By Nathan Granger
NKitty kindness or neighborhood nuisance?
o people live in the house on 20th Street in Covington’s Peaselburg neighborhood. But it is occupied.
Passersby can see the occupants if they look closely. They’re often clustered, like tangles of ghosts, in the house’s shadow: cats.
The property belongs to a nonprofit animal service organization called the Tristate Noah Project, which purchased the house late in 2022, according to Kenton County property records.
The house has become the nexus of a conflict among the organization, the city and some of its neighbors, who view the house as a nuisance. The situation prompts deeper questions about animal welfare practices, urban ecology and related public policy in Northern Kentucky that affects both humans and animals.
Laura Beth Bamberger, the Tristate Noah Project’s founder, described when she
Continues on page 3
Most student bullying in-person, survey reports
By Rebecca Hanchett
Bullying among Kentucky’s middle and high school students is mostly happening face to face, not online, based on data from a recent survey.
Approximately 41% of Kentucky’s public and private middle school students, surveyed as part of the 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior, reported being bullied in person versus 29% who reported being bullied online, Blake Konny told the Kentucky Local School Board Members Advisory Council on July 19. Konny is the state branch consultant for the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools, part of the U.S. Department of Education.
In high school, 22.5% of students surveyed
reported being bullied in-person versus 18.3% who said they were bullied online.
The CDC conducts the Youth Risk Behavior survey every two years among students in grades 9-12. It monitors teenage behaviors that can lead to poor health in the long run.
Although cyberbullying comes in second to in-person bullying among those students surveyed, online bullying reports have reportedly held steady. Konny said Kentucky is seeing roughly the same number of incidents now that it saw during the pandemic.
“If it was an easy issue, these numbers would be going down,” Konny said of the bullying data. “Those numbers are very high. They’ve held consistent since the survey has been given starting in 2009-2011. So this is not a new phenomenon.”
Continues on page 6
Cats lie around the house in Covington’s Peaselburg neighborhood bought by the Tristate Noah Project. Photo by Nathan Granger | LINK nky
A reported 41% of middle school students and 22% of high school students in Kentucky report experiencing bullying in person. Photo by Taylor Flowe | Unsplash
PRESIDENT & CEO Lacy Starling
MANAGING EDITOR Meghan Goth
SPORTS EDITOR Evan Dennison
The LINK nky Kenton Reader is a weekly newspaper. Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Prices is Pending, permit number 32 in Covington, Kentucky. The LINK nky Kenton Reader office of publications and the Periodical Pending Postage Paid at 700 Scott St., Covington, KY 41011.
For mailing address or change-of-address orders: POSTMASTER: send address changes to
The LINK nky Kenton Reader: 31 Innovation Alley, Covington, KY 41011 859-878-1669 | www.LINKnky.com
HAVE A TIP? News@LINKnky.com
WANT TO ADVERTISE? Marketing@LINKnky.com
WANT TO SUBSCRIBE?
Send a check for $31.80 ($30 non-auto-renewing rate plus 6% Kentucky sales tax) to LINK nky
31 Innovation Alley, Ground Floor Covington, KY 41011 or scan this QR code below
Love what we're doing? Want to support public-interest journalism in Northern Kentucky? Make a tax-deductible donation to support our work. Scan the QR code below, or mail a check payable to the Northern Kentucky Community Journalism Fund to 50 East Rivercenter Blvd. Suite 431, Covington, KY 41011.
No part of this publication may be used without permission of the publisher. Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please let us know and accept our sincere apologies in advance.
Continued from page 1 started taking animal service work seriously. “It started with a cat that was severely beat,” Bamberger said.
Bamberger said the cat belonged to a woman she knew whose boyfriend had abused and kicked the cat out of the house. The animal’s jaw was broken, and its skull was crushed. Animal control had come to take the cat to be euthanized, but Bamberger volunteered to care for the cat instead.
