typically, they would either ask for $1 or $2 of gas. As an accommodation, my uncle allowed customers to cumulatively charge up to $20 for gas, repairs or tires. One day, a customer pulled up to the pump and said, “Pop, I need $2 of gas.” My grandfather said, “You’re already up to your $20 limit, so you need to pay cash for your gas.” The customer then said, “Pop, that’s no way to talk to a customer … Don’t you know the customer is always right?” To which my grandfather replied, “The only place where the customer is always right is a whore house. This ain’t no whore house. So if you want $2 worth of gas, you need to pay for it with cash!” Frank Losey, via email

Counties featured in this issue n

We Love to Hear from You! Kentucky Monthly welcomes letters from all readers. Email us your comments at editor@kentuckymonthly. com, send a letter through our website at kentuckymonthly.com, or message us on Facebook. Letters may be edited for clarification and brevity.

FEBR UARY 2019

• K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

MAG ON THE MOVE Steve and Vena Raleigh

Switzerland While on a Rhine River Viking Cruise to celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Greenville couple visited the Swiss Alps.Â

Jimmie and Cherri Cunningham Sam and Karen Downs Lake Alaska Italy

Edwina and Larry Rowell Vietnam

Formerly of Princeton, the Gallatin, Tennessee, residents traveled to Ketchikan, Alaska, and watched the salmon swim upstream.

The Rowells represented Campbellsville University at the American Abroad Conference in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY â&#x20AC;˘ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

Karen, who is originally from Loretto, and her husband, Sam, celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary in the Cinque Terre region of Italy.

Even when you’re far away, you can take the spirit of your Kentucky home with you. And when you do, we want to see it! Take a copy of the magazine with you and get snapping. Send your high-resolution photos (usually 1 MB or higher) to editor@kentuckymonthly.com.

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The couple, formerly of McDowell (Floyd County) took in a Sumo tournament while traveling in Japan. They currently reside in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

McLean County natives Teresa and Sam, who live in Georgetown, took Kentucky Monthly along on their trip to San Antonio’s famed River Walk.

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BRIEFS

Across Kentucky

B I R T H DAY S

BEE INSPIRED

Schools across Kentucky and southern Indiana are buzzing about the upcoming 26th annual Ford Motor Company Kentucky Derby Festival Spelling Bee, where students from every corner of the Commonwealth will put their spelling skills to the test in a suspenseful competition for the title of KDF Spelling Bee Champion. This year’s bee is scheduled for 11 a.m., March 16, at the Kentucky Center in downtown Louisville. The first KDF Spelling Bee hit the ground running 25 years ago when the festival adopted an existing local bee from the Courier-Journal that had prevailed since the 1920s. Since then, the event has only grown. Contestants ranging from grades four through eight face elimination by misspelling even a single word. The rounds continue until only the final two competitors are left standing. To win the bee, one of the two finalists must spell a word correctly that the other has misspelled and then correctly spell an additional word. Aimee Boyd, KDF vice president of communications, describes the competition as “nerve-wracking” and “intense” but fun for participants and spectators alike. Even the audience gets involved, spelling out words along with the competitors and looking up words on their phones to test their own spelling prowess. Impressively, the KDF Spelling Bee has witnessed four multi-year champions. John Tamplin of Jefferson County dominated the bee five years in a row, from 2002-2006. Emily Keaton (who appeared in Kentucky Monthly’s February 2013) of Pike County, won four years in a row, from 2010-2013, before handing the reins over to her brother, Paul (March 2016 issue), who won the next two years, 2014 and 2015. Finally, Tara Singh (May 2018 issue) of Jefferson County Private Schools won the bee the Three-time bee champion Tara Singh last three years, from 2016-2018. To participate in the statewide KDF Spelling Bee, students must first advance through their local school and county bees, so even if they don’t go home with a champion title, there is a sense of accomplishment just for competing. “They are all winners when they get to our bee,” Boyd says. “They’ve already won in their county, and that’s a big deal.” These local bees usually occur in January and February. Though the local bees are held independently, the KDF reaches out to schools at the start of the year, providing vital materials and information. KDF President and CEO Mike Berry has described the bee as one of the KDF’s “more far-reaching events”—and with good reason. By impacting its competitors in such a way that ripples throughout their lives and the lives of others, the bee demonstrates the KDF’s commitment to ongoing education. The KDF Spelling Bee is funded by the Kentucky Derby Festival Foundation, the KDF’s charitable arm. The bee’s champion receives the Fillies Scholarship Fund, a $10,000-at-maturity savings bond. The second-place finisher receives a $5,000 savings bond. Savings bonds of $3,000, $1,500 and $1,000 are granted to the third-, fourth- and fifth-place winners, respectively. These scholarship rewards have been in place since 2009 and are made possible by sponsors such as the Fillies, Inc., Ford Motor Company and Texas Roadhouse. Berry hopes that the funds will help foot the winners’ college expenses. Some KDF Spelling Bee winners go on to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held annually in May in Washington, D.C. Winner of the initial, 1994 KDF Spelling Bee Eric Shields is now an English teacher at Western Hills High School in Frankfort, inspiring Kentucky youths to take an interest in literacy. As for the future of the KDF Spelling Bee: “We’d like to see the event continue to grow, as far as participants,” Boyd says. “We have about half of the counties in Kentucky that participate and a few in southern Indiana. We would love to showcase students from every county in Kentucky and southern Indiana in the bee.” — Cait A. Smith 6

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1 Don Everly (1937), Muhlenberg County-born singer who is best known for his years with his late brother, Phil, as The Everly Brothers 1 Arturo Alonzo Sandoval (1942), noted fiber artist and University of Kentucky professor of art 5 Gary P. West (1943), Bowling Green-based author of books such as Eating Your Way Don Everly Across Kentucky and biographies of numerous sports figures 6 Tinashe Kachingwe (1993), R&B singer from Lexington 10 John Calipari (1959), University of Kentucky basketball coach 12 Ed Hamilton (1947), Louisvillebased sculptor best known for “The Spirit of Freedom,” a memorial to black Civil War veterans in Washington, D.C. 15 Chris T. Sullivan (1948), founder and CEO of Outback Steakhouse, who graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1972 18 Mark Melloan (1981), folksinger/ songwriter from Elizabethtown 20 Brian Littrell (1975), contemporary gospel singer/ songwriter and former member of the Backstreet Boys from Lexington 20 Mitch McConnell (1942), U.S. Senate majority leader from Louisville 22 Rajon Rondo (1986), UK AllAmerican and NBA basketball star from Louisville 21 John Clay (1959), longtime sports columnist for the Lexington HeraldLeader 24 Beth Broderick (1959), Falmouthborn actress who portrayed Aunt Zelda on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 1996-2003

Alexandria Mills

26 Alexandria Mills (1992), fashion model and Miss World 2010 from Shepherdsville 27 Jared Champion (1983), Bowling Green-born drummer of the group Cage the Elephant

BEAUTY FROM DESTRUCTION Sculptor Laura Petrovich-Cheney invites the public to her quilt exhibit at Berea College’s Doris Ulmann Gallery, located in the Rogers-Traylor Art Building. “I promise you it will be like no other quilt show you’ve seen,” PetrovichCheney says, “because the quilts are made of wood!” Looking out over a neighborhood reduced to rubble by such calamities as Hurricane Sandy and the fires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the collapsed houses may seem as tragic patches in a quilt of chaotic ruin. Drawing inspiration from environmentalism and the human capacity to heal after immense loss, Petrovich-Cheney resurrects the debris as art. “Using salvaged wood collected after natural disasters, I make quilts,” she explains. “Instead of sewing the material into patchwork designs, I use table saws, mitre saws and sanders to create my quilts.” The sculptor is no stranger to loss. Her parents lost their home in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and her father lost his life repairing the house. Her work is a reminder of life: One of Petrovich-Cheney’s stunning creations of transformation, regeneration and second chances. Out of devastating destruction, Petrovich-Cheney creates something beautiful, meaningful and steeped in hope. Going Against the Grain: Wood Quilts is on display through Feb. 15. A reception with the artist will be held Thursday, Feb. 7, from 4:30-6:00 p.m. — Cait A. Smith

FRENCH ACCOLADES Rosine native and author Alex Taylor has garnered international acclaim for his 2015 crime novel, The Marble Orchard. Originally published by Ig Publishing in Brooklyn, New York, Le Verger de Marbre was translated into French and published by Gallmeister in 2017. Since then, Taylor’s tragic thriller, set in the heart of rural Kentucky, has earned two French honors. Lauded for its dark, fatalistic tone; tense, thrilling plot; and Faulknerian prose, the book was an international finalist of the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière 2017, France’s most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction. It was also one of the five finalists for the Prix SNCF du Polar 2018, which bestows awards in the categories of novels, comics and short films, voted on by the French public. “It’s quite an honor,” Taylor says. “Kind of a surreal feeling, because I don’t consider myself a very cosmopolitan person. I like towns, and I like Kentucky. It’s nice to see that some of that ethos translates across the ocean.” Taylor teaches creative writing and English composition at Morehead State University. Readers can look forward to his next novel, which will tell the story of a Kentucky prison worker.

Kentucky Gateway Museum Center Home of the KSB Miniatures Collection and the Old Pogue Experience

History, Heritage, and Tradition

Visit the Old Pogue Experience and Bourbon History Exhibits at the KYGMC Limestone Building open Tuesday – Saturday 11am to 3pm 215 Sutton Street

Maysville, KY 41056 606-564-5865 Open Tuesday – Saturday 10am to 4pm

www.kygmc.org

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

FOOD

Cooking

From the Heart

PHOTOS BY

Jesse Hendrix Inman

Recipes provided by Janine Washle of CloverFields Farm and Kitchen and prepared at Sullivan University by Ann Currie.

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Valentine’s Day traditionally is a holiday for lovers to express their endearment in the form of sparkly presents, pricey scents and fancy foods. Today, there’s a more casual approach in celebrating, with the introduction

a few years ago of “Galentine’s Day,” an opportunity for the girls to get together for a fun evening the night before Feb. 14. Now there’s even “Palentine’s Day,” which is the equivalent, except that guy pals are included in

the entertainment. However you celebrate, a special meal with a nod to iconic aphrodisiacs will keep your guests amused but seriously impressed with your culinary skills.

Janine Washle

Chocolate and Bailey’s Pots de Crème 12 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate (or use 6 ounces semisweet and 6 ounces 60 percent cacao for a richer taste)

1 cup heavy cream 2 large eggs, room temperature 2 large eggs yolks, room temperature ½ teaspoon vanilla extract Pinch of sea salt ¼ cup Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur 1. In a food processor or powerful blender, break up chocolate by pulsing several times. 2. Heat heavy cream in a small pot set over medium heat until steaming and small bubbles are visible around the sides. Remove from heat. 3. Add eggs, yolks, vanilla and salt to chocolate. Turn on food processor and slowly pour in hot heavy cream. Continue to process for a couple more minutes until mixture is smooth and shiny. Add liqueur, and process a few more seconds to incorporate. 4. Divide the mixture among dessert bowls, and refrigerate to completely chill.

Spinach-Bacon Oysters 2 9-ounce packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed 2/3

cup sour cream

¼ cup minced onion 6 strips crispy bacon, crumbled 1/3

cup grated Parmesan

Salt and pepper to taste 16-18 large oysters French bread rounds, for serving 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coat a large au gratin dish with baking spray. Set aside. 2. Squeeze excess moisture from thawed spinach. In a medium bowl, stir together sour cream, onion, bacon, Parmesan, and salt and pepper. Stir in spinach, breaking up clumps. Spread half of mixture in prepared pan. 3. Using the back of a tablespoon, make indentations in spinach mixture. Place an oyster in each indentation. Top each with remaining spinach mixture. 4. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are bubbling. Serve hot with toasted French bread rounds. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

FOOD

Cooking

Espresso Crème Brûlée 2 cups heavy cream ½ cup granulated sugar, plus more for torching 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder 1 teaspoon vanilla 4 large eggs, room temperature 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 4-6 brûlée dishes. Set aside. 2. In a heavy saucepan over mediumhigh heat, whisk together heavy cream, sugar, espresso powder and vanilla. Heat until mixture simmers, whisking constantly to prevent sticking. 3. Whisk eggs in a medium bowl or large measuring cup. Stir in a little hot mixture, whisking rapidly to prevent eggs from curdling. Whisk in a little more, and then a little more. 4. Return the egg-enriched mixture to pot. Whisk until mixture has thickened to a pudding-like consistency and leaves a path on the back of a metal spoon. Divide mixture among brûlée dishes. Set dishes in a larger baking dish, and add water to come halfway up sides of dishes. Bake for 2530 minutes or just until set. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until chilled. 5. Preheat oven to broil. Remove dishes from refrigerator. Sprinkle sugar over top of each crème brûlée. Broil for 2-3 minutes or until sugar caramelizes. Easier yet, use a torch to caramelize sugar. 6. Cool a few minutes before serving. 10

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Beef Tenderloin with Wild Mushroom Bourbon Sauce 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 2- to 3-pound beef tenderloin, trimmed 1 teaspoon garlic seasoning salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Sauce: 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 cup assorted wild mushrooms ½ teaspoon sea salt 1 large garlic clove, minced 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard ¼ cup bourbon ¾ cup heavy cream 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat oil in a large heavy skillet. Rub tenderloin with seasoning salt and pepper. Brown on all sides in hot skillet. Transfer to a roasting pan. Insert meat thermometer. 2. Place roast in preheated oven. Roast until thermometer reads 155 degrees. Remove from oven and tent with foil. Meat will continue to cook while resting, increasing by about 5 degrees. 3. While meat roasts, prepare sauce by heating olive oil in a heavy mediumsized skillet set over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and salt to skillet and sauté for 5-7 minutes or until mushrooms are soft. 4. Add minced garlic, mustard and bourbon. Continue to sauté until bourbon is almost evaporated. Stir in heavy cream, adjust heat to medium, and simmer until sauce coats the back of a spoon, leaves a clear trail when swiped down the center, and is slightly reduced. 5. Serve sauce alongside, or over, beef tenderloin slices. Note: Instead of beef tenderloin, serve sauce over top of grilled steaks.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Pasta 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 2 cups chicken broth 2 teaspoons minced garlic ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper 1 cup heavy cream 3 tablespoons cornstarch 2 cups shredded Swiss cheese 1 cup thinly sliced honey-roasted ham or Black Forest ham ½ pound tubular or ridged pasta 1. Place chicken breasts in an Instant Pot container. Pour broth over top. Sprinkle garlic, salt and pepper on top of broth. Close lid. Select “Manual,” and set time for 8 minutes. Once Instant Pot has pressurized, about 10 minutes, the timer will start counting down. 2. When the cook time has ended, allow the Instant Pot to naturally pressure release for about 5 minutes, then do a quick release to bring down the remaining pressure. Remove lid, and transfer chicken to a cutting board. 3. Turn off Instant Pot, then press the “Sauté” button. Whisk together heavy cream and cornstarch. Whisk into the simmering chicken broth. Gradually add cheese, whisking between additions until sauce is smooth. Add ham, and gently stir to incorporate. Cut chicken into slices and add back to sauce. 4. While chicken is cooking, prepare pasta according to directions. Drain, and keep warm until sauce is ready. 5. To serve, divide pasta between pasta bowls. Top with sauce. Serve hot. Note: This dish can be prepared on top of stove. Place chicken breasts in a heavy pot along with broth, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook for 30 minutes or until internal temperature of chicken is 165 degrees. Prepare sauce according to directions.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

CULTURE

Oddities

Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum BY DEBORAH KOHL KREMER PHOTO BY DAVID SORRELLS

entucky historically has been associated with coal mining, but the finds of another type of mining are on display at the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum in Marion (Crittenden County). And the treasures are so much prettier than what naughty children find in their stockings on Christmas morning. In the far western part of the state, the counties of Crittenden, Livingston and Caldwell make up part of the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District. Dating back to before the Civil War, the mines in the area yielded galena, zinc and barite concentrate. Also predominant was a colorful mineral called fluorite, which had no use to those early miners. In 1873, however, it was recognized for its ability to lower the melting temperature of iron to remove impurities, and fluorite mining continued through the 1950s. Entrepreneur Ben E. Clement arrived in the area around 1920 and operated fluorspar mines for the United States steel industry. Clement realized that these brightly colored pieces also could be of interest to art collectors, and over the next 60 years, he amassed a huge collection at his home. His intuition was right. Today, fluorite is one of the most popular minerals in the world among mineral collectors and has earned the reputation as the world’s most colorful mineral. “The reason [Clement] had so many pieces was he had the foresight to save it and not crush it, as other mines were doing,” said Tina Walker, museum director. “Upon his death in 1980, his heirs decided to turn his collection into a museum for all to enjoy.” This massive, vibrant collection is made up of minerals 12

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY •

FEBR UARY 2019

of all sizes and shapes, but one particular piece qualifies as this month’s Oddity at the Museum. With a shape similar to the outline of Kentucky, the stunning fluorite piece measures about 12 inches long and shines a vivid blue. Walker said a visitor on a tour—probably a proud member of Big Blue Nation—picked it out and brought the shape to her attention. “We don’t know if that is why Mr. Clement kept it,” she said, “but we are glad he did.” Fluorite is commonly found in shades of purple and yellow, but hues of reds, greens, whites and blues also exist. The colors are determined by earth elements, impurities and interactions with other minerals. Walker said the collection appeals to many people: rock hounds, geology buffs and history enthusiasts as well as those interested in mining. Although mining ended in this area in the 1970s, the museum has a collection of mining equipment, photos and documents that depict its rich history. “We welcome about 4,000 to 5,000 visitors each year, and people say we are the best kept secret in western Kentucky,” Walker said. “Visitors are surprised at how much we have.”

Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum 205 North Walker Street, Marion 270.965.4263 | clementmineralmuseum.org

CA R N E G I E C E N T E R L E X . O R G Ed McC lanahan

Alice Allison Dunnigan

Sue Grafton

Gurney Norman

Jane Gentry Vance

H elen Thomas

0 2 19

Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame Biographies by James B. Goode

Photos by Guy Mendes and/or courtesy of the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning

Our Commonwealth is home to numerous exceptional writers. The Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame was created in 2013 by Lexington’s Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning to recognize authors “whose work reflects the character and culture” of Kentucky. This year, the Hall of Fame committee has selected six writers for induction, bringing the total number of inductees to 39. In this special section, you’ll learn about the lives and legacies of these outstanding Kentuckians.

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Ed McC lanahan When Ed McClanahan’s novel The Natural Man was released in 1983, author Wendell Berry said, “Others have observed the natural man in the American condition before, but nobody has done it with such good humor. Ed McClanahan’s good humor both sharpens his eye and gentles his vision. I don’t know where else you would find workmanship that is at once so meticulous and so exuberant.” Most critics of McClanahan’s work collectively agree on the masterful quality of his work. He is known for his rollicking, goodnaturedly crude humor and creatively extensive vocabulary and has been compared with American humorists such as Mark Twain, John Kennedy Toole and S.J. Perelman. Kentucky native McClanahan was born in Brooksville, the county seat of Bracken County. He is a graduate of Miami (Ohio) University (bacehelor’s degree, 1955) and the University of Kentucky (master’s degree, 1958). He received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University in 1962 and remained at the university as the E.H. Jones lecturer in creative writing until 1972. While at Stanford, he was nicknamed “Captain Kentucky,” a persona he assumed when he became a member of author Ken Kesey’s infamous band of “Merry Pranksters.” He had various costumes that included a cape (often an American flag), Air Force sunglasses and gold cowboy boots. McClanahan and contemporaries Berry, James Baker Hall, Bobbie Ann Mason and Gurney Norman are members of the “Fab Five” group of Kentucky writers who are products of the creative writing program at the University of Kentucky. Professors Robert Hazel and Hollis Summers were influential in fostering this group of exceptional writers. McClanahan’s books include: The Natural Man (a novel), Famous People I Have Known (a comic autobiography), A Congress of Wonders (a collection of three novellas), My Vita, If You Will (a miscellany of fiction, nonfiction, reviews and commentary), Fondelle, or, The Whore with a Heart of Gold: A Report from the Field (a memoir), “A Foreign Correspondence” (an autobiographical story), Spit in the Ocean #7: All About Ken Kesey (a biography/ memoir), O The Clear Moment (an “implied” 14

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b. 1932

autobiography), and I Just Hitched in From the Coast: The Ed McClanahan Reader (a collection of essays). The title story of A Congress of Wonders was made into a prize-winning short film in 1993, and the following year, McClanahan was the subject of an hour-long documentary on Kentucky Educational Television. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Esquire, Rolling Stone and Playboy. He twice won Playboy’s best nonfiction award. Following Kesey’s death in 2001, McClanahan edited Spit in the Ocean # 7: All About Kesey, a collection of stories, poems and essays featuring Kesey. Spit in the Ocean # 7 was the last volume of a literary magazine Kesey had established in 1973 and thereafter sporadically self-published. Each Spit in the Ocean volume featured a different theme and editor. The last Kesey-published edition, Spit in the Ocean #6, had been released more than 20 years before, in 1981. McClanahan is a master short story writer. In a Publishers Weekly starred review, a reviewer praises O The Clear Moment: “Playful, selfdeprecating and wickedly sharp, McClanahan’s nine autobiographical short stories delve into youthful shenanigans and poignant first love in the late 1940s in Bracken [and Mason counties]. McClanahan has an enormously personable style.” Alison Hallett of the Portland Mercury wrote of the book: “McClanahan’s skills as a humorist are predicated on a deep respect for language, and the book’s best moments come when McClanahan indulges in the rhetorical flourishes that make his lowbrow subject matter all the funnier.” No author has been more passionate about his roots than McClanahan. His work has been set largely in Kentucky, profiling and creating some of the most memorable characters to be found in Kentucky literature. He has spent much of his life promoting the literary arts throughout the United States—as a professor, workshop leader, presenter and reader of his work, and guest speaker at dozens of venues. McClanahan taught English and creative writing at Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Montana, the University of Kentucky and Northern Kentucky University.

Gurney Norman

b. 1937

Fictionist, essayist, literary critic, editor and filmmaker Gurney Norman is widely recognized as an authority on the literary and cultural history of the Appalachian region. The bulk of his career was spent as director of the University of Kentucky’s Creative Writing Program, fostering student luminaries such as poet Frank X Walker. Born in Grundy, Virginia, in 1937, Norman was reared in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky by two sets of grandparents. After his education at the Stuart Robinson Settlement School in Letcher County, he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1959 with degrees in literature and creative writing. At the university, he befriended fellow writers Wendell Berry, James Baker Hall, Ed McClanahan and Bobbie Ann Mason. In 1960, after a year of graduate school, Norman received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University, where he studied with literary critic Malcolm Cowley and Irish short story writer Frank O’Connor. After two years in the United States Army, Norman returned to eastern Kentucky in 1963 to work as a reporter for The Hazard Herald. Following a threeyear stint in journalism, he resigned to concentrate on writing fiction, taking a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon in the summers of 1966 and ’67. In 1971, Norman’s novel, Divine Right’s Trip, was famously published in the lower page margins of The Last Whole Earth Catalog and subsequently in book form by the Dial Press (1972) and Bantam Books (1972). In 1977, his book of short stories, Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories, was published by Gnomon Press and received Berea College’s Weatherford Award. The Louisville Courier-Journal praised the collection upon its release: “Like that of his mentors, Norman’s work is novelistic in scope while preserving in the individual episodes the essential qualities of the short story. This new work can only enhance his reputation by suggesting that Norman may be the outstanding storyteller of his generation.” Norman’s other published works include Book One From Crazy Quilt: A Novel in Progress (1990) and Ancient Creek: A Folktale (2012). In 1979, Norman joined the English Department faculty at the University of Kentucky. He served as director of the Creative Writing Program until 2014, when Julia Johnson was appointed to replace him and establish an MFA creative writing degree program. Norman continues as a professor in the English Department and serves as a core faculty member in the MFA program. In the late 1980s, Norman began a collaboration with Kentucky Educational Television to produce three one-hour documentary programs. The documentaries were written and narrated by Norman in association with director John Morgan. Time on the River (1987) is a study of the history and landscape of the Kentucky River valley. In From This Valley (1989), Norman explores the history of the Big Sandy River valley with a focus on its rich literary tradition. Wilderness Road (1991) traces Daniel Boone’s route from the New River near Radford, Virginia, through the Cumberland Gap, to the banks of the Kentucky River in Madison County, Kentucky. In addition to his television work, Norman collaborated with independent filmmaker Andy Garrison, who directed three films based on Norman’s short stories. Norman’s short story “Fat Monroe” was made into a 1990 film starring Ned Beatty. Norman is the recipient of numerous awards, including having his work as a fiction writer, filmmaker and cultural advocate honored at the 1996 15th annual Emory and Henry College Literary Festival, which celebrates significant writers in the Appalachian region. He was given the 2002 Eastern Kentucky Leadership Conference Award for outstanding contributions to advancing regional arts and culture and the 2007 Appalachian Studies Association Helen M. Lewis Community Service Award, which recognizes exemplary contributions to Appalachia in service to its people and communities. Norman has served for several years as senior writer-in-residence at Hindman Settlement School’s annual Appalachian Writers Workshop. Norman was the 2009-2010 Kentucky poet laureate. On May 8, 2011, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Berea College.

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In the editor’s note to Alone atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press, Carol M. Booker writes, “It wasn’t the poverty of a washerwoman’s life in rural Kentucky that drove young Alice Allison relentlessly to succeed as a professional. Poverty would be with her most of her life, even as a national reporter for more than one hundred black weekly newspapers. What spurred her on was a keen intellect, immense determination, and a yearning for dignity and respect despite intractable racial barriers.” Alice Dunnigan lived the quintessential American story of a socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged person who worked her way from extremely humble beginnings to resounding professional success, becoming the first African-American female correspondent at the White House and a credentialed member of the Senate and House of Representatives press galleries. Her story began in Russellville, where she was born to sharecroppers Willie and Lena Pitman Allison shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Her fate seemed sealed when, at 19, she married a tobacco farmer, but she wanted more and ended the marriage in 1930 to teach public school in Todd County while enrolled in journalism courses at Tennessee A&I State College. In 1936, Dunnigan became a freelance reporter for the Chicago branch of the American Negro Press (ANP), then served as a reporter for the Chicago Defender in 1946 while taking statistics and

Alice Allison Dunnigan

19 06-1983 economics courses at Howard University. She subsequently became a full-time reporter for the ANP. In 1948, she covered the campaign of President Harry S Truman. Even at the peak of her career, Dunnigan had to battle racial bias and segregation. She was banned from covering a 1953 speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered in a whitesonly auditorium, and when Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft died that same year, she was relegated to sitting with the servants at his funeral. Dunnigan left the ANP in 1960 to work with Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was on LBJ’s staff and continued to serve with him when he became president after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Dunnigan held several other government posts before retiring in 1977. She authored hundreds of news articles, columns and ANP wire publications. Her reporting appeared in prominent newspapers such as The Chicago Defender, The Florida Star, Houston Forward Times, St. Louis Sentinel, Pittsburgh Courier, The Washington Sun, The Cincinnati Herald, The Sacramento Observer and dozens of others. Dunnigan’s book The Fascinating Story of Black Kentuckians: Their Heritage and Tradition, a collection of fact sheets about black Kentuckians compiled for her students in Russellville, was published in 1982. Her autobiography, A Black Woman’s Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House, appeared in 1974 and was reprinted in a condensed version, Alone atop the Hill, in 2015. Dunnigan died May 6, 1983, in Washington, D.C. She was honored in September 2018 by the installation of a statue of her at the Newseum there. A favorite story was told at the dedication ceremony by USA Today reporter Patty Rhule in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. Rhule said that when Dunnigan asked her supervisor at ANP for permission to cover Truman’s 1948 presidential campaign, her boss said yes, but that ANP wouldn’t fund it. She raised her own money to take the trip, supplemented by fruit and snacks left behind at campaign rallies. The bronze statue, sculpted by Arden Barnes, was displayed from September-December 2018 at the Newseum and was then moved for permanent display in the town square of her hometown of Russellville.

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1941-2014

Jane Gentry Vance

When professor, poet and scholar Jane Gentry Vance passed away in 2014, Jeff Clymer, chair of the English Department at the University of Kentucky, said, “Jane wrote with insight and grace of family, of the intricacies of our emotions, and of the ironies of everyday life. Her moving and elliptical poetry gave us new ways to think about life’s complexities, often with a dash of ironic humor.” Vance was born on a farm near Athens in Fayette County, where her ancestors in the Gentry and Bush families had lived since the time of the settlement at Boonesborough in 1775. She earned degrees in English literature from Hollins College (bachelor’s degree, Phi Beta Kappa), Brandeis University (master’s degree) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (doctorate). She joined the University of Kentucky in 1972 and became a well-respected poet and professor for more than 40 years as a faculty member in the graduate school of the English Department, where she conducted poetry-writing workshops and taught courses on the history of ideas in the department and the university’s honors program. Vance published three collections of poetry during her lifetime. A Garden in Kentucky (1995) and Portrait of the Artist as a White Pig (2006) were both published by the Louisiana State University Press. In 2005, Press 817 in Lexington published her chapbook, A Year in Kentucky. Her New and Collected Poems of Jane Gentry, edited by Julia Johnson, was released posthumously in 2017. She also self-published a short volume of local history, Looking Back at Athens (1986), with William M. Lamb. Her poems appeared widely in journals, including The Sewanee Review, The Hollins Critic, Harvard Magazine, New Virginia Review, Southern Poetry Review and The American Voice. As a literary critic, she published numerous reviews, interviews and essays. Of particular interest are her essays in The Southern Literary Journal, Mississippi Quarterly and Iron Mountain Review about Mary Lee Settle, a West Virginia writer who won the 1978 National Book Award for her novel, Blood Tie. Vance was awarded two Al Smith Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and held fellowships at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Lynchburg. After having been nominated by her honors program students, Vance won the UK Alumni Association’s 1986 Great Teacher Award. Her awards also include the Hollins University Distinguished Alumnae Award (2013) and induction into the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame (2013). From 2007-2008, Vance served as Kentucky’s poet laureate, traveling the state advocating for the importance of literature in the culture and history of Kentucky. In 2008, she organized and participated in a reading of Kentucky poetry at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and in 2009 presented an original poem honoring the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth at the John F. Kennedy Center in the nation’s capital. Poet Nikky Finney, who served on the university faculty with Vance, said of her colleague, “One of the great blessings of my career at the University of Kentucky was Jane Gentry Vance. Jane often taught the introductory poetry course, Imaginative Writing Poetry 207. “The students in Jane’s class, who went on to 407 and 507, the courses I often taught, had been guided and drilled by a master teacher in the fine art of how to make a poem, and what to love about the making, and how to truly work at being a poet. It was as if Jane did all the hard chiseling work and then handed them over for their polishing. The foundation they received from Jane gave them gigantanormous wings.” 18

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Sue Grafton

1940-2017

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Upon the death of famed mystery writer Sue Grafton in 2017, the online site Literary Hub commented on the legacy of her 40-year writing career: “The familiar sight of one of Grafton’s alphabet novels has served as a reliable sign—whether a hardcover on the shelf or a well-traveled paperback poking out of an overnight bag—that somewhere nearby was a reader. And not just any reader, nor the kind who puts out books for show or piles them on the nightstand with good intentions, but an honest to God, dyed in the wool reader, someone who wears pages ragged then reaches for more, a middle-of-the-night joneser with a vast appetite for the art of character, words come to life, and, most of all, suspense.” Grafton was born in Louisville, the daughter of C.W. Grafton, a mysterywriting attorney who stayed late at work to turn out his three novels, and Vivian Harnsberger, a high school chemistry teacher. She grew up in the same neighborhood as “gonzo” journalist Hunter S. Thompson and was a few years behind him at Atherton High School. She attended the University of Louisville (bachelor’s degree, 1961) and completed some graduate work in literary analysis at the University of Cincinnati. She wrote two mainstream novels in the 1960s—Keziah Dane (1967) and The Lolly-Madonna War (1969)—and adapted the latter into a film for MGM in 1973. She wrote three other screenplays and teleplays in the 1970s, including for Rhoda in 1975, before writing her first mystery, A Is for Alibi, in 1982. Grafton said that while reading Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies, an alphabetical picture book of children who die by various means, she had the idea to write an alphabetically titled series of novels. She immediately sat down and made a list of all of the crime-related words she knew. The central character, private investigator Kinsey Millhone, appears from the beginning of her murder mystery alphabet series. By 1998, Millhone had been featured in 14 novels, through N Is for Noose. The books featuring Millhone have collected a wide readership and have been translated into Dutch, Russian, Polish, Spanish and French. When Grafton’s novels were late to press in the early 1990s, readers called bookstores to complain. Grafton’s detective is a traditional heroine: a loner with a code, who works for just causes. Ed Weiner in The New York Times Book Review writes, “She plays it fairly safe and conventional.” She is sometimes contrasted with Robert B. Parker for the lack of violence in her novels. Grafton insightfully questions gender roles and explores social issues in her work. For example, in T Is for Trespass (2007), she alternates points of view between Millhone and the culprit, Solana Rojas, a “chameleon” who assumes the identities of others in order to steal from them. Grafton’s alphabet mystery novels include: A Is for Alibi, (1982), B Is for Burglar (1985), C Is for Corpse (1986), D Is for Deadbeat (1987), E Is for Evidence (1988), F Is for Fugitive (1989), G Is for Gumshoe (1990), H Is for Homicide (1991), I Is for Innocent (1992), J Is for Judgment (1993), K Is for Killer (1994), L Is for Lawless (1995), M Is for Malice (1996), N Is for Noose (1998), O Is for Outlaw (1999), P Is for Peril (2001), Q Is for Quarry (2002), R Is for Ricochet (2004), S Is for Silence (2005), T Is for Trespass (2007), U Is for Undertow (2009), V Is for Vengeance (2011), W Is for Wasted (2013), Kinsey and Me: Stories (2013), X (2015) and Y Is for Yesterday (2017). Several of Grafton’s novels have won awards, the majority of which have been for F Is for Fugitive (1989) and G Is for Gumshoe (1990). A number of them, such as L Is for Lawless (1995) and M Is for Malice (1996), have been praised for their pace and humor. B Is for Burglar (1985) is regarded by some readers as her best and won Grafton an Edgar Award, which honors mystery writers. Grafton died Dec. 28, 2017. She is survived by her husband, Steven Humphrey, daughters Jamie Clark and Leslie Twine, and son Jay Schmidt.