“I called the cat’s name,” Baumberger said. “He literally jumped out of the officer’s arms in that horrible state, and he kind of crawled to me. I took the cat, and it took months – I think four months and over $5,000, easily over five grand, maybe six grand – but it was the first time that I actually asked for donations online.”
Although the organization focuses primarily on cats, it works with other animals, too, including dogs. The organization’s social media pages show photos and ads of the animals in the project’s care, asking people to adopt or foster them. The posts are frequently accompanied by donation solicitations.
Bamberger said the organization also performs community educational events, offers help for pet-owning veterans, and at times even provides veterinary and charitable help for families who can’t otherwise afford pet care. They’ve sometimes provided community meals and have performed other charitable efforts. Much of the project’s work draws upon volunteer labor.
Still, Bamberger said, “essentially, the care of homeless cats is our primary focus.”
Animal control best practice
To that end, one of the primary services the organization provides is called trap, neuter and return, often shortened to TNR. It refers to the practice of trapping free-roaming cats, spaying or neutering them, then returning them to where they were picked up. Kenton County classifies cats that have undergone TNR as community cats. You can tell if a cat on the street has undergone TNR through the county by its tipped ear.
The term “community cat” frequently appears in literature about the management of cat populations in urban environments, where it is used more loosely than in the county. It can refer to stray cats, which were often formerly owned before getting lost or abandoned, and feral cats, which have spent long periods of time outside and, thus, aren’t socialized to humans. An individual cat can sometimes straddle definitions, as well. For instance, a cat born in a human home could get out and become a stray, live outside for years and become essentially feral before warming up to a human who takes it in as a pet.
TNR is considered best practice among most public animal control agencies as well as professional advocacy groups. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the American Association of Feline Practitioners, the Humane Society, the Association of Shelter Veterinarians and Alley Cat Allies all swear by TNR as a means of controlling community cat populations. Moreover, it’s considered a more humane option than trapping and euthanizing community cats outright, which most advocacy groups agree isn’t even effective at controlling populations.
Compared to free-roaming dogs, which tend not to be prevalent in large numbers in the United States, free-roaming, ownerless cats are common in urban environments. Some are born outside, some get lost or separated from their owners and others are abandoned, either deliberately or through circumstance. The Feline Research Council estimates there are about 32 million feral cats alone in the United States, but this estimate is rough given there’s no centralized way of tracking populations.
Sometimes, cats can be abandoned in large numbers. “I was contacted by a man who bought a property, and these people [the former owners] left 15-plus cats behind,” Bamberger said.
State, county and city animal welfare laws vary in detail, but they broadly prohibit acts of cruelty, abandonment, torture and neglect against animals. A new Kentucky law called Ethan’s Law, which makes torturing cats and dogs a first-degree felony, went into effect just last month. Many jurisdictions also have licensing and microchipping requirements in place to track pet populations better.
Kentucky counties also are legally required to have publicly funded animal shelters. Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties’ animal shelters all have no-kill status, which, in spite of its name, doesn’t mean they refrain completely from euthanasia. A shelter achieves no-kill status when it has a 90% or greater live outcome rate, meaning its animals are either adopted out, returned to their owners or transferred to other facilities. Euthanasia that does occur is often Continues on page 4
Best practices around managing community cat colonies, as recommended by Alley Cat Allies. Provided | Alley Cat Allies
Continued from page 3 done for health reasons, age or if the animal is deemed dangerous (more common for dogs than cats). These days, most shelters view euthanasia as a last resort.
In spite of the legal groundwork, Bamberger expressed frustration at what she characterized as the lack of practical resources available, especially for homeless cats. “The reality is shelters are full,” Bamberger said.
Much of the Noah Project’s work aims to bring help to animals who would otherwise be left to fend for themselves. It’s undeniable that the people involved are driven by a deep sense of compassion and mission for the animals.
Attracting vermin and vultures
Criticism of the project generally falls under two categories.
The first is the Peaselburg house itself: It’s falling apart. Code enforcement records from the city cite damage throughout the house – missing gutters, damaged windows, holes in the roof. The outside wall on the second floor has collapsed.
The second is the project’s practice of leaving food out for cats for extended periods. In addition to the services related above, the project also deposits food at sites across the region. Although leaving food and water out for recently TNR’d cats is considered best practice among advocacy and policy groups, there’s disagreement about the details.
Kenton County law, which has a section devoted to the management of community cats, prohibits leaving uneaten food out for more than an hour. Alley Cat Allies, one of the more prominent cat advocacy groups, recommends removing uneaten food even sooner, within 30 minutes.
The Noah Project has circulated an online petition, which has about 2,200 signatures at the time of this article’s publication, to revoke the county ordinance mandating food be removed within an hour, arguing it violates state law against animal cruelty. Bamberger maintains this would bring Kenton County ordinance more in line with Boone and Campbell counties, which lack such a stipulation. The petition also asks for
the county to revoke two other ordinances, one discouraging people from feeding cats in public areas and one forbidding the use of public property by community cat caretakers without a permit.
“If cats who’ve become dependent on the food provided to them do not eat, that is neglect and cruelty,” the petition reads.
Leaving food out was a common complaint among the neighbors on 20th Street who spoke to LINK nky. One neighbor, Darcie Joyce, described the house as a “nuisance” and said the food attracts not just cats, but also vermin and other wildlife.
Another neighbor, Paul Brautigan, said that some of the cats were aggressive and had even scratched one of his kids. He also said that the cats’ presence agitated the dogs on the street, causing them to bark more often.
“I know it’s costing people their sleep,” Brautigan said.
Brautigan said that, at one point, he and some of the other neighbors had gathered up the food that had been left on the porch and redistributed it to neighbors’ cats along the street. He said that, in response, the project put plywood up around the porch, an act that resulted in one of many citations from the city against the organization for code violations.
In all, the city has fined the project over $2,000 since it purchased the property. As of the end of June, none of the fines had been paid, according to the city. If the project remains delinquent on its violations, the city could put a lien on the house.
Joyce, Brautigan and another neighbor, Danny Morris, attested to something else as well: the presence of vultures. By Morris’ account, vultures had in the past alighted on some neighboring properties. From there they would slip into one of the openings in the roof to snatch what he believed to be the kittens that had come to populate the interior.
LINK nky did not observe any vultures when it viewed the house from the street. However, a photo taken in May 2023 by city code enforcement clearly shows a black vulture perching in one of the house’s open windows.
Skeletal remains found at the house in Peaselburg in January. Provided | City of Covington
Cats that have been trapped, neutered and returned to where they were found have their ears tipped and are known as community cats. Provided | Kenton County Animal Services
One particularly grim episode attested to in city documents occurred in July 2023. A neighbor, whose name is redacted in the records LINK requested, had made a complaint that the house “had the smell of death coming from it,” in the city’s report.
Covington Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Volter, whose name appears frequently on the complaint documents, writes in the report that a project volunteer had found dead cats that had been hit by cars, dropped on the house’s porch and left to decompose for five days. At code enforcement’s behest, another volunteer came, bagged the carcasses and removed them.
In January, when the snow from a storm began melting, code enforcement located the skeletal remains of an animal on the walkway leading to the house.
Statements of support
Not all of the neighbors who spoke with LINK nky took issue with the house. Two neighbors, both of whom declined to give
their names, said they didn’t have a problem with it. Bamberger also furnished correspondence suggesting that at least one neighbor had agreed to accept help from the project in caring for their own cats.
The organization offered other rebuttals in the face of complaints. It said that many of the structural problems in the house predated its purchase of the property. Moreover, Bamberger said the project has made improvements to the house since buying it, and is planning on a full rehab through a contractor, Velazco Renovations. Velazco confirmed with LINK nky that they were planning such renovations but were waiting for building permits from the city.