H elen Thomas 1920-2013

One of the most influential native Kentucky journalists was born Helen Amelia Thomas, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, in Winchester on Aug. 4, 1920. Her grocer father and homemaker mother had nine children. They relocated to Detroit in 1924. Several sources report that by the time she entered high school, Thomas knew she wanted to become a journalist. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1942. After college, she became a “copy girl” at the Washington Daily News and was quickly promoted to reporter. In 1943, she joined the United Press (UP) and covered local news and stories about women. In the early 1950s, Thomas began covering Washington celebrities and government agencies. She continued with the UP in 1958 when it merged with the International News Service and became United Press International (UPI), working there until 1974. In 1960, she became the first female member of the White House press corps when she began covering President-elect John F. Kennedy and White House daily press briefings and press conferences. In 1962, she was credited with influencing Kennedy to allow women to attend annual dinners for White House correspondents and photographers. Two years after the election of President Richard Nixon in 1968, Thomas was named UPI’s chief White House correspondent, the first female to achieve that position. Additionally, she was the only female print journalist to accompany Nixon during his historic 1972 trip to China. As her career progressed, Thomas continued to remove barriers for female journalists. In 1974, she became the first woman to head UPI’s White House Bureau. The following year, she became the first woman to be admitted to the Gridiron Club, the historic Washington press group, which later named her its president. Additionally, Thomas also was the first female president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, serving from 1975-1976. Thomas became a fixture in the White House press corps, with a seat in the White House briefing room. Often called the “First Lady of the Press,” she covered 10 presidents over five decades and became well known to the American public for her hard-hitting questions. She resigned from UPI in 2000, after the news organization was acquired by New World Communications. Two months after her resignation from UPI, Thomas was hired by the Hearst Corporation as a columnist. Thomas received numerous awards and more than 30 honorary degrees. Among the most notable are: World Almanac’s 25 Most Influential Women in America (1976), the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit from the University of Kansas (1986) and the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media from the Freedom Forum in 1991. The White House Correspondents’ Association honored her in 1998 by establishing the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. Thomas published six books between 1975 and 2009. Her topics were autobiography, political humor, political commentary and one children’s book, The Great White House Breakout (2008). Thomas’ career ended in controversy in 2010 when a YouTube video surfaced in which she said that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and return home to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.” She issued an apology about her remarks saying, “They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.” Thomas retired a week later, but in July 2011, she returned to write a column for the Falls Church NewsPress in Virginia. This venerable White House reporter once said of the office of president of the United States: “I respect the office of the presidency, but I never worship at the shrines of our public servants … The Washington press corps has the privilege of asking the president of the United States what he is doing and why.” Statements like this defined her as a consummate journalist—one who pursued truth and accuracy in writing her reports. Thomas died on July 20, 2013, at age 92.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

penned KENTU CKY M O NTH LY’S 11 TH AN N U AL WRITERS’ SH OWCASE

1 ST PAR AGR APH O F A N OVEL The sarvis was blooming. It stood out like small white flags dotted across the bleak, brown hills of an ending winter. As a child I was thrilled to see them. Knowing the redbud, dogwood and warm weather were soon to follow. Small white flags … flags of winter’s surrender … I dreaded the surrender I was facing when I got back home.

Pam Bartley

Today my name is Catherine. I borrow the name at a coffee shop and lounge with it on the beach. Catherine, scrawled in sharpie across my paper cup, branding me a new woman. I take a sip of a latte I never liked as I stare out at the sea, burgundy-painted toes licking wet sand, crushed velvet mountains underfoot. I pull my sunglasses over my eyes, rogue bangs springing forth, as I catch the iron-on patch of a familiar cartoon rocket ship on the guy’s sleeve next to me. Does he see a Catherine?

Wallingford

Lauren Haynes

(FLEMING COUNTY)

Bowling Green

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY •

FEBR UARY 2019

N OVEL

FI CTI O N

PO ETRY

N O N FI CTI O N

PAM BARTLEY WALLINGTON

ERICA SHARP LOUISVILLE

DONNA J. SLONE LEXINGTON

RON WHITEHEAD LOUISVILLE

LAUREN HAYNES BOWLING GREEN

MARIE MITCHELL + MASON SMITH RICHMOND

DOROTHY SUTTON RICHMOND

ERICA SHARP LOUISVILLE

CHRISTEN FISHER OWINGSVILLE

KATHERINE HAGER BRANDENBURG

DENNIS “DOC” MARTIN FRANKFORT

ERIC NANCE WOEHLER MADISONVILLE FOSTER OCKERMAN JR. LEXINGTON RON O’BRIEN AMBURGEY

Naomi was sitting at the kitchen table when she heard it: the sound of a key turning in the old metal lock on the attic door at the top of the stairs. There was only one person who had that key, her husband, William. “Oh no, please God, no!” she whispered as she stood up. She had told William there was something evil about that door. They had randomly found it when they built the house, and William had been instantly drawn by it, putting it in as the attic door, even though Naomi had begged him not to. “William?” she called, “What are you doing?” She began to slowly creep up the stairs. When she reached the top, there was her husband, slowly beginning to pull the door open. “William, please don’t!” she cried, as an inky black darkness began to ooze out of the ever-widening crack. But William didn’t seem to see it, though it was slowly making its way toward his stocking covered feet, pulling the door farther and farther open, until an unseen force blasted it outwards.

“Whop. Whop. Whop.” It’s the sound my 22-ounce Estwing framing hammer makes as I bash the lath and mortar wall during this extensive remodel of the Old Flanagan house, which was built pre-Civil War, around 1850 some say, while others think the date is closer to 1840. Me, I don’t care, because right now, it is damn dusty in this room and Thomas, my so-called “helper” is nowhere— probably once again outside taking a smoke break, his third in the past hour and a half.

Dennis "Doc" Martin Frankfort

Christen Fisher Owingsville (BATH COUNTY) FEBR UARY 2019

• K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

No Man’s Land

PO ETRY

“This is my best regards to you I have started for the kiser dont you think I havnt” — postcard from Great Uncle Lester One day he was husking the corn, feeding the greedy, muddy pigs, plowing with mules the steep and rocky hillsides of Pike County, Kentucky, calling gee for right, haw for left, and whoa, damn you, whoa, to make everything slow down, the next day halfway around the world in Paris with the prostitutes of Pigalle,

recipe

his fellow soldiers from Detroit,

To grow a southern belle,

Chicago digging at him, to unearth

you must combine equal parts

his puzzlement, his mountain dialect.

sass, will of iron, and languid tongue

Where you from, soldier? Pike County.

Camping Solo Haiku

that drawls and pricks the ear for attention.

That ain’t no place. I mean what town?

Mix in both lace and denim, fold in a perfected giggle

October waning

But how do you say you’re from somewhere when you were born at home on a farm?

Bake at 350–

Tent and bedroll complete camp Darkness comes early Ghost stories chill air Blackened marshmallows from past Dwindling wood supply

The next day mired in confused

you know, the temperature of a July afternoon–

trough trenches of muddy slop,

and set aside to cool down–

fields plowed and furrowed

you know, like when you decided to argue

with harrowing shells, scattered husks of what was left of his friends, the next day back in Pike County

Cold air seeps inside Firelight flickers through tent walls Memories maintain

slopping the hogs, begging the world to stop whirling so fast, dizzy from the ride, thinking wait a minute, wait a minute, whoa, damn you, whoa.

Bones chill in wee hours Mummy sack zipped under chin Crows wake dawn-early

Baited hook drops into creek Peace at end of line

Lexington K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY •

or if your mama’s sweet tea was better than hers or if Florida is actually included in the south because it is really just tourists and God’s waiting room.

Richmond

Katherine Hager Brandenburg

Donna J. Slone 24

about whether or not college ball was better than professional

Serve with lemonade on a back porch.

Dorothy Sutton

Bass in Elkhorn wait

and a flirtatious smile.

FEBR UARY 2019

All Us Snowflakes

Winter Beeches (Connections)

I am a snowflake, and so are you And I am so glad that God/Nature made us this way

I wonder why the leaves of beech Hold fast much longer than the rest? When winter sweeps across the hills

We are each created/conceived/brought into being/knitted together

And oak and maple are undressed,

from the most common, basic elements,

When all the wood’s an empty place,

and then we tumble/hurtle/flurry/soar/ float/cascade

And Life’s moved on to warmer climes,

through this world as

How is it beech and leaf retain

absolutely

What all the others left behind?

unique These dry leaves serve no purpose now

individuals

That I can see in passing by; Our singular edges influence our paths

Yet they remain persistently

But they do only that—just influence

Connected by some deeper tie.

We are mostly just falling

Is it the tree that’s holding on,

or evaporating

As if it can’t abide the loss,

or gathering according to external forces so much greater than us—God’s will/Nature’s chemical reactions

And so secures a stouter grip To keep them all from drifting off? Or is it leaves that won’t let go?

And, whatever, we all do somehow convert

Too stubborn in their aged ways

back into the common, most elemental matter of this world

To step aside, and so defer

For sure, I don’t know how it all works

Or is it something else besides —

Nobody does

Some wordless tryst beneath the flow

Their own demise a few more days.

But thank God/Nature that it does all work the way it does work

Staring Contest

And thank God/Nature for the scientists and psalmists

A staring contest with

who have done their best

an iguana

to measure or discern

is a losing proposition.

what can be known of that way

His prehistoric eyes are older than mine.

I am so thankful

And however ugly I may be

that I am,

he knows he is uglier

that you are,

and will win.

that all us snowflakes are and

Amen

Foster Ockerman Jr. Lexington

Eric Nance Woehler Madisonville

Undaunted by the undertow …? Their season’s come and gone, that’s so; For Nature’s not to be denied. And yet these rattling leaves confess A hunger not yet satisfied By any reasons men contrive To say, “It’s this, and nothing more,” That lifts our gaze beyond our selves

that God/Nature is the way that God/Nature is

That marries life to life in ways

To what it is we’re reaching for.

Ron O’Brien Amburgey (KNOTT COUNTY) FEBR UARY 2019

• K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

FI CTI O N creak The hallway floor was done in standard hardwood fashion; long narrow strips of maple or cherry stained and finished in a medium-brown hue. At the top of the hall there is a spot that creaks upon the pressure of a foot. It was at this spot that she had stopped and stared. Rapt on the years of tread-worn finish, dirt pressed into the seams. And she knew if she stepped on that exact place, that it would indeed sound off under her weight. She reminisced the feet that had pressed down upon that warped strip of hardwood throughout her years. Family, friends and less-liked ones also. All the adults and children, and then children that became adults, and, of course, the pets all passing across this tired spot. Her whole life in this house spanned inside of a few minutes within her head. Or possibly it was 30; she had lost the time again. Her thoughts seemed to wander as of late, which she actually didn’t mind, given what had recently happened. It was well that she could lose her focus from it, if at least for just a short amount of time. The clocks banged out a late hour. Darkness, along with the night’s chill, seeped into the house through the panes of 34-year-old windows. She reached up and flipped the switch to light the hallway. Sighing heavily, she started a foot forward, then stopped abruptly. Bumps formed on her arms, and her eyes widened as her neck hairs rose. What was that? She forced her ears to open fully. Her right foot hanging precariously inches above the creaking spot. What was that? There was a sound ever so faint from one of the bedrooms at the end of the hall, the last one on the right; the bedroom. She strained to hear, keeping her foot elevated as not to press upon the spot. Whatever made that noise would be alerted to her presence if she stepped down. A burglar, perhaps? Or some other type of cretin ready to take advantage of a lonely old woman in a lonely old house; so she waited. Many thoughts and scenarios played out in her mind … but then … she realized she could not recall the time. Strange, because the clocks had just announced it, but she couldn’t remember how far back that was. How long had she been standing here looking at the floor listening for the noise? Her foot started to tremble. She withdrew it slightly just as the sound leapt into her right ear, startling her again. She peered into the deep shadows created by the dimly lit hallway. That sound. She knew that sound. It was like air rushing out through a narrow pipe. As if something heavy was placed upon a person already laboring under the effort of drawing air. Then she smiled a bit at the thought, forcefully rolled her eyes at her own doubt, because she was alone in this house. No one could have gotten in here. She was alone

Erica Sharp L ouisville 26

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inside just as the dark and cold were trapped outside. But her smile, nonetheless, now sat frozen on her face in wonder. She had heard the noise, hadn’t she? She had stopped herself from depressing the spot on the hardwood floor specifically because of the noise down the hall, right? What was that she had heard? As she contemplated these things, her eyes drifted back down to her feet, and what she saw there was a perplexing dilemma in the fact that her right foot was now placed firmly on the floor precisely where the wood was worn. Trying to re-trace her minimal past movements, she could not fathom how or why her foot was placed where it was now. If she raised her foot, the releasing pressure would surely make the wood sound off from her retreating weight. So, she could not do that and allow the noise from the bedroom, if it actually existed, to know she was in close proximity. But she could not stay frozen here either. She needed to locate some kind of weapon. She tried to think of what could be the closest perceivable weapon with which to defend herself. The kitchen, of course, had knives, but that’s too far. Ah! The bookcase built into the wall immediately behind and to her right held collectible soda bottles. But she would have to remove her foot to reach for one. The noise in the bedroom would surely be alerted and plan a devious act, but at least she would be armed. As she pulled up her foot, turned and grabbed a bottle, the floor creaked. But it did not creak as she would have thought. It creaked in an odd noise. Instead of the sound of wood pulling up from a rusted nail, the hardwood made the sound of a sigh, a weak moan, of air being released from a tired lung, as if a machine had just been shut down because it was no longer necessary. It sounded just as the noise down the hall did minutes before. Or was it hours? A chirping from outside stole her away. Her focus once again returned, and she remembered it all. She gently replaced the bottle back on the bookshelf with the others her husband had collected. Sighing heavily now in the present, she glanced back down the hallway to their bedroom. The room where the last long exhale of air had taken place and a rented medical machine was unplugged. Her eyes traced from the door back down to her feet, looking at the creaking spot. She looked up from the floor to the living room window that shown pale early morning light filtering in through a threadbare curtain. She looked at her feet trying to recall just how long she had been standing there. Then she looked down the dimly lit hall to the last bedroom door on the right. Where no one had sighed, nor moaned, nor slept, to wake this morning and walk down her hallway to make the narrow hardwood floor creak.

Unexcused Absence Josh stumbled into his 8 a.m. communications class with only 10 minutes left in the lesson, looking more disheveled than usual. He noisily dropped his backpack onto the floor, slid his lanky frame behind the desk, and reached into his cavernous pack for the day’s assignment—a persuasive speech outline. Shooting him a peeved look, the instructor finished her lecture, reminded the students of their next assignment, and dismissed the class, singling out Josh to “please stay a moment.” Once everyone else filed out, Josh migrated to the front of the room where his formidable professor stood, arms crossed. He figured an apology and a truthful explanation were his best bet. “Sorry I was late, prof,” he began. “This is the eighth time in as many weeks,” she reminded him with no hint of mercy. “Not to mention the days you simply don’t show up at all. I could flunk you on non-attendance alone.” “I know,” Josh agreed. “But honestly, I hate to miss. I like this class. I always set my alarm 15 minutes early so I don’t oversleep. But all these unscheduled late night trips are making me snooze through my Star Trek theme music.” The professor held up her hand like a crossing guard. “Please. Not the visits. Again,” she protested. “Can’t we just deal with excuses the university approves of, like you fighting the flu? Or nursing a sick parent back to health? Or attending a grandparent’s funeral? Something a little more—verifiable.” “But none of those fit my situation,” Josh said, staring at his teacher like she’d suggested he lie under oath in a courtroom. “All right, then. I guess we’re back to the old standby. You were …” the professor had a hard time saying the next word without a smile—or grimace, “abducted again last night?” “I prefer collected, but yes, ma’am,” Josh said, grinning like a tutor whose pupil finally mastered a difficult subject. “I was checking my Instagram when the vibrations began. Pretty soon everything was shaking. My water glass slid off the nightstand. My books bounced off my desk. And my X-Files poster peeled off the wall. These guys don’t sneak up on you. They make a dramatic entrance.” “And then …” the teacher baited her student, waiting to see how the far-fetched fantasy varied this time around. “They whisked me away. Like always. Didn’t even let me put my pants on.” “Why didn’t you just click your ruby red slippers together? Or sail away clutching an umbrella like Mary Poppins? Perhaps have your molecules scrambled and reassembled like in the Enterprise’s transporter?” she asked. “What? No. Nothing like that make-believe stuff,” Josh said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I was sitting alone in my bedroom one second. Then before you can say, ‘Beam me up,’ I’m circling Earth in some souped-up spacemobile. That sudden change makes me dizzy for a while. I puked the first time until I got used to it.” “So once you’re aboard, that’s when the poking and

probing begins?” the professor guessed, feeling a migraine forming. “You watch too many cheesy sci-fi movies, prof,” Josh scolded. “We just hang out. Listen to some tunes. Play some games, although I swear the guy with the squeaky voice cheats all the time. But they’re party animals. I don’t usually get back home until six or seven a.m.” The professor dug through her stack of outlines until she found Josh’s. She studied it a moment. “Let’s see. Your speech will urge us to wear a helmet when riding ATVs because you didn’t and suffered a concussion in a crash.” “Yeah. I had a pretty serious brain injury. I’ll put pictures on my Prezi to prove it. But everything’s back to normal now. Better than ever, really. That’s why I was picked for the experiments.” “OK. Let’s return to our primary problem. I need a written note from a professional person before I can excuse your tardiness and absences, which are disruptive to the class.” “I did check with the head honcho on the project, and he gave me this.” Josh pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “This explains why I can’t quit now.” Carefully, the professor unfolded the paper to find six lines of strange scribbles that resembled geometric symbols, not words. “I can’t read this,” she said. “It’s gibberish.” “I know it’s a little wonky,” Josh admitted, “but their universal translator was on the fritz. And this was the best they could do.” “Josh, listen to me,” the professor said sternly. “You’ve got to stop insisting that aliens periodically abduct you.” “I get that it’s hard for some people to believe,” Josh said, shooting her a pitiful look. “But the other-worlders need to study us regularly to see how we’re evolving. They’re not trying to take over Earth or anything diabolical like that. They’re just curious about our species. We’re like a pet project to them.” “That’s not terribly reassuring,” the professor said. “It’s going kinda slow,” Josh said. “They need a larger sampling of Earthlings. So they’re recruiting a few more subjects now. I recommended you.” “And I recommend that you spend more time in the classroom and less in outer space. One more absence or tardy and I will fail you.” “It might not matter,” Josh said, “if I end up traveling the galaxy with my new buds.” Hours later, the professor finished grading outlines at her kitchen table, poured herself some Chardonnay, then trudged upstairs to bed. She thought about her delusional but harmless student, Josh, and hoped he’d come to his senses and finish the semester strong. After changing into her striped onesie pajamas, she settled into bed, turned on her Kindle and switched off the lights. On a whim, she purchased The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and had barely gotten to where Arthur Dent hitches a ride on a Vorgon ship when the room began to shake and her wine glass shimmied off the nightstand.