Bamberger offered other rebuttals as well. The skeleton in the yard likely didn’t belong to a cat but to another animal – she furnished a letter from a local vet arguing that it likely belonged to a possum or raccoon.
Both the project and other animal welfare organizations argue that the problems apparent at the house are, in fact, the re-
sult of broader socioeconomic problems. Housing shortages and economic disparity, Bamberger argues, have led to more and more people abandoning their cats.
Finally, the cats were already living there when Tristate Noah Project purchased the house, Bamberger said, and all of the cats currently on the property have been spayed or neutered. She also disputes the suspicion among some neighbors and the city that the project intends to turn the property into a private shelter or rescue.
Stephanie Weddle, the founder of another animal welfare organization, Furgotten Dog Rescue, defended the project, echoing many of Bamberger’s arguments.
“Yes, there is a cat overpopulation crisis. This is not an isolated incident specific to the one property. The cats were there [on the property] prior to the rescue purchase,” Weddle said in an email.
“Cat overpopulation is not a consequence of feeding and housing homeless cats,”
Weddle said later in the email.
As to why the project invested in the house at all, the Noah Project argues that the cats there have become dependent on humans. Thus, it was necessary to ensure their welfare.
Amanda Karrick, a volunteer with the project, drove home this point when she said that, even after several neighbors agreed to help care for the cats at the property, it wasn’t enough. “It was clear the cats needed to be cared for at the location they were living,” Karrick said.
Bamberger reiterated that the existing system around animal welfare is inadequate. “Something needs to be created that is sustainable, that is aesthetically pleasing but ultimately helps to correct the problem because, ultimately, there are neighborhoods with a large number of homeless cats,” she said.
“I didn’t put them there.”
A black vulture perched in an open window at the house in Peaselburg in May 2023. Provided | City of Covington
Plywood barriers around a porch at the house in Peaselburg. Provided | City of Covington
Continued from page 1
Konny said 19,000 incidents were reported statewide in 2022 – the most recent year for which data is available. He said the actual number of incidents is probably much higher.
“Those [19,000] are the ones we see. Bullying can be overt, it can be pushing, shoving, a fight. Those are the easy ones. Those are the 19,000. We have a ton more in the hallway, for example, that are getting overlooked,” he told the council. “So there’s a huge gap in what we’re reporting and what’s actually happening.”
For example, if 20% of the state’s more than 600,000 public school students in preschool through 12th grade are bullied one time in a given school year, the number of bullying incidents in the state rises to 120,000, said Konny – keeping in mind that elementary school incidents are not tracked by the youth survey.
In Northern Kentucky, state accountability data for the 2022-23 school year showed hundreds of incidents of harassment that “include bullying” were reported that year in the region’s largest public school dis-
tricts. Assault, bringing a weapon to school and other problem behavior that could also involve bullying were reported separately.
Among students of the three largest NKY districts that school year, Campbell County Schools had the largest percentage of reported harassment, with incidents totaling 18.1% of all behavior events, per state data. Boone County Schools came in second with harassment incidents totaling 7% of all behavior events, while Kenton County Schools had the smallest reported percentage at 4.4%.
Julia Fischer, vice chair of the Bellevue Independent school board, is a member of the Local School Board Members Advisory Council, along with Carl Wicklund, a member of the Kenton County school board. School accountability data reported Bellevue Independent had 16 reports of harassment in the 2022-23 school year out of 224 total behavior events – or 7.1% of all events reported that year.
“So much of it starts young,” Fischer said at the July 19 meeting in response to data shared by Konny. “Learning how to get along, accepting that you did something
that hurt someone and then knowing how to apologize.”
Tragic consequences
Bullying has also been tied to tragic events, including suicide.
Suicide is a leading cause of death for young people in Kentucky, according to the state, and victims can be young. In 2019, 10-year-old Seven Bridges died by hanging himself in a closet in his home. His family said the Louisville fifth grader was a victim of frequent bullying at school.
Bridges’ death was the eighth student suicide in the Jefferson County Public School system at that point in the 2018-19 school year, according to NBC News. Three JCPS students had committed suicide the prior school year, said the reports.
No data on suicide among NKY school students was immediately available at the time this story was published.
The same 2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey that collected data about bullying among Kentucky school children also reported 15% of Kentucky high school students and
17.4% of Kentucky middle school students have “seriously considered” killing themselves.
Konny provided the council with suicide prevention resources from the Sources of Strength program to take back to their districts and share with their schools. Described by the state as an evidence-based model for suicide prevention, the model is focused on helping students become more resilient by tapping into their strengths.
The Local School Board Members Advisory Council is made up of 13 members, including six at-large members. It meets twice a year to discuss the impact state-level decisions are having on school districts and boards across the state.
GET HELP
If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
About 19,000 incidents of bullying were reported in Kentucky in 2023, but experts say the actual number is likely higher.
From soldier to star: Hasting’s path to Grand Ole Opry
By Nathan Granger
If you’d told Scotty Hasting five years ago that he’d be playing the Grand Ole Opry, he probably wouldn’t have believed you.
“July 28, I’m making my Grand Ole Opry debut, which is something I never thought I’d be able to say,” Hasting told LINK nky two weeks before his debut.
A prodigy he is not; he came to music late in his life as a way of dealing with “the demons,” as he puts it. Hasting served as an Army infantryman in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, where he was severely wounded, an incident that has come to define much of his life, including his music career.
“I grew up in the Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky area,” Hasting said. “My mom lived on the Ohio side. My dad lived on the Kentucky side.”
He graduated from Conner High School in Hebron and enlisted out of a recruiting office in Clermont County east of Cincinnati. He was in Afghanistan for only three months before he was shot.
Hasting and others had been called out to investigate someone suspected of manufacturing improvised explosive devices at his home. They were walking toward the house when they were attacked.
“There was a guy hiding behind a wall, and he just opened fire,” Hasting said. “He was maybe 15 feet from me. He was close enough to where not only did he hit me with the round but I also felt the blast from the rifle.”
He was shot 10 times: five times in the shoulder, four in the hip and one in his thigh. He survived, but he was never the same.
“From then on out still to today, it’s just been trying to heal as much as possible,” Hasting said, both physically and mentally.
The Army moved him to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and then later to Fort Riley in Kansas. Although he eventually regained some measure of physical independence, the return to civilian life, like for many combat veterans, was a challenge. He struggled to find solace in the face of PTSD and depression that arose from his experience.
In time, he did find some peace, not in music but in archery. He was even a member of the U.S. Paralympic archery program, shooting both recurve and compound bows.
Then COVID hit. Everything, including the archery programs he’d relied upon for peace, shuttered. The world went quiet, and the demons returned.
“When it gets quiet is when the demons knock the loudest,” Hasting said. “And COVID was very quiet, and I needed something to get out of my head.”
In the corner of his room sat a guitar. “I thought it was cool to just have a guitar there,” he said, “and then one day I was like,
‘You know, I’m gonna learn how to play this thing.’”
He taught himself to play by watching tutorials on YouTube. He’d always enjoyed country music, especially artists from the ’90s and early 2000s, so he focused on chord progressions common in country songs. The first song he learned to play was Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.”
Once he had a working knowledge of how to play, he turned his attention to writing his own material, educating himself on song structure and songwriting. It was a way to channel his feelings into something productive, something that would provide him with peace in the way archery had.
He had moved to Nashville even before he started playing music. Nashville’s outskirts began to reopen before the city proper, and he noticed an event space in Cookeville, Tennessee, had open mic nights. The first song he played live was the first song he’d learned, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.”
Being on stage was unlike anything he’d experienced before. After that first performance, he said he knew: “This is what I need to do forever. I knew for that little bit of time that I was on stage, I was able to be in that place of escape and that little bit of peace that I could find from the PTSD, the depression, the anxiety that ate away at me every day.”