Marie Mitchell + Mason Smith Richmond FEBR UARY 2019

• K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

N O N FI CTI O N Moxley and Eirene: Moonshine King and Burgoo Queen Mama gave me a tin cup when I was a boy. Till I left home, when I was 17, I wore a thin rope to hold my pants up. I’ve always been skinny. I kept my tin cup and a knife with a bottle opener on my rope. They both came in handy many times, including—and especially—my last visit with Moxley and Eirene. I was 16, a year away from leaving home, leaving home for good, leaving home forever. I’d come to visit Moxley and Eirene, traveling by boat alone. I didn’t know how many more times I’d have this opportunity. It was a crisp, clear day in early September. The sad and glad of early fall filled me up. It felt good, but it ached with loneliness, too. Some of you know that several miles southwest of Centertown, 27 miles from Owensboro, the self-proclaimed burgoo capital of the world, deep, and I mean deep, in the bottoms where the bobcats still live, on an island on a tight curve of Green River, the deepest river in the world, with catfish that have swallowed children whole, the Green River, with nests of water moccasins in every cove, on a tight curve of Green River lived, in a wicked, crooked dirt hut lived old Moxley and his wife Eirene. The island, called Toad’s Island, rose, peaking with a small hill, above the Green. It had flooded only once, back in ’37. Unlike most of the Irish and Scots in Ohio County, the fifth-largest county and one of the poorest, in Kentucky, home of Bill Monroe, the father of Bluegrass music, resting across the Green River from Muhlenberg County and Paradise, unlike most of the Irish and Scots, Moxley’s parents had come from Hungary and Eirene’s from Greece back in the 1800s. When I was a boy, I visited Moxley and Eirene with Daddy or Grandaddy Dick. We stopped by after running trotlines. Some city people might call them trout lines, but we never caught no trout on them. We caught catfish, snappin’ turtles, snakes and eels, all of which occasionally found their way into Eirene’s burgoo, the best, and most peculiar, unlike any other burgoo in the world. Eirene was the burgoo queen. Although few will admit it, folks from miles away, including all the way from Owensboro, eventually found their way to Toad’s Island, down on the Green River, and borrowed the recipes, which continue to be used on rare, private and special occasions, for Eirene’s burgoo and Moxley’s moonshine whiskey. Moxley was the moonshine king. Moxley and Eirene had an orchard and a garden, but Moxley always said he lived on snake, snapping turtle, possum and moonshine whiskey. By the time I was 16, I’d seen him eating and drinking all of them more than once and with his big red and purple nose, I figured he was telling the truth. He kept his moonshine still right in front of their hut. They had a one-eyed black cat with no tail called Spit and a three-legged dog called Tick. Eirene, I guessed, was probably a witch but a decent one, and by 28

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the time I first met her, when I was a boy, she may have forgotten most of what she once knew. But she had remembered how to make burgoo, the most unusual and distinctively flavored burgoo I’ve ever tasted. Same was true of Moxley’s moonshine. I can barely even approximate their magic recipes. I was a poor witness, especially once Moxley began pouring his moonshine, God’s Tears, into my tin cup. It was the smoothest hard liquor I’ve ever, in my entire life, tasted. My vision blurred as I watched Moxley on my left and Eirene on my right. Sometimes, they became one not-too-pretty person. But despite their strangeness, I always liked both of them, so no matter how ugly they looked as one person, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care; I just sat there watching and grinning and smelling while they brewed the burgoo and the moonshine. Moxley poured in spring water, which he collected directly out of the side of their Toad’s Island hill. He added pure cane sugar, cracked corn and malt. He always cut the first gallon with water ’cause it was so strong. It kicked harder than a mule or an udder sore milk cow. Sometimes, he added burnt sugar and water to change the coloring. He did that for variety. While Moxley was cooking up his strange brew, my attention wandered back and forth, so I watched Eirene cook her burgoo, too. I watched her make burgoo several times over the years, and it was always tasted different, depending on what she had available. This particular time, the last time I saw her make it, when I was 16, she killed a chicken, snuck up behind it and cut its head off before it knew what happened. Then she plucked it and tossed it in. Then, instead of beef or pork, she added chunks of snapping turtle, possum, water moccasin and eel. Even though fish isn’t common to burgoo I’m pretty sure, despite the moonshine I’d drunk, that she threw in several pieces of catfish. I’d brought her two rabbits I’d killed hunting with Daddy. I helped her skin them, then she threw them in, bones and all, didn’t even cut off their heads. Of course, the pot, which was on an open fire in front of the hut, was filled with water from the river. She also mixed in some dirty dish water. For some reason I never discovered, before adding the water, she first placed river rocks in the bottom of the pot. Once the water was ready, she tossed in tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, peppers, carrots, corn, beans, peas, ketchup, salt, pepper, thyme, vinegar, sauces, homemade red wine, plenty of Moxley’s moonshine, and pinches of a variety of herbs. Then she said words I didn’t understand, maybe Greek, the language of her ancestors, and she said them like she was casting a spell. It was spooky the way she chanted those words getting a glazed, faraway look in her dark eyes. Good Lord, I knew it was gonna be good. It always was. She cooked it for hours. I’m not sure how many hours ’cause I passed out. When I woke up, the sun had set. It was a beautiful

starry night. The full moon was rising. A pack of wild dogs was barking way off in the distance, up river. Crickets, katydids, frogs and lightning bugs brightened the night, providing a brilliant sound and light show. Eirene and Moxley handed me food and drink, burgoo and moonshine, best food in the world, bar none. We stayed up late, into the night, sharing stories, listening close to each other, to the bobcat’s mournful wail, listening to the spirits walking the earth late, late at night when the veil between worlds disappears. The next morning, just after daybreak, a buzzing fly woke me up. All three of us had fallen asleep on the ground, up close to the fire, which had fallen to a dull ember, almost out. The sun was cracking the sky over the trees east of the Green. I rose, walked silently to my boat and glided away. It was my final visit, the last time I saw my dear ancient friends Moxley and Eirene, moonshine king and burgoo queen.

Ron Whitehead L ouisville

May Hollow Trilogy T HE

(ORIGINALLY FROM CENTERTOWN)

Last Christmas It was agreed upon the firing line that there should be no shooting and no thought of war on Christmas day. So, we sang songs and told to each other stories of our heritage and homelands. I traded an orange for a cigar with a German officer, and we also traded addresses. And after a while, I found the differences between us not to be as vast as an ocean, but merely a slight bound over a stream. Both sides assisted in burying the dead that lay in the trenches and the field in between … hats were off all around as silence and prayer hung in the cold air around us. Later, a match of football broke out after some barbed wire was cut and cleared away. I can’t tell you which side was better, German, Brit, or Kentuckian … for we teamed up un-segregated and played as mates. It’s now December 26th. Both sides have gotten new orders from superiors during the early morning hours. We have struck up arms and are firing at each other … deadly enemies once again. Strange it all now seems, for I have no reason for the address of my new German friend. For I shot him in the chest this morning, as he peeled an orange.

Excerpt from the diary of William Percy, 1917 (Kentucky Rifle Brigade) Submitted by Erica Sharp, of L ouisville

Fi c t i o n a b o u t f a i t h , f a m i l y, f o o d a n d f a r m. FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

ANGELA CORRELL Available at Kentucky Soaps & Such kentuckysoapsandsuch.com

Also available on Amazon.com in all formats

ou see his eyes, you hear his voice, and you sense the pain of memories of events he himself never experienced. That’s why Virgil Covington Jr. of Georgetown is so effective when he shares African-American novelist and playwright William Wells Brown’s story of enduring and eventually escaping slavery. “I talk about him being born to his master, him being born to chattel slavery, trying to get kids to understand what it’s like being treated like livestock—not treated as humans,” Covington says. Covington, 65, is one of several Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua performers who portray historical figures for presentations at schools, libraries and civic groups across the Commonwealth. Since 2016, he’s been performing as Brown, who was born a slave in 1814 to a Mount Sterling landholder. Covington doesn’t use a script. Instead, he builds his characterization on Brown’s autobiography. With a voice that quivers, he describes the “Negro whip” used by white overseers to discipline errant slaves on the farms in Kentucky and Missouri. During an interview in the Scott County Public Library’s Kentucky Room, Covington shows how he transitions into Brown during presentations. His steady conversation becomes halting and takes on a tremor, as if he is reliving memories of life as a house slave who witnessed and suffered slavery’s atrocities. “I can remember my mother being late [one morning],” Covington says, in character. “All of a sudden, I hear, ‘Oh, pray; oh, pray!’ This is what slaves cry out when they’re imploring for mercy. “I recognized the voice. I got up out of my bed and went over to the door. I opened the door, but I dared not go outside … “I heard every crack of that whip against my poor mother’s back. I heard every groan, every cry of her.” He sobs. “I went back to my bed. All I could do was cry.” To the listener, this could be Covington’s own experience. The memory seems real—or as real as he can make it for his listeners. And he makes sure his audience understands the cruelty slaves endured. The Negro whip, for instance: “It had a lash 6 to 7 feet long, cowhide with wire on the end of it … There would usually be 10 licks,” an out-of-character Covington explains. “I get to a point in my presentation when I say, ‘If I were to take off my coat and my vest and show you my back, you’d still see the scars.’ ”

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As Brown, Covington continues, “It wasn’t even daylight. What’s a slave going to do in the dark, 4:30 in the morning? But that’s how they treated us. They had to intimidate us with the Negro whip by the overseer so we would do what they expected us to do.” William Wells Brown was not the name originally given to the slave Covington portrays. His owner called him Sandy. After fleeing to a northern state around 1834, one of the first things he gave up was that moniker. He took the family name of a Quaker who had aided his escape to Canada. There, he met a free black woman who helped him learn to read. Eventually, he obtained passage to England, where he wrote Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter, published in 1853 and believed to be the first novel written by an African American. Later, Brown returned to the United States and joined Frederick Douglass on the abolitionist lecture circuit. Covington was introduced to the idea of portraying a historic figure by Jim Rogers, an acquaintance from Versailles’ Woodford Theatre, a community theater group Covington joined in 2013. Rogers is a drama consultant the Kentucky Humanities Council uses when evaluating potential Kentucky Chautauqua presenters. “A friend suggested William Wells Brown, so I looked at his biography, and I said, ‘OK, I can do this,’ ” Covington says. The process of becoming a Chautauqua presenter takes several months, according to Kathleen Pool, who directs the Humanities Council’s program. Covington proposed presenting William Wells Brown, then spent weeks having his presentation reviewed by Rogers, Morehead State University history professor Ben Fitzpatrick and costume consultant Darlene Drayer. Since officially becoming a Kentucky Chautauqua presenter in 2016, Covington has performed at schools in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Winchester, West Liberty and Sandy Hook, as well as the Lexington Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Perryville Battlefield State Historic Park. He performed at the Kentucky Book Fair in 2017 and is scheduled to appear on Feb. 27 during Black History Month at the Scott County Public Library in Georgetown. His approach to his portrayal was shaped in part by his career as a teacher and administrator in several central Kentucky schools. This year, he is teaching psychology part time at Scott County High School.

By Dan Adkins

A S L AV E ’ S

S TO RY

Virgil Covington Jr.. embodies the experience of William Wells Brown in presentations across the Commonwealth

FEBR UARY 2019

• K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

kyhumanities.org

Find out more To schedule a Kentucky Chautauqua presenter or to propose a historic figure presentation, contact the Kentucky Humanities Council via its website. Left, Virgil Covington Jr. in character as William Wells Brown at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, grave of Brown’s second wife, Annie Right, Covington at Boston’s Columbus Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church Below, Rebecca Covington Webber

In Their Father’s Footsteps Covington’s children—Rebecca Covington Webber and Virgil Covington III—appear to have been bitten by the performance bug. Both showed an aptitude for violin before they entered school, and both attended Lexington’s School for the Creative and Performing Arts (SCAPA). In a case of the apple not falling far from the tree, Rebecca seems to be making a career of bringing historic personages to life. In January, she and her husband, Donald Webber Jr.—both Broadway actors—helped multitalented composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda stage his Tony Award-winning hip-hop musical Hamilton: An American Musical for a three-week run in Puerto Rico. Now the couple is part of the cast and crew that have a yearlong engagement appearing in Hamilton in San Francisco. Rebecca is not part of the regular onstage cast, although she is an understudy for the roles of Eliza, Peggy or Angelica, the sisters of New York’s Schuyler family who vied for Alexander Hamilton’s romantic attention. (Eliza won.) Rebecca auditioned last summer when Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, began planning to take the show for a run on the island, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria in 2017. Donald is cast as Aaron Burr, the political rival who in real life killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Miranda returns to the lead as Hamilton, the role he created on 32

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Broadway. Neither Donald nor Rebecca appeared in the original production. “It’s been a long journey for me with this show,” Rebecca says. “Donald’s been in the show for a while, and this is the first time we get to do the show together. It’s really, really exciting.” But it’s not her first experience in shows portraying real-life figures or composite characters based on actual individuals. She made her Broadway debut in 2013 as an ensemble performer in Motown: The Musical, the story of the music groups in Detroit record producer Berry Gordy’s stable of stars. That same year, she was part of the ensemble in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. SCAPA Principal Beth Randolph recalls having Rebecca in her fifth-grade class. “Rebecca jumped out there and did whatever. She wasn’t afraid to tackle big things, and she was up for doing anything that was adventuresome or fun,” Randolph says. Randolph says Rebecca continues to impact the school’s students, visiting SCAPA when she’s back home in Kentucky. “She usually performs for the students, singing, and she talks to them about what it takes to make it [as a professional performer] and what life is like in New York,” Randolph says. Rebecca’s sister-in-law, Paulynn Covington, teaches at SCAPA. Paulynn, along with husband Virgil III and their children, had tickets for one of the Hamilton performances in Puerto Rico. Virgil Jr. plans to travel to San Francisco during the show’s run there. Virgil Jr. and his daughter share something beyond an apparent affinity for portraying historic figures: their faith. Both cite God’s hand in guiding their careers. “I don’t seek anything. I believe if you say you trust in the Lord, that trust has to look like something,” Virgil Jr. says. “All of my experiences, basically since 2004, have happened by His hand, I believe.” “I tell everybody it’s a possibility,” Rebecca says. “Nothing’s impossible with God.” Q

n EASTERN

KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

Richmond | 1.800.465.9191 | eku.edu TOP 3 UNDERGRADUATE:

Psychology, Criminal Justice, Nursing

n UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

Louisville | 1.800.334.UofL | louisville.edu TOP 3 (2018):

Biology, Communications, Psychology

TOP 3 GRADUATE:

Safety, Security and Emergency Management, Nursing, Public Administration

n WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

Bowling Green | 270.745.0111 | wku.edu

n KENTUCKY

COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM (KCTCS) Versailles (16 colleges statewide) | 1.877.528.2748 | kctcs.edu

TOP 3 UNDERGRADUATE:

Nursing, Management, Elementary Education TOP 3 GRADUATE:

Organizational Leadership, Speech-Language Pathology, Recreation Sport & Administration

TOP 3:

Liberal Arts and Sciences, Business Administration and Management, Registered Nursing

n KENTUCKY STATE

UNIVERSITY

Frankfort | 502.597.6000 | kysu.edu

2019 Guide to Kentucky Colleges + Universities

n MOREHEAD STATE

UNIVERSITY

Morehead | 1.800.585.6781 | moreheadstate.edu TOP 3:

Biomedical Sciences, Social Work, Exercise Science

n MURRAY STATE

UNIVERSITY

Murray | 1.800.272.4678 | murraystate.edu TOP 3:

or Kentucky’s teenagers, where to go after graduating high school is not a decision to take lightly, and the choices can seem overwhelming. To make the job a tad easier, Kentucky Monthly presents a complete list of the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities. Most listings also include the institution’s top programs based on the number of students enrolled.

PUBLIC n PRIVATE n

Animal Health Technology, Nursing, Agriculture

n NORTHERN KENTUCKY

UNIVERSITY

Highland Heights | 859.572.5100 | nku.edu TOP 3 (2018):

Biological Sciences, Computer Information Technology, Nursing

n ALICE LLOYD COLLEGE

Pippa Passes | 1.888.280.4252 | alc.edu

n ASBURY UNIVERSITY

Wilmore | 1.800.888.1818 | asbury.edu TOP 3:

Communication Arts, Business, Equine

n BELLARMINE

UNIVERSITY

Louisville | 1.800.274.4723 | bellarmine.edu TOP 3:

Nursing, Psychology, Exercise Science

n BEREA COLLEGE

Berea | 1.800.326.5948 | berea.edu

n BRESCIA UNIVERSITY Owensboro | 1.877.BRESCIA | brescia.edu

n CAMPBELLSVILLE UNIVERSITY

Campbellsville | 1.800.264.6014 | campbellsville.edu TOP 3:

Social Work, Criminal Justice, Nursing

n CENTRE COLLEGE

Danville | 1.800.423.6236 | centre.edu

n UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

Lexington | 859.257.9000 | uky.edu TOP 3:

Biology, Nursing, Mechanical Engineering

TOP 3 (2018):

Economics & Finance, Behavioral Neuroscience, International Studies

n FRONTIER NURSING

UNIVERSITY

Hyden | 606.672.2312 | frontier.edu

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

FRONTIER NURSING UNIVERSITY Founded in 1939 195 School Street, Hyden, KY 41749 frontier.edu | (606) 672-2312 Enrollment: 2,000+ Frontier Nursing University offers a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree, Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree and post-graduate certificates leading to education as a certified nurse-midwife (CNM), family nurse practitioner (FNP), women’s health care nurse practitioner (WHCNP) and/or psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP). FNU seeks to meet the needs of prospective nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners who do not want to leave their home communities to obtain the graduate education they desire to fulfill their professional aspirations. Didactic coursework is delivered using web-based, distance education courses allowing students to achieve their higher education goals without leaving home for classes. Using clinics, hospitals and preceptors in their own community allows students to get the hands-on clinical experience required for these exciting health care professions. Two-to-three on-campus sessions are required, including an orientation prior to beginning studies and intensive skill workshops prior to beginning the clinical practicum.

n GEORGETOWN COLLEGE

Georgetown | 1.800.788.9985 | georgetowncollege.edu TOP 3:

Pre-Med, Education, Exercise Science

n KENTUCKY CHRISTIAN

UNIVERSITY

Grayson | 1.800.522.3181 | kcu.edu TOP 3 (2018):

Business, Nursing, Social Work

n KENTUCKY WESLEYAN

COLLEGE

Owensboro | 1.800.999.0592 | kwc.edu

n LINDSEY WILSON COLLEGE

Columbia | 1.800.264.0138 | lindsey.edu TOP 3:

Human Services and Counseling, Business Administration, Nursing

n MIDWAY UNIVERSITY

Midway | 1.800.755.0031 | midway.edu TOP 3 UNDERGRADUATE:

THE GATTON ACADEMY OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE IN KENTUCKY Founded in 2007 1906 College Heights Blvd. #71031, Bowling Green, KY 42101 wku.edu/academy | (270) 745-6565 Enrollment: 95 accepted annually (192 total) Since 2007, high school juniors and seniors interested in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields have come from across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to attend The Gatton Academy. Located at Western Kentucky University, Gatton students finish their high school requirements at the same time they start college. Our students take college classes taught by WKU faculty members while exploring opportunities that include conducting research with WKU professors and studying abroad. Our students are challenged both inside and outside of the classroom and thrive in a supportive community designed just for them. What does it cost to attend Kentucky’s “Public Elite” school as named by The Washington Post for nine consecutive years? The Commonwealth of Kentucky pays for tuition, fees, and room and board. That means that you, too, can have a future filled with infinite possibilities at The Gatton Academy. 34

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

Nursing, Business, Equine TOP 3 GRADUATE:

Business, Education, Nursing

n SPALDING UNIVERSITY Louisville | 502.585.7111 | spalding.edu TOP 3:

Nursing/Health Sciences, Art, Education

n SULLIVAN UNIVERSITY

Louisville | 1.800.467.6281 | sullivan.edu TOP 3:

Culinary Arts, Business Management, Managing Information Technology

n THOMAS MORE COLLEGE

Crestview Hills | 859.341.5800 | thomasmore.edu TOP 3:

Business, Biology, Nursing

n TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY

Lexington | 859.233.8300 | transy.edu

THE NEXT BEST THING TO HOME Eastern Kentucky University is known for its warm, welcoming environment. Here, your student will be challenged, gain independence and learn skills that will propel them to successful lives. More importantly, they’ll be supported and cared for along the way.

WHY EKU? CENTRALLY LOCATED - Just south of Lexington and with several regional locations, EKU is close to everywhere. Your EKU Colonel is always nearby. SMALL CLASSES - With a 16:1 student-to-faculty ratio, Colonels get the one-on-one support they need. Professors and advisors will know them by name. PARENT FRIENDLY - Visit campus for special family events with your Colonel, and join EKU’s Parent & Family network to stay in the loop. MODERN FACILITIES - Your Colonel could live in some of Kentucky’s newest residence halls, study in its newest, largest Science Building, and more. 100 PROGRAMS - Your Colonel can choose from nearly 100 programs, including many that can’t be found at any other Kentucky college. KENTUCKY FOCUSED - Colonels stay nearby. 75% of EKU degree holders stay in Kentucky after graduation, more than any other public university in the state.

DOWNLOAD EKU’S FREE VIEWBOOK TO LEARN ABOUT BEING A COLONEL

GO.EKU.EDU/FAMILY

EASTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY Eastern Kentucky University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and Educational Institution.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

CAMPBELLSVILLE UNIVERSITY

TOP 3 (2018):

Biology, Business Administration, Exercise Science

Founded in 1906 1 University Drive Campbellsville, KY 42718 campbellsville.edu | 1-800-264-6014 Enrollment: 4,099

n UNION COLLEGE Barbourville | 1.800.489.8646 | unionky.edu TOP 3:

Campbellsville University, a widely acclaimed Kentuckybased Christian university with more than 13,000 students, offers more than 90 programs of study. The university is dedicated to academic excellence solidly grounded in the liberal arts that fosters personal growth, integrity and professional preparation within a caring environment. Students are provided with services beyond the traditional academic expectations, including complimentary counseling and access to tutors tailored to students’ areas of study. Academic coaches, internships and partnerships with programs around the globe make CU a place of opportunity. CU has off-campus centers throughout the Commonwealth in Louisville, Harrodsburg, Somerset, Hodgenville and Liberty, with Kentucky instructional sites in Elizabethtown, Owensboro and Summersville. With multiple locations and a full complement of online programs, Campbellsville University offers the opportunity to further your education no matter where you are.

Business, Wellness/Human Performance/Recreation, Nursing & Health Sciences

n UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS Williamsburg | 1.800.343.1609 | ucumberlands.edu TOP 3 UNDERGRADUATE:

Biology, Education, Business TOP 3 GRADUATE:

Teaching/Education, Clinical Medical Health Counseling, IT

n UNIVERSITY OF

PIKEVILLE

Pikeville | 1.866.BEARS.00 | upike.edu TOP 3:

Biology, Business Administration, Criminal Justice and Psychology (tied for third)

Residential and nonresidential camps for high-ability, high-interest youth Camp Explore (June 3–7) Students completing grades 1–3

VAMPY (June 23–July 13) Students completing grades 7–10

SCATS (June 9–21) Students completing grades 6–8

Camp Innovate (July 8–12) Students completing grades 3–5

Applications available now at wku.edu/gifted Phone: 270-745-6323 Email: gifted@wku.edu

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

9 Consecutive Years on The Washington Postâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s List of Top Performing Schools with Elite Students 110 National Merit Finalists 20 Semifinalists in Siemens Competition

We come from all across Kentucky to The Gatton Academy on the campus of Western Kentucky University. We finish our junior and senior years of high school as we start college. We conduct research with professors, study abroad, and attend college classes. While we are challenged academically, we thrive in a supportive environment designed just for us and make lifelong friends. Tuition, fees, room and board are paid for by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. You, too, can have a future filled with infinite possibilities.

Class of 2021 Admissions Deadline: February 1, 2019 WEBSITE: wku.edu/academy

EMAIL: academy@wku.edu

facebook.com/gattonacademy

@gattonacademy

PHONE: 270-745-6565 @gattonacademy

new course BY DEBORAH KOHL KREMER

wholesale changes have fueled Midway University’s explosive growth

idway, the storybook-pretty town where railroad tracks run right down the center of Main Street, is home to Midway University, which has undergone huge revisions in its 169-year history. Some of the biggest changes have occurred in just the last five years. Back in 2013, Midway College—as it was known then— was facing an uncertain future. With its all-female daystudent population shrinking to just 266, soaring expenses that outpaced revenue, and an identity problem, the future looked bleak. According to Midway University President Dr. John Marsden, the school had to borrow several million dollars to meet payroll obligations. But a bigger issue was clouding the school’s future. Marsden said that, although Midway had been created with the principle of having an all-female population, research indicated that only two percent of high school seniors were interested in attending a samesex college. Massive changes needed to be made, and the path certainly was going to be bumpy. Marsden credited his 38

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

knowledgeable team members, who helped him create survival plans for Midway. “Bold decisions needed to be made by our board of trustees,” he said. “Some of the endeavors were risky, but these choices were pivotal turning points for us.” Major changes and initiatives were given the green light, and today, the school is on a completely different trajectory. “When I arrived in 2013, Midway was financially challenged,” Marsden said. “But we have moved beyond that, going from borrowing millions to now having millions in our endowment fund.” Today, Midway is a co-ed university with more than 1,600 students enrolled in daytime, evening, online and dual-enrollment high school courses. Katie Morgan, a 22-year-old senior biology major from Georgetown, has seen all the changes on campus during her years there. “I chose Midway because it was small, so I was concerned about how all these new students would mesh with those of us who were already here,” she said. “It is a lot different now, but it is a more exciting atmosphere with guys and girls interacting. Activities and sporting events have better attendance, but even with the increase, professors still know all the students by name.” Midway offers undergraduate majors and minors such as business, marketing, sports management, biology, nursing

how it began

and education—as well as pre-professional majors like premed, pre-law and pre-engineering. Graduate degrees in business, nursing and education also are offered. Aside from the allure of the bucolic and lush, green campus surrounded by stately brick buildings, visitors can be charmed by the sound of an occasional train whistle and the neighs, snorts and whinnies of horses in a nearby barn. Midway is situated on a 200-acre working horse farm, which is incorporated into what might be the school’s bestknown major, equine studies. “Historically, equine has given us a larger footprint,” said Ellen Gregory, vice president of marketing and communications. “For decades, students chose Midway because of the horse program.” The campus has barns, horse stalls, an indoor riding arena and 70 acres of beautiful pastureland for the 38 horses that live there. Students in this field of study work with many different breeds, learning how to care for the horses and helping manage the farm. Reminders of the equine program and the muddy stables that come with it are apparent all over campus, as each building has a boot brush and scraper just outside the entrance. Horses, which go hand in hand with Kentucky, are not Midway’s only iconic field of study. The university recently added a minor in bourbon studies. Designed to teach the history and production techniques of Kentucky’s native spirit, the program is a good companion to a business or communications major or a master’s degree in business administration. Opposite, President Dr. John Marsden; above, senior Katie Morgan (center) with her mother and sister; above right, students at Pinkerton Hall, circa 1866, which at one time housed the entire school.

hen the school opened in 1849 as the Kentucky Female Orphan School, it had one teacher and 16 female students. “Originally, it was more like a high school,” said Ellen Gregory, vice president of marketing and communications. “The goal was to teach orphans so they could become teachers and become self-sufficient.” Midway was the dream of Dr. L.L. Pinkerton, who was a physician and a minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The school evolved into a postsecondary, career-training organization but kept its original name because school administrators felt it appealed to philanthropists’ interests. The name was changed in 1942 to Midway Junior College, and in 1978, the school added four-year programs and dropped the junior college status. In 2006, online classes were added to the curriculum allowing male enrollment, though the day program remained all female. Midway has always worked to preserve the past but still make transitions with the times. Luckily, there are reminders to show how far it has come. Pinkerton Hall, which dates back to 1859, is the oldest building on campus. This Greek Revival brick structure housed the entire school at that time and was used as both a classroom building and dorm. Over the years, Pinkerton Hall has been used for classes and administrative offices, but with the recent influx of students, it is being transformed into a dorm. Modern amenities will be added for the students of today, but right above the back door that overlooks the railroad tracks is a sign reading, “Kentucky Female Orphan School,” which must have welcomed new students to campus when they got off the train more than 150 years ago. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

“It was formulated around Kentucky tourism and the bourbon industry, which are both large employers in our state,” Gregory said.

sports at midway Going co-educational with the day program in 2016 called for the addition of men’s sports. This process was streamlined with the transfer of more than 100 students from St. Catharine College in Springfield, which closed the same year. The university hired several St. Catharine coaches and encouraged them to keep their sports teams together. Midway also made the transfer process easy by waiving application fees, residency requirements and the minimum number of credits earned on campus, so the former St. Catharine students would graduate on time.

WORK READY

Changes were made quickly to accommodate this influx of students. Classes were added, dorms were converted to co-ed, and professors were hired. The transition was felt at every level, especially in sports. According to Rusty Kennedy, Midway University athletics director, the school had eight female sports teams in the spring of 2016. By the fall of 2018, the school was home to 20 teams. With this growth spurt came the growing pains of sharing the gym and campus resources. Midway’s Keeneland barn, where many of the horses reside, also houses a baseball batting cage and all the school’s archery equipment. Midway is in the construction phase of a new baseball stadium as well as a new recreation building called Hunter Field House, complete with an auxiliary gym, a weight and cardio room, and a gathering space for students. Both are expected to open in the spring of 2020. Today, Midway boasts more than 400 student athletes, whom Kennedy stresses are students first and athletes second. “With a 3.12 cumulative GPA, it is obvious they work very hard,” Kennedy said. The athletics programs have prospered at Midway. In its first year on campus, the men’s baseball team won the conference championship; the women’s golf team won the championship three years in a row—from 2016 to 2018. Marsden explained that with all these teams comes a new visibility for the university. Larger crowds are attending games, families are traveling to attend events, and siblings are being introduced to the Midway campus. “We’ve seen a lot of success in our sports, but that is because we have so much to offer,” he said. Q

campbellsville.edu

KENTUCKY

SCHOLARSHIP

Now with 40

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

locations in Kent uck y

THE KEY TO OPTIONS SAT ELLIT E CAMPUSES AND ONLINE COURSES EXPAND ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCAT ION IN KENT UCKY BY JACKIE HOLLENKAMP BENTLEY

n 2018, the United States Census Bureau reported that 23.2 percent of Kentucky residents have obtained a bachelor’s degree. That percentage could be higher, but life sometimes gets in the way of accessibility to a postsecondary institution. Geography, finances or just plain bad decisions can build formidable barriers to furthering an education. Nearly a dozen colleges and universities across the Commonwealth are working to break down at least one of those barriers. With institutions establishing smaller “satellite campuses” throughout Kentucky as well as more online degree programs, geography is becoming less of an excuse to not attain a degree. “I always say, ‘Education is the key to options,’ ” said Tommie Ann Saragas, the assistant vice president of educational outreach, online and graduate programs at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia. “It doesn’t make you better than anybody else, but it makes you the best version of yourself, and it gives you more options for your future.” Lindsey Wilson expanded outside its campus borders in 2002 when it partnered with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. Together, they began offering a Bachelor of Arts degree in human services and counseling and a Master of Education degree in counseling and human development at four community college locations. Saragas said the program “took off and expanded” to 18 locations in Kentucky, plus seven more in Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. “We are small in our geography here on our main campus, but our footprint is massive,” Saragas said. “[Lindsey Wilson] could have stayed the way they were forever, but they took that leap of faith where it was needed. We are really living our mission and taking the opportunity where people need it.”

Campbellsville University is another institution that recognized the need to expand outside its Taylor County borders. Four years ago, Campbellsville had just a few satellite locations with limited class options. “Our Somerset location was on life support with 25 students; Harrodsburg had 45 students. The Louisville campus did not even exist, and Hodgenville had about nine students,” said Dr. Wesley Carter, the associate vice president of university outreach. “Since that time and an immense amount of hard work within a cadre of people our organization, we’re now very pleased to say in Somerset we have over 300 students. In Harrodsburg, we have over 400 students. Hodgenville has over 40 students. In Louisville, we now have about 7,000 students across two locations.” Dr. G. Ted Taylor, the president of Campbellsville’s university outreach, has broken down the program’s goals into what he calls the Four E’s: enlarge the mission, empower students, engage local communities and offer excellence in education. CU’s eight regional campuses offer certificates and degrees in a variety of programs, including early education, information technology and more. Taylor said that to take those degrees outside the main campus is to spread the university’s Christian mission. “A lot of these counties are divided politically, demographically and socially, but it really seems like a Christian education … is able to bring them together more and more,” Taylor said. “We want to get bigger because we want to impact more people’s lives.” That impact also can empower students for life. “Life change happens here,” Taylor said. “That’s really a motivation factor for us.”

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

KENTUCKY SATELLITE CAMPUSES Campbellsville University (Campbellsvil e Clinton College & Career Center Elizabethtown Instructional Site Harrodsburg Conover Education Center Hodgenville Brockman Education Center Casey County Education Center Louisville Education Center Owensboro Instructional Site Somerset Noe Education Center

Eastern Kentucky University Richmond For both CU and Lindsey Wilson, community involvement is essential. In addition to its partnership with KCTCS, Lindsey Wilson teams up with local health care facilities to deepen those community roots. “We’ll partner not only with a community college but also with a mental health facility, so we educate the students, and they can train in their field and have employment opportunities in that field when they graduate,” Sagaras said. “We’re not just there to take students; we’re there to grow that community. We’re changing lives, and we’re changing communities one student at a time.” Some potential students may have weekday jobs that make it difficult for them to get to the classroom. With weekend classes and online programs, many universities and colleges are breaking down the time barrier. “It’s for someone who has a life and a full-time job and full-time responsibilities—those who just can’t go to a brick-and-mortar four-year institution,” Saragas said. “There are first-generation, adult learners that we graduate. It’s almost indescribable to see a person who has lived a life—and maybe made some really bad choices—and think they can’t or never could [attend college] and then find out they could all along.” Taylor agrees. “A lot of our students are first-generation students, both on the main campus and even more so at the centers,” he said. “So we’re changing family trees, and the more that we can do that, the more we want to do it. We’re willing to fight for their future, to give wings to their dreams and give them second and third chances.” Many adult learners also cite financial constraints as a barrier for furthering their education, something CU and other higher education institutions recognize. Carter said Campbellsville’s regional campus costs are $399 per credit hour versus $1,038 per hour at the main campus. Lindsey Wilson charges $414 per credit hour at its regional campuses, whereas it’s about $1,000 per credit hour at its Columbia campus. “The limits are shaken off, whether it’s us or the college down the street or across the country,” Saragas said. While it appears the expansion of educational opportunities continues to grow throughout Kentucky—be it at brick-and-mortar satellite locations or online programs— the key, Taylor said, is to stay focused on the student. “Our whole world [once] revolved around the main campus, and now, with a little over 2,000 students on the main campus and 11,000 off-campus, it’s really shifted,” Taylor said. “But it’s important that, when we enlarge our mission, we keep our brand strong, whether it’s on the main campus or whether it’s in the centers. It’s important we be consistent with what we are delivering. We want to get bigger because we want to impact more people’s lives.” Q 42

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY •

FEBR UARY 2019

Central Region, Lancaster South Region, Corbin East Region, Manchester and Hazard

Frontier Nursing University Hyden slated to open a Versailles campus in 2020

Lindsey Wilson College Columbia Paducah Prestonsburg Radcliff Scottsville Somerset Cincinnati, Ohio Hillsboro, Ohio Gallatin, Tennessee Big Stone Gap, Virginia Richlands, Virginia Wytheville, Virginia Logan, West Virginia

Ashland Cumberland Danville Elizabethtown Hazard Henderson Hopkinsville Lexington London Louisville Madisonville Maysville

Morehead State University Morehead MSU at Ashland MSU at Mt. Sterling MSU at Prestonsburg University Center of the Mountains, Hazard

Murray State University Murray Fort Campbell Henderson Hopkinsville Madisonville Paducah

Northern Kentucky University Highland Heights Grant County Center in Williamstown

Sullivan University Louisvil e Lexington

Ft. Knox

University of the Cumberlands Wil iamsburg Northern Kentucky Campus, Florence

Western Kentucky University Bowling Green WKU Elizabethtown, Fort Knox WKU Glasgow WKU Owensboro

Landing in

B Y G A R Y P. W E S T

onora

Charlie Thurman has converted his old home place into a tourism destination

Often in Kentucky, the smallest towns come up with the biggest surprises. Sonora, with an exaggerated population of 475, is one of those. Occupying a bit more than 1 square mile of real estate, Sonora, in Hardin County, began as a railroad camp in the late 1850s and originally was called Bucksnort. When the L&N Railroad built a depot there in 1859, the name that went up on the structure was Sonora. It was thought that the rail contractor was from Sonora, Mexico, and that he took it upon himself to make the name change. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good bet that residents today are glad they live in Sonora and not Bucksnort. One of them is Charlie Thurman.

Thurman grew up and graduated from high school there in 1961. After attending college at Western Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky, he went to Louisiana, where his geology education led to work in the oil and gas industry for 35 years. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 â&#x20AC;˘ K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

Where is Sonora? Sonora is 15 miles south of Elizabethtown, 10 miles west of Hodgenville, 50 miles south of Louisville and 50 miles north of Bowling Green.

For more information or to make reservations, call 270.949.1897 or visit ThurmanLanding.com In 2003, he and his wife, Claudia, who has since passed away, decided to move from New Orleans back to his family’s old home place in Sonora. From that time on, Thurman has been on a mission. What began as a restoration of the Victorian house his great-grandfather, Josiah Phillips, built in 1897 has evolved into a destination event venue with overnight lodging. The house had, for the most part, sat vacant since 1968, even though Thurman’s aunt, Eunice Dwight, owned it. When she died in 1999, she left the house and all of its furnishings to Thurman and other family members. Before long, he was hooked. The more than three decades away had done nothing to diminish his love for Kentucky and, in particular, his old home place. “We weren’t going to stay here permanently in the beginning,” he says, “maybe through Christmas of 2003. Thirty days. But once the house was completed, we liked it so much, we decided to commit a year to make sure everything was done right, and then we would move back to New Orleans.” That never happened. Now called Thurman Landing, the site in the heart of 44

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

downtown Sonora includes the restored brick ThurmanPhillips home. In 2006, Thurman purchased the 1880 bungalow-style house next door that had once belonged to his grandfather. The same year, he acquired the inventory from the Elmwood Inn Tea Room in Perryville and opened the bungalow as Claudia’s Tea Room. “We structurally connected these two historic homes to give us a place to host different types of events, including groups for teas, bridal showers and private parties up to 125 people,” he says. But Thurman didn’t just stop with the two houses. In the backyard, he added a beautiful gazebo, brick patio, and walkway for outdoor weddings, special gatherings and even an authentic shrimp boil inspired by his years in New Orleans. A neatly landscaped garden features trellised grape vines that are reminiscent of the ones Thurman played near as a small boy, and today, the vines produce grapes for the jellies that come out of the Thurman Landing kitchen. “We furnished the home with family Victorian furniture, and each of the five bedrooms has its own bath,” Thurman says. Adding to the ambience of the guesthouse is a cozy

library with an entire wall of books, plus a sunroom with a glass ceiling that was added several years ago. “Our contractor came up with the design that made it look like it’s always been here,” he says. “He based it on researching the greenhouses at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.”

B E D & B R E A K FA S T S H O W C A S E

s more individuals and groups began to hear about the Thurman-Phillips house, Thurman decided to expand his operation. Today, Thurman Landing sits on 9 acres of scenic landscape that seems to be miles from nowhere but in reality is only a mile from one of the busiest interstates in America, I-65. Just a few steps away from the 5,500-square-foot main house is a 1901 home that Thurman refers to as the Lake House, which features four bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen and a comfortable sunroom that gives visitors a view of the small lake. A large deck and connecting patios provide comfortable spaces to enjoy the outdoors. The Carriage House sits next door. “This serves as our wedding cottage,” Thurman says. “The upstairs has a queen bed and its own bath. In a separate living area, we have a queen sleeper, bath, kitchen and washer/dryer.” A balcony overlooks the lake that is stocked for fishing. Guests can take a cool dip on a warm day, and non-motorized watercraft are available. Tin roofs are the norm for the covered decks, and a three-tiered patio offers a place for large gatherings. But Thurman wasn’t finished. In 2016, a new crown jewel was added: a 5,000-plus-square-foot Special Event Barn. “This gives us so much more flexibility for bringing and attracting all kinds of events, while at the same time, it ties our 9 acres into everything else we have going on here,” he says. Stone walking paths, fountains and a giant fire pit make this an ideal location for events with up to 275 people. Thurman already has hosted large weddings, private parties, political rallies, shrimp boils, barbecues, fish fries, arts and crafts festivals, live music and car shows. The easy-in, easy-out parking lot is also conducive to motor coaches. “I have some plans drawn up to make this place even more of a destination,” Thurman continues. “I am looking at expanding the lake to include a waterfall. And then I want to build a large gazebo nearby that will be included in a wedding site with the lake as a backdrop.” But that’s not all. “On the hillside across the lake from our two cottages, I’m exploring the possibilities of a large cabin-like structure on the order of a small lodge,” he says. “It will be big enough for families and small groups.” Visitors who arrive at Thurman Landing in hopes of booking a wedding, reunion or any other event can join Thurman on a golf cart for a journey over the landscape. He points out all of the amenities available but soon settles into a history lesson about Sonora and especially Dorsey Creek, a small-flow rippling stream that meanders behind his event barn. “Dorsey Creek is famous in this area,” he says. “It runs miles and then disappears underground for a couple of miles and eventually finds its way to Nolin River.” Thurman said the creek also has a connection to the Civil War. “There wasn’t a battle here, but there was a skirmish,” he says. “Several died, six or seven, and local historians have always referred to it as The Skirmish at Sonora on Dorsey Creek.” Today, Thurman is one of those historians he talks about. Living in a house built by his great-grandfather, he takes pride in giving tours of the home. He’ll tell you about the 200,000 bricks made on-site. And then he might tap on one of the brick walls while pointing out they are 1-foot thick. Reflecting on the priceless antiques Aunt Eunice had left, Thurman mentions the tall Pennsylvania-made 1820 grandfather clock in the foyer. “It keeps perfect time,” he says. A couple of the beds in the house date back more than 200 years. A pie safe, sugar chest and an old high chair sit in the cozy updated kitchen. “That’s a photo of my dad sitting in this same high chair as a small boy,” he says, pointing to a framed picture on the wall above the high chair. “He was born in 1914, so that comes close to dating the photo.” Thurman and his friend, Rose Featherhorn, serve as innkeepers of Thurman Landing. Visitors to the property might hear an occasional train passing through this no-stoplight town or the clip-clop of an Amish horse and buggy, which adds to the charm of the accommodations. Q

Farm House Inn Bed & Breakfast

735 Taylor Branch Road, Parkers Lake (606) 376-7383 www.farmhouseinnbb.com

Book your overnight stay or event today!

BED & BREAKFAST AND RETREAT CENTER

the Historic Headquarters of Frontier Nursing Service in Wendover, KY, original log cabin home of Pioneer Nurse-Midwife Mary Breckinridge. (859) 899-2707 | frontier.edu/wendover Designated a National Historic Landmark

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

VOICES

Past Tense/Present Tense

Harry Caudill: Appalachian, Kentuckian, American BY BILL ELLIS

“R

ate of choking black-lung disease hits 25-year high,” read the July 21, 2018, Lexington Herald-Leader headline. “Coal piles up as natural gas wrecks region’s economy,” followed on Aug. 6. Bill Estep reported that by the end of 2017, “coal’s share of national electricity generation had dropped to 30 percent,” while natural gas and wind energy had climbed substantially. There appears no end in sight to declining coal mining in Kentucky. Appalachia, particularly the eastern Kentucky mountains, often draws headlines. More often than not, the stories are negative. Ron Eller’s 2008 book, Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945, remains the best single treatise about the problems and promise of the region. Recent books such as Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia and Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia add to the bibliography of a region beset by problems that have bypassed much of America. Newspaper columns, editorials, pro- or anti-coal-mining spokespersons, and lawmakers at the county, state and national levels making pronouncements are part of what continues to appear insoluble: eastern Kentucky lags behind the so-called Louisville, Lexington and northern Kentucky “Golden Triangle”—and the Commonwealth as a whole is not one the wealthiest or healthiest states. It is our state, 46

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

filled with people who have suffered in the past and are still suffering today.

What Has Been Done? Before the early 1960s, only a few politicians, government bureaucrats, newspaper reporters and authors paid much attention to a region left behind. Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area, published in 1963, changed that. A Whitesburg lawyer, Caudill penned this best-selling history of the region that reached a national audience. “Idleness and waste are antipathetic to progress and growth,” he wrote, “and, unless the Cumberland Plateau is to remain an anchor dragging behind the rest of America, it—and the rest of the Southern Appalachians—must be rescued while there is yet time.” Caudill attributed the historic ills of his region to rapacious outsiders and locals, who took no regard for the timber, coal and other resources they removed to fuel American industrialization, leaving wastelands behind. In his closing chapter, Caudill asked for a massive program, based on a Tennessee Valley Authority model, that would transform his beloved Appalachia into a modern society, one more closely aligned with the rest of the country. Nearly everyone read Night Comes to the Cumberlands,

including 24-year-old Bill Ellis a year or so after its publication. Famed Kentucky writer Harriette Simpson Arnow, the author of The Dollmaker, praised the book as “the story of how this rich and beautiful land was changed into an ugly, poverty-ridden place of desolation.” “That book could only have been written by Harry Caudill,” author Loyal Jones explained in an oral history interview. “I give him full credit for that.” Night Comes to the Cumberlands had the effect of “causing people to start talking about Appalachia, which had not been talked about much before. That was a blockbuster, and nobody else could have written it.” The early 1960s were years of turmoil. President John F. Kennedy brought a youthful vigor to government and appointed a commission to study the problems of the region. He was assassinated the same year Caudill’s book appeared. Night Comes to the Cumberlands caught the attention of individuals, politicians, social workers and reformers of all kinds, who were well aware of Appalachia’s quandary. They found the ultimate spokesperson in the loquacious Caudill. “More than anyone else in the 1960s, Caudill shaped an alternative image of Appalachia as an oppressed region and provided the intellectual framework for a generation of mountain activists,” Eller maintained. Eller considered that Caudill’s first book “probably was the most widely read book ever written about Appalachia.” Caudill went on to write several more books, including Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley; two books about his experiences in a “country law office”; a novel, The Senator from Slaughter County; My Land is Dying, about strip mining; and others, including dozens of newspaper and magazine articles. He was, seemingly, never at a loss for words. The times appeared to be changing. President Lyndon B. Johnson came to eastern Kentucky in late April 1964. After briefly visiting the area, he declared: “I have called for a national war on poverty … Our objective: total victory.” Such was the buoyancy of the era—just as the Vietnam War began heating up. It was a time of great expectancy. Federal programs, money and poverty workers poured into Appalachia. Efforts were made to improve education, health facilities and services. At the time, the region appeared to be changing for the better, with such agencies as the Appalachian Regional Commission leading the way. In the mid-1960s, Caudill believed that coal could be extracted responsibly. In 1965, he proposed that three “minemouth power-generating” plants be built in Appalachia. One to be built in eastern Kentucky would provide low-cost electricity to the region. He asked for “wise management” in a 1966 Whitesburg newspaper article. A couple of years ago, my wife and I stopped at a roadside gas station in North Dakota on a Great American Road Trip. We watched as large off-road trucks hauled strip-mined coal directly to a power plant, one of several in that state. This is what Caudill had asked for in his own state at one time. Don’t forget: Appalachian coal competes with coal mined in western Kentucky and several western states. My family and I lived in Jackson from 1967-1970 during the height of the war on poverty. I taught history at Lees Junior College, a small, Presbyterian school. We lived for two years in a mobile home, so I guess we would quality as “trailer park trash” by the reckoning of some folk. These were years of raising children, church, school, making lifelong friends and the effort to be a good teacher. The majority of my students were from the surrounding area. Most worked hard and went on to other schools for higher education. For the most part, these were enjoyable times. I am not an expert on the problems, perils or outcomes of the war on poverty, opinions of which seem to be based

these days on political preferences rather than hard facts. I leave the final words to the real experts. However, opinions, not necessarily facts, vary greatly and are beyond the purview of this article about Caudill, who, more than anyone else in the last century, publicized the region’s problems. In 1977, Caudill left his law practice behind and accepted a position teaching Appalachian history at the University of Kentucky. About the same time, his manuscript, “Eastern Kentucky in the Age of the Moguls,” began making the rounds. It was expected that the University Press of Kentucky would publish the book, but due to the influence of coal interests, the book was passed on to the University of Illinois Press. The book, titled Theirs Be the Power: The Moguls of Eastern Kentucky, finally came out in 1983. Caudill placed the blame for his region’s ills squarely at the feet of coal “moguls” who “believe in the Divine Right of Cash.” The “Broad Form Deed” left many a mountain family without control of their land, with entrepreneur John C.C. Mayo as one of Caudill’s culprits. Aside from the coal entrepreneurs who disliked Caudill’s message, others challenged his data, theories and lack of sensitivity on occasion. Alice Cornett, at the time a Hazard resident, wrote a scathing attack in a newspaper article in 1981: “It is astonishing that, in the 18 years since he published his first book, Harry Caudill has never been called to account for the inaccuracies and misrepresentations that dot his works.” Moreover, she decried his “crude joke that ‘the best thing the federal government could do for the mountains is to move a big Army camp in … The soldiers would get the local girls pregnant and fresh genes would do more good than all the free grub they’re giving away.’ ” In 1980, I interviewed Caudill in his office at UK as part of the Carl D. Perkins Oral History Project. He complimented Perkins’ ability to compromise, something he was not able to do, particularly when it came to environmental measures and strip mining. Caudill clearly showed his frustration as, he said, the “welfare reservation will continue to grow and grow.” I reminded him of his comment about the differences between the mountainous areas of Europe and Appalachia. When I asked what could be done to alleviate some of the problems the people of the mountains faced, he replied: “Why bring in the Swiss?” Was he just tossing off a line, for which he was famous, or had he just about given up on substantive measures to change his beloved Cumberlands? No one, friend or foe, could ever claim that Caudill was a man of few words. He could spin a yarn, hold an audience spellbound, and write clear and concise prose. The New York Times referred to him as a “strenuous orator who liked to quote in a sonorous mountain drawl from the Bible, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Dickens.” Secondhand from John Fetterman, Loyal Jones told me of Caudill’s fun with a swirl of words. When visiting Caudill’s law office in Whitesburg, Fetterman asked about his wife, Anne Caudill. Harry intoned with mock Shakespearean candor: “Oh! Have you not heard? ’Twas just a fortnight ago she was stricken with this strange malady. She lies up there even now, her frail form wracked with fever and pain!” When Caudill invited him home for lunch, Fetterman, of course, said he wouldn’t think of it because of Anne’s illness. Caudill ended his dramatic monologue by saying, “Oh! Don’t be silly. She’s just got a cold.” It was that type of language that endeared him to his friends and infuriated his foes. There was always a pessimistic strain in Caudill’s writings. Published in 1971, My Land is Dying was dedicated “to all those unborn millions who must someday inhabit America’s spoil banks.” Five F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

VOICES

Past Tense/Present Tense

CONTINUED

years later, he demonstrated further exasperation in The Watches of the Night. “This book is dedicated to the printing presses of the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving that produce the checks, food stamps and paper money by which the Kentucky Cumberlands have survived for so many years.” That frustration with government and his own people led Caudill to eventually make the humorless remark about building an Army base in his region as well as dallying with the radical dysgenics theories of William Shockley, a Nobel laureate noted for his contribution to the invention of the transistor, who favored voluntary sterilization for people with an IQ below 100. Jones and journalist and editor David Hawpe, who knew Caudill well, can give insight into this complicated man. “I remember his built-up shoe,” Jones said, referring to the special shoe Caudill wore, the result of a severe injury he had sustained during World War II. “He went about his business as best he could, and I admire him greatly for that—though I did not admire his views about Shockley. Harry was an extraordinary person. I admired his eloquence, his good stories, his good sense of humor. So, I highly admire Harry Caudill. I didn’t always agree with him.” Hawpe, longtime editor of the Courier-Journal and a sixth-generation Pike Countian, took exception with Caudill’s “later flirtation with Shockley’s” views, “but neither I nor anyone else should remember Harry for that period in his life. We should remember him as a visionary who framed the Appalachian coalfield dilemma in a compelling and influential way.” Caudill quit teaching at UK and returned to Whitesburg, in great part because he could no longer take the punishment of standing on concrete for long hours.

From the time he was seriously wounded in World War II until his death, he suffered irremediable pain. In his last years, he developed Parkinson’s disease. He had witnessed this malady in others. At last, his war wound, Parkinson’s and other ailments wore on him so much that, not wanting to burden his wife and others, he took own life on Nov. 29, 1990. At his funeral, his son, James, read from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, with the immortal lines, “All the world’s a stage … And one man in his time plays many parts.” James said that his father “died with his boots on, such as they were … those terrible, ugly shoes that carried him through many good years, and some bad ones, but mostly good, and so he played his part.” Another man of good words, author Wendell Berry, spoke at Caudill’s funeral and eulogized him in his book of essays, It All Turns on Affection. “I studied him with the attention and respect that a younger man pays to an exemplary older one, and I was aboundingly repaid. He was in every way rare … He never quit and he never flinched.” I leave it to you, Kentuckians and other folk, mountaineers, flatlanders, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, wherever you are in time and place. What do you make of Harry Monroe Caudill?

What Can Be Done? What Is Being Done? In 2013, Gov. Steve Beshear and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers helped launch a bipartisan effort called Shaping Our Appalachian Region, or SOAR, aimed at alleviating the region’s perpetual problems. These shortcomings included loss of coal jobs, underemployment and poverty, with 26 percent of the population lacking a high school education. The effort is ongoing.

For More on Harry Caudill … By far, the most complete book, to date, about Harry Caudill is The Caudills of the Cumberlands: Anne’s Story of Life with Harry. Written by Terry Cummins and published in 2013, the book is based on 49 interviews with Anne Caudill and other sources, along with Harry’s writings. Cummins documents what many always knew: that Anne championed Harry’s work as his editor, co-worker and muse, in addition to being his wife and the mother of his children. There are other sources the reader may find interesting, including Harry Caudill: Man of Courage, a documentary by Jerry Deaton, and Room to Fly: Anne Caudill’s Album, a documentary by Joy and Lee Pennington. Appalachia is always well covered by Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Bill Estep. The Kentucky Encyclopedia is a great place to start any research about the Commonwealth—in this case with an excellent biographical sketch of Caudill by Lee Mueller and an entry on Appalachia by Jim Wayne Miller.

Readers may contact Bill Ellis at editor@kentuckymonthly.com

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

OUTDOORS

Field Notes

Winter Reading BY GARY GARTH

y wife began life as a farm girl, which might explain her affinity for weather prognostication. Although her family’s welfare no longer depends on whether the soybeans will get enough rain, she rarely misses the weather segment of the evening news and has installed multiple weather apps on her smartphone. My idea of checking the weather is looking outside the window. But I do suffer from a different type of forecast addiction. Early each year, I anxiously await the annual Kentucky Fishing Forecast, which is compiled by the fishery staff at the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The report anticipates which fish species—and how many, as populations are deemed excellent, good, fair or poor—will be cruising our lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and tailwaters, from 18-acre Washburn Lake in Ohio County to the Ohio, Kentucky and Green rivers. Fishery officials say the report is popular, and I believe them. I read it and typically keep a copy on hand throughout the year. I used to keep a copy in the dry box and stuff a copy into a pocket of my fishing vest. It’s now a PDF file on my phone. The annual report is crammed with information only a fishing geek could love. Lakes are listed in alphabetical order (A.J. Jolly to Yatesville) and include the county (or counties) in which they are located, the acreage and the species that are found in each watershed, with a forecast for the year for each, ranging from excellent to poor. A few comments are added to sweeten the deal. Example: At Pennyrile Lake (Christian County, 47 acres), the 2019 forecast for bluegill is excellent. Here, according to the report compilers, is what you can expect: “Trophy sunfish is the primary management goal in this small but scenic lake. Some really nice bluegill are present as a result of the stunted bass population. Recent surveys found historically high numbers of bluegill less than 8 inches. Numerous fish less than 6 inches also present. Perfect for bank anglers and kayakers.” It’s a similar story for nearby Beshear Lake (Christian and Caldwell counties, 760 acres), where the forecast is bright for channel catfish, which also garnered an excellent rating. Forecasters explain why: “High numbers of 10- to 20-inch channel catfish in the population. Channel catfish are stocked every other year at 10-12 inches. This is an underutilized fishery. Most anglers fishing for catfish use jug lines or noodles. Catfish are one of the reasons people go to Lake Beshear to fish.”

To cabin-feverish fishermen, this is mouthwatering information, and it goes on like that for about 40 pages. As something of a bonus, it ends with a two-page “cheat sheet,” which line-lists each waterbody and the species for each that are forecast as good or excellent. The forecast has been issued for more than 20 years. There is no crystal ball or magic formula. Data is the result of the previous year’s grunt work, gathered from fish population and creel surveys, stockings and general knowledge of the fisheries. I suspect one of the original purposes of the forecast was as a public relations tool. A statewide fishing forecast, with the promise of good fishing, handed out during the doldrums of a Kentucky winter whets the appetite of every licensebuying fisherman. (The sport license year begins March 1.) Fishery officials don’t deny the forecast’s public relations benefits but insist that arming fishermen with knowledge was and remains the main objective. “The original intent for the fishing forecast was to make anglers aware of the findings of biologists out on the water collecting data through sampling, creel surveys, angler reports and reproductive success,” explained Jeff Ross, assistant director of fisheries for the state game agency and the guy who oversees the forecast. “The biologists have a good feel for the waters they manage and [are] trained to look for changes. The knowledge gleaned from their study and training provides a pretty good fishing forecast. For example, if biologists sampling a certain lake find two good reproductive years in a row, it will lead to good crappie fishing in the next few years.” Regular readers will note that, for many waters, the yearly forecast is often similar to the previous year’s prognostication. This isn’t bad news, Ross noted. “Many of the lakes don’t make drastic changes from year to year,” he said. “Repetition is not necessarily a bad thing because it means stability in the fish populations. Some lakes are better for certain species, and sometimes the sameness is just the way the lake is.” The fishing forecast, which usually is issued in January, is free and available online or in print. The 2019 issue can be found at fw.ky.gov/Fish/Documents/ CurrentFishingForecast.pdf. If you need a printed copy, call the state game agency at 1-800-858-1549 and ask. They’ll send you one. I already have mine.

Readers may contact Gary Garth at editor@kentuckymonthly.com F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

CALENDAR

Let’s Go

February MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY THURSDAY

Ongoing Ongoing Kentucky Craft HERstory Luminaries, Quilts Exhibit, Frazier History National Quilt Museum, Museum, Louisville, through Paducah, through March 23, April 9, (502) 753-5663 (270) 442-8856

Off-Spring: New Generations Exhibit, 21C Museum Hotel, Lexington, through Feb. 27, (859) 899-6800

11.

12.

First Sunday Chamber Guided Nature Music Series, Tour, Josephine Glema Mahr Sculpture Park, Center for the Arts, Frankfort, Madisonville, also March 3, also Feb. 25, (502) 352-7082 (270) 824-8650

10.

Off the Hook: A Celebration of Sustainable Aquaculture, Newport Aquarium, Newport, (859) 261-7444

17.

18. Presidents Day

CKYO Teen Arts Festival, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington, (859) 254-0796

Peg and Cat Live, Carson Center, Paducah, (270) 908-2037

FRIDAY

13.

14.

Farm to Table Wizard of Oz, Dinner, Jeptha RiverPark Center, Creed Distillery, Owensboro, Shelbyville, (270) 687-2787 (502) 487-5007

Valentine’s Day

19.

20.

21.

26.

27.

28.

Cirque Mechanic, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469

Magic Giant, The Madison Theatre, Covington, (859) 491-2444

Mavis Staples, Clemens Fine Arts Center, Paducah, (270) 534-3212



SUNDAY

SATURDAY

The Steel Woods, The Warehouse at Mt. Victor, Bowling Green, (270) 904-6677,

15.

16.

22.

23.

Love Letters, Sleeping The Center Beauty, presented for Rural by the Lexington Development, Ballet Company, Somerset, Lexington Opera (606) 679-6394 House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567

Midtown Men, Ralph Paramount Steadman: A Arts Center, Retrospective, Ashland, University of (606) 324-0007 Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, through May 5, (859) 257-5716 The Art of Food, Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, Covington, (859) 957-1940

Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Owensboro, (270) 926-7891



24.

25.

Alfredo WoodSongs Rodriguez and Old-Time Radio Pedrito Hour, Martinez, Lyric Theatre, Norton Center for Lexington, the Arts, Danville, (859) 252-8888 (859) 236-4692

The Book of Mormon, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, through March 2, (502) 584-7777

More to explore online!

Visit kentuckymonthly.com for additional content, including a calendar of events, feature stories and recipes.

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

Human Abstract, presented by the Louisville Ballet, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, (502) 584-7777

Ongoing Ongoing Winter/Spring Clay Bodies: Meet, Turfway Moving Park, Florence, Through through March 29, Ceramics, (859) 371-0200 KMAC Museum, Louisville, through April 7, (502) 589-0102

Let’s Go!

A guide to Kentucky’s most interesting events Bluegrass Region

February

8 Brahms’ First, presented by the Lexington Philharmonic, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington, (859) 233-4226, lexphil.org

25 WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, Lyric Theatre, Lexington, (859) 252-8888, woodsongs.com

9 Sleeping Beauty, presented by the Lexington Ballet Company, Lexington Opera House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567, lexingtonoperahouse.com

28 The Price Is Right Live! EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com

1-2 Pins and Needles Retreat, Boone Tavern Inn, Berea, 1-800-598-5263, visitberea.com

9 Peg and Cat Live, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com

1-14 Chautauqua National Juried Art Exhibit, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, (859) 622-1000, chautauqua.eku.edu

15-17 Finding Neverland, Lexington Opera House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567, lexingtonoperahouse.com

1-15 Going Against the Grain: Wood Quilts by Laura Petrovich-Cheney, Doris Ulmann Galleries, Berea, (859) 985-3083, dulmanngalleries.berea.edu

15-24 A Year With Frog and Toad, Ragged Edge Theatre, Harrodsburg, (859) 734-2389, raggededgetheatre.org

1-15 New Domesticity Exhibit, Transylvania University, Lexington, (859) 233-8142, transy.edu

16-17 And Then They Came For Me: Anne Frank, Lexington Children’s Theatre, Lexington, (859) 254-4546, lctonstage.org

28 Around the World in 80 Days, The Grand Theatre, Frankfort, (502) 352-7469, grandtheatrefrankfort.org 28 Ronnie Milsap, Lexington Opera House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567, lexingtonoperahouse.com 28 Steel Magnolias, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com March

1 KC and the Sunshine Band, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com

1-16 Homage to Remnants Exhibit, MS Rezny Gallery, Lexington, (859) 252-4647, msrezny.com

16-28 Ralph Steadman: A Retrospective, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, through May 5, (859) 257-5716, finearts.uky.edu/art-museum

1-2 Senior Art Exhibit, Transylvania University, Lexington, (859) 233-8142, transy.edu

1-27 Off-Spring: New Generations Exhibit, 21C Museum Hotel, Lexington, (859) 899-6800, 21cmuseumtotels.com

17 Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras Teen Arts Festival, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington, (859) 254-0796, ckyo.org

1-3 Madama Butterfly, presented by the Opera Theatre, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington, (859) 257-4929, finearts.uky.edu

1-27 Innovators Exhibit, Kentucky Artisan Center, Berea, (859) 985-5448, kentuckyartisancenter.ky.gov

19 Cirque Mechanic, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com

2 Disney’s High School Musical, Lexington Children’s Theatre, Lexington, (859) 254-4546, lctonstage.org

2 Handcrafting Pottery: Traditional Techniques, Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, Frankfort, (502) 782-8118, history.ky.gov 2 MetOpera – Carmen, The Grand Theatre, Frankfort, (502) 352-7469, grandtheatrefrankfort.org 3 First Sunday Guided Nature Tour, Josephine Sculpture Park, Frankfort, also March 3, (502) 352-7082, josephinesculpturepark.org 6 Trey McLaughlin, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com 7 Legally Blonde – The Musical, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com 7 Chautauqua Lecture Series, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, (859) 622-1000, eku.edu

20 Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com

2 Professional Bull Riders, Rupp Arena, Lexington, (859) 233-3535, rupparena.com

21 Ron White, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com

3 Shawn Colvin, The Grand Theatre, Frankfort, (502) 352-7469, grandtheatrefrankfort.org

21 Dierks Bentley, Rupp Arena, Lexington, (859) 233-3535, rupparena.com

3 Travis Tritt, Lexington Opera House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567, lexingtonoperahouse.com

22 The Real Music Fest, Rupp Arena, Lexington, (859) 233-3535, rupparena.com 23 Fireside Chats, Fort Boonesborough State Park, Richmond, (859) 527-3131, parks.ky.gov 23 Cashore Marionettes, The Grand Theatre, Frankfort, (502) 352-7469, grandtheatrefrankfort.org 24 Alfredo Rodriguez and Pedrito Martinez, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com

3 Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, EKU Center for the Arts, Richmond, (859) 622-7469, ekucenter.com 3 Amy Grant, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com 3 Steven Curtis Chapman, Lexington Opera House, Lexington, (859) 233-4567, lexingtonoperahouse.com 7 The Perrys Gospel Concert, Sand Spring F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

CALENDAR

Let’s Go

Baptist Church, Lawrenceburg, (502) 598-3127, lawrenceburgky.org

8 Vienna Boys Choir, The Grand Theatre, Frankfort, (502) 352-7469, grandtheatrefrankfort.org 8 Carrie Newcomer, Norton Center for the Arts, Danville, (859) 236-4692, nortoncenter.com 15-17 St. Patrick’s Weekend, Fort Boonesborough State Park, Richmond, (859) 527-3454, parks.ky.gov

Louisville Region

14 The Dinner Detective, Embassy Suites Downtown, Louisville, (866) 496-0535, thedinnerdetective.com/louisville 15 Rigoletto, presented by the Kentucky Opera, Brown Theatre, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org

Kentucky Craft Luminaries, Frazier History Museum, Louisville, through March 23, (502) 753-5663, fraziermuseum.org Clay Bodies: Moving Through Ceramics, KMAC Museum, Louisville, through April 7, (502) 589-0102, kmacmuseum.org February

1-8 Where Are We Now Exhibit, Pyro Gallery, Louisville, (502) 426-1328, pyrogallery.com 1-14 Up Close with Joe Caban and Jim Silliman, The Gallery, Bardstown, (502) 348-0044, bardstownforthearts.com

Northern Region

15 After Hours at The Speed, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, also March 15, (502) 634-2700, speedmuseum.org 15 Blues Night with Tyrone Cotton, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, (502) 635-5083, filsonhistorical.org 18 Don Krekel Orchestra, The Caravan Comedy Club, Louisville, also March 18, (502) 459-0022, thecaravan2017.com

Ongoing

12-16 On Your Feet, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org

21 Genealogy Through Photography, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, (502) 635-5083, filsonhistorical.org 21 Derby Museum Legends Series: Bourbon Masters, Kentucky Derby Museum, Louisville, also March 21, (502) 637-1111, derbymuseum.org 21 Get the Led Out, Brown Theatre, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org 26-28 The Book of Mormon, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, through March 3, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org 28 Human Abstract, presented by the Louisville Ballet, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org March

Ongoing Scaled to Perfection: Gallery of Miniatures, Kentucky Gateway Museum, Maysville, through May 31, (606) 564-5865, ksbminiaturescollection.com Winter/Spring Meet, Turfway Park, Florence, through March 29, (859) 371-0200, turfway.com February

1 Film: A Woman Called Moses, Kenton County Library, Covington, (859) 962-4060, kentonlibrary.org 1-2 Live Music, Elk Creek Vineyards, Owenton, also Feb. 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23 and March 1-2, 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23, (502) 484-0005, elkcreekvineyards.com 10 Polished Brass, Boone County Public Library, Florence, (859) 342-2665, boone.libnet.info/events 10 Off the Hook: A Celebration of Sustainable Aquaculture, Newport Aquarium, Newport, (859) 261-7444, newportaquarium.com

2 Louisville Orchestra Presents Star Wars, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org

1 Blake Shelton’s Friends, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, (502) 690-9000, kfcyumcenter.com

16 Rumpelstiltskin, Boone County Public Library, Florence, (859) 342-2665, boone.libnet.info/events

4 Cher, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, (502) 690-9000, kfcyumcenter.com

6 Mariah Carey, Louisville Palace, Louisville, (502) 883-5774, louisvillepalace.com

6 Farm to Table Dinner, Jeptha Creed Distillery, Shelbyville, (502) 487-5007, jepthacreed.com

8 2nd Friday Bluegrass Jam, Rough River Dam State Resort Park, Falls of Rough, (270) 257-2311, parks.ky.gov

16 Perfect Harmony Dinner Theatre, General Butler State Resort Park, Carrollton, (502) 732-4384, parks.ky.gov

7 African American Officers in Liberia, The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, (502) 635-5083, filsonhistorical.org

9 Adult Workshop: Geometric Paintings, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, (502) 634-2700, speedmuseum.org

8 Mike Epps Funny as Ish Comedy Tour, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, (502) 690-9000, kfcyumcenter.com

9-10 KYANA Region Giant Swap Meet, Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, Louisville, (502) 619-2917, kyanaswapmeet.com

9 Adult Workshop: Pet Portraits, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, (502) 634-2700, speedmuseum.org

12 A David Bowie Tribute, Brown Theatre, Louisville, (502) 584-7777, kentuckycenter.org

14 Musique Romantique, Seelbach Hilton, Louisville, (502) 968-6300, louisvillechorus.org

12 KISS End of the Road Tour, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, (502) 690-9000, kfcyumcenter.com

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

20 Magic Giant, The Madison Theatre, Covington, (859) 491-2444, madisontheateronline.com 22 The Art of Food, Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, Covington, (859) 957-1940, thecarnegie.com 23 Little Red Riding Hood, Kenton County Library, Erlanger, (859) 962-4060, kentonlibrary.org 23 Northeastern Kentucky Beekeeping School, Maysville Community and Technical College, Maysville, (606) 247-5817

March

2 Late Winter Hike, Big Bone Lick State Historic Site, Union, (859) 384-3522, parks.ky.gov 4 Best New Restaurants Tasting Event, Braxton Brewing, Covington, (859) 261-5600, braxtonbrewing.com 8 Dr. Dog, The Madison Theater, Covington, (859) 491-2444, madisontheateronline.com 10 Kit Donahue, Boone County Public Library, Florence, (859) 342-2665, boone.libnet.info/events

Western Region

FEBRUARY EVENTS FEB 8 The Magic of Bill Blagg Live, Paramount Arts Center FEB 9 Gravy Bowl, Ashland Transportation Center FEB 14 Valentine’s Day Mystery Dinner Beneet for

Jamie’s Sake, Ashland Transportation Center

FEB 15 The Midtown Men, Paramount Arts Center Ongoing HERstory Quilts Exhibit, National Quilt Museum, Paducah, through April 9, (270) 442-8856, quiltmuseum.org February

FEB 16 The Southern Momma Cledus T Judd

Comedy Experience, Paramount Arts Center

FEB 21 Emporium Presents Brothers Osborne,

Paramount Arts Center

1-2 Eagle Watch, Kentucky Dam Village, State Resort Park, Hardin, (270) 474-2211, parks.ky.gov

502.352.7469

1-3 Winter Rook Tournament, Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, Dawson Springs, (270) 797-3421, parks.ky.gov 2 Etta May Live, Kentucky Opry, Benton, (270) 527-3869, kentuckyopry.com 4 Chamber Music Series, Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, Madisonville, also Feb. 25, (270) 824-8650, glemacenter.org 7 Wizard of Oz, RiverPark Center, Owensboro, (270) 687-2787, riverparkcenter.org 11 Peg and Cat Live, Carson Center, Paducah, (270) 908-2037, thecarsoncenter.org 14 Arsenic and Old Lace, Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, Madisonville, (270) 824-8650, glemacenter.org 16 Owensboro Art Guild Juried Exhibition Opening Reception and Awards Presentation, Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, exhibit continues through April 12, (270) 685-3181, omfa.us 16 Mid-Winter Hike, John J. Audubon State Park, Henderson, (270) 826-2247, parks.ky.gov

shawn COLVIN mar03

apr12

vienna BOYS choir mar08 delbert MCCLINTON

mar15

lee ROCKER may11

g r a n d t h e a t re f r a n kf or t . o rg F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

CALENDAR

Let’s Go

16 Robin Hood, RiverPark Center, Owensboro, (270) 687-2787, riverparkcenter.org 16-17 Valentine’s Getaway, Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, Dawson Springs, (270) 797-3421, parks.ky.gov 21 Evening Upstairs: Lincoln, Race and Emancipation, McCracken County Public Library, Paducah, (270) 442-2510, mclib.net 21 Mavis Staples, Clemens Fine Arts Center, Paducah, (270) 534-3212, artsinfocus.org 22 Scotty McCreery, Carson Center, Paducah, (270) 908-2037, thecarsoncenter.org 22 Dailey and Vincent, Kentucky Opry, Benton, (270) 527-3869, kentuckyopry.com 22 An Evening with Ronnie Milsap, Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, Madisonville, (270) 824-8650, glemacenter.org

22-24 Oil Painting Weekend, Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, Dawson Springs, (270) 797-3421, parks.ky.gov 23 Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Owensboro, (270) 926-7891, bluegrasshall.org 26 Leftover Salmon, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Owensboro, (270) 926-7891, bluegrasshall.org 28 Frank Vignola’s Hot Jazz Guitar Trio, Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, Madisonville, (270) 824-8650, glemacenter.org March

1 The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Carson Center, Paducah, (270) 908-2037, thecarsoncenter.org 2 Owensboro Symphony Orchestra – Disney in Concert, RiverPark Center,

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY OPERA THEATRE

Owensboro, (270) 687-2787, riverparkcenter.org

7-8 Spring Scrapbooking Weekend, Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, Dawson Springs, (270) 797-3421, parks.ky.gov

Southern Region

February

2 Orchestra Kentucky Winter Dance Party, Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com 2 The Steel Woods, The Warehouse at Mt. Victor, Bowling Green, (270) 904-6677, warehouseatmtvictor.com 8 Love Letters, The Center for Rural Development, Somerset, (606) 679-6394, centertech.com 14 Finding Neverland, Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com 14 -17 Dial M for Murder, Phoenix Theatre, Bowling Green, also Feb. 21-24, (270) 781-6233, ptkbg.org

GIACOMO PUCCINI Librettists Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa

15 Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors, The Star Theater, Russell Springs, (270) 866-7827, startheater.org 22 Lost River Sessions Live! Capitol Arts Center, Bowling Green, also March 16, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com March

2 Comedy Pet Theater, Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com

VALET

PARKING AVAILABLE

Sung in Italian with English Supertitles

Madama Butterfly, the story of a young Japanese bride of a dashing American officer who finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage.

March 1-3, 2019

SingletaryCenter.com • 859.257. 4929 Daytime Performance Available on March 3 at 2 p.m. Discounts for groups of 25 or more.

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9

5 Vienna Boys Choir, Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com 9-31 Arte Cubano Exhibit, Kentucky Museum, Bowling Green, through May 28, (270) 745-3369, wku.edu/kentuckymuseum 11 In the Mood: A Big Band Musical, The Center for Rural Development, Somerset, (606) 679-6394, centertech.com 12 Something Rotten! Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, Bowling Green, (270) 904-1880, theskypac.com

Eastern Region

February

1 TriState MX, East Kentucky Exposition Center, Pikeville, ekec.us

Be Involved Stay Informed Education • Practice Improvement Solutions • Resources Independent Practice Association (IPA) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) Group Purchasing • Association Health and Benefits Trust Advocacy • Networking

1-3 Genealogy Boot Camp, Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, Corbin, (606) 528-4121, parks.ky.gov 8 The Magic of Bill Blagg Live! Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com 9 Gravy Bowl, Ashland Transportation Center, Ashland, 1-800-377-6249, visitashlandky.com 14 Valentine’s Day Mystery Dinner Benefit for Jamie’s Sake, Ashland Transportation Center, Ashland, 1-800-377-6249, visitashlandky.com 15 Midtown Men, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com 16 The Southern Momma Cledus T Judd Comedy Experience, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com

Grow your knowledge and your business as a member of the Kentucky Primary Care Association. The KPCA is committed to improving access to comprehensive, community-oriented primary healthcare services for the underserved.

Contact KPCA today to find out how membership could benefit you. 502-227-4379 • www.kypca.net

21 Brothers Osborne, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com 22 Josh Turner Live, East Kentucky Exposition Center, Pikeville, ekec.us

...about Kentucky and Kentuckians.

28 Peter Pan and Friends on Ice, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com March

2 Faithward Motion, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland, (606) 324-0007, paramountartscenter.com 9 Greenbo Lake Spring Vendor Fair, Greenbo Lake State Park, Greenup, (606) 473-7324, parks.ky.gov

For additional Calendar items or to submit an event, please visit kentuckymonthly.com. Submissions must be sent at least 90 days prior to the event.

Kentucky Monthly magazine delivers an image of our complex Commonwealth as we find it today, free of outdated stereotypes and limitations. Visually exciting and conversationally driven, it highlights the people, places and events that make the Bluegrass State such a wonderful place to visit or call home.

w w w. k e n t u c k y m o n t h l y. c o m F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY

VOICES

Vested Interest

Wendy’s Wisdom I

had no more than taken my seat at the high-top table on the sunny side of Frankfort’s west-side Wendy’s restaurant than my phone made one of the many sounds it’s programmed to make. I looked down to see what it meant. It meant nothing. On looking back up, I made eye contact with an older gentleman in a black jacket to the left of a matching hat, which rested on the table next to his tray. “How did we ever get by without those things?” he said, referring to my phone, which I had placed facedown to the right of my tray. “We had our grandchildren in over the holidays, and I’m not sure if they ever put them down, even though they were with cousins they hadn’t seen face-to-face since last year.” “Really,” I said, knowing the truth in his statement and being guilty myself of spending too much time “connected.” “I’m not really sure that they ever even spoke to each other,” he continued. “You know, they might have been texting each other the entire time,” I quipped. STEPHEN M. VEST “Yes,” he said. “I know. They Publisher & Editor-in-Chief probably were, but I can’t help but wonder if we’re really any better off with all this technology.” “I doubt it,” I said. “Do we really need to know everything instantaneously? Maybe we’d be better off if we were a little less informed about—everything.” “Amen,” he said. “It used to be that we talked to each other to find out what was going on. Our universe included our family, our neighbors, our church and our school. Beyond that, we were pretty blissfully ignorant. I grew up in Bridgeport, which isn’t far from here, and a big trip was going to town. I didn’t see the Ohio River until I went to college, and I didn’t see an ocean for the first time until I was in my mid-20s.” “Things have certainly changed,” I said, attempting to

relate. “Three of my four children have been to Europe on school trips. For me, a major school trip was going to Bernheim Forest or maybe Mammoth Cave …” “For me, it was the ‘Game Farm,’ ” he said, referring to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources’ preserve, now called the Salato Wildlife Education Center, west of Frankfort. I tried to answer his questions about technology and the mysterious social media to which his children, grandchildren and sometimes his wife are addicted. I tried to explain that there are benefits like keeping in touch with old friends and finding out about upcoming events. “I guess it’s like anything else,” he said. “The key is moderation.” My phone chimed again and vibrated on the table. “Something important?” he asked. “No,” I said. “But you find it important to have it with you most of the time, right?” he said, picking up his hat with one hand and his tray with the other. “My wife says it’s the only way she can keep up with her sisters and their families. I guess that could be true, but I’m not sure it’s worth what we’ve lost.” “Face-to-face conversation?” “Oh, so much more,” he said. “My grandchildren are linked to the world and have access to every movie ever made. There are hundreds of channels on the television, and when they do talk, all they say is that they’re bored. ‘I’m bored’ is something I would have never said to my father because he would have found me something to do right quick. We lived on a farm, and we worked. And it wasn’t easy work. These kids today won’t even play because it might be too much work.” “So, I shouldn’t look for you on Facebook?” I asked, hinting that I had enjoyed our lunchtime conversation and would like to stay in touch. As he exited into the glare reflecting off of the cars wrapped around the Chick-fil-A across the road, he said, “No, my friend. Not anytime soon.”

Readers, and those looking for a speaker for a church or civic group, may contact Stephen M. Vest at steve@kentuckymonthly.com

FEBRUARY KWIZ ANSWERS: 1. B. There are at least 85,000 Kentucky Colonels, including Colonel Harland Sanders (KFC) and Cols. Albert Blanton and Jim Beam of bourbon fame; 2. C. The Tigers beat the Wildcats 32-30 on Jan. 18 and 22-18 on Feb. 15; 3. B. Triple Crown; 4. A. Hamburg Place; 5. True. James Allen Hendrix was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell; 6. C. Squire Boone established Shelby County’s first town and Linn’s Station in Jefferson County; 7. C. Millionaire; 8. B. Holtmann played at Jessamine County and was an All-American at Taylor University in Indiana; 9. C. Dissenter; 10. A. Sheriff 56

K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY •

FEBR UARY 2019

S U B M I T YO U R R E C I P E AT K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY. C O M Submissions due March 12

calling all cooks Enter Kentucky Monthly's annual recipe contest! Submit your favorite original recipe for a chance to win great prizes and see your dish featured in our May issue. Grand Prize Getaway An exclusive stay at the charming Montgomery

Inn Bed & Breakfast in Versailles. Guests enjoy the best of the Bluegrass at

this warm, welcoming B&B within easy driving distance of Keeneland Race Course and several bourbon distilleries.

Runners-Up Prizes In addition to having their recipes featured in our

May issue, runners-up will receive a Kentucky-themed cookbook and a cookie cutter shaped like our Commonwealth.

Robert Clark

march 16 -17 kentucky horse park alltech arena saturday: 10 am – 6 PM sunday: 10 am – 4 PM

Michelle Strader

Martha Wetter

It’s the largest gathering of the best Kentucky artists under one roof! The Kentucky Crafted Market features nearly 200 Kentucky visual and craft artists, music by Kentucky performers, Kentucky Proud food vendors and many other fun activities. Find more information at http://bit.ly/Market19

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