He sought every open-mic opportunity he could on the outskirts of Nashville, and in time the city itself began to reopen. From there, he spent about a month walking up and down Nashville’s Broadway thoroughfare, bugging promoters. In time he was playing five nights a week.
He signed a contract with Black River Entertainment at the end of 2023, a deal that brought him under the tutelage of Doug Johnson, a songwriter, producer and vice president of artists and repertoire at Black River.
Many of Hasting’s songs revolve around his struggles with PTSD. One song in particular, “How Do You Choose,” unpacks Hasting’s feelings of survivor’s guilt, he said. In spite of his injuries, there were many he served with who arguably received less grievous harm but still didn’t survive.
“The chorus of that song is quite literally the argument and the conversation that I have with God on a daily basis about why the hell am I here?” Hasting said. “Why am I able to be here, and they aren’t?”
He was playing a show in Washington, D.C., earlier this year for a veterans nonprofit called the PenFed Foundation when he got a call from actor Gary Sinise, who informed him about an upcoming show at the Grand Ole Opry to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film “Forrest Gump.” Hasting knew Sinise not only from watching the movie when he was young but also from the advocacy work the actor has done for veterans. He had even tried to meet Sinise when he was still in the Army.
In a recorded conversation that Hasting later put on his Instagram page, Sinise invited Hasting to play at the Grand Ole Opry.
In July, he finally got to meet Sinise when visiting Sinise’s foundation for veterans.
“When he walked in the room, I gave him a big-ass hug, and I said, ‘Dude, it has been 13 years in the making right here,’” Hasting said. “‘Like, I’ve been trying to meet you for 13 years, and now we’re finally here.’ And I said, ‘And now the crazier part is that we’re both making our Grand Ole Opry debut on the same night, and you’re the one that asked me to do it.’”
When asked what communities can do to help people suffering from PTSD, Hasting
said, “Just be normal with these people. At the end of the day, that’s all we’re looking for.
“The biggest thing that we miss more than anything is the brotherhood and the camaraderie with our guys,” he said. “So if we can find that in the community, it’s the same thing.”
Hasting made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry July 28. You can hear the acoustic version of “How Can You Choose” at orcd.co/ shhowdoyouchooseacoustic.
NOTICE
Please take notice that Duke Energy Kentucky, Inc. has applied to the Kentucky Public Service Commission for approval to revise its Demand Side Management (DSM) rate for gas service and electric service for residential and commercial customers. Duke Energy Kentucky’s current monthly DSM rate for residential gas customers is ($0.010030) per hundred cubic feet and for non-residential gas customers is $0.000000 per hundred cubic feet. Duke Energy Kentucky’s current monthly DSM rate for residential electric customers is $0.001352 per kilowatt-hour and for non-residential customers is $0.003503 per kilowatt-hour for distribution service and $0.000514 per kilowatt-hour for transmission service.
Duke Energy Kentucky seeks approval to revise these rates as follows: Duke Energy Kentucky’s monthly DSM rate for residential gas customers would remain at ($0.010030) per hundred cubic feet and for nonresidential gas customers would remain at $0.000000 per hundred cubic feet. Duke Energy Kentucky’s monthly DSM rate for residential electric customers would increase to $0.001505 per kilowatt-hour and for non-residential customers would increase to $0.003685 per kilowatt-hour for distribution service and would increase to $0.000545 per kilowatt-hour for transmission service.
The rate contained in this notice is the rate proposed by Duke Energy Kentucky. However, the Public Service Commission may order a rate to be charged that differs from this proposed rate. Such action may result in a rate for consumers other than the rate in this notice. The foregoing rates reflect a proposed increase in electric revenues of approximately $0.65 million or 0.15% over current total electric revenues and no change in current total gas revenues.
A typical residential gas customer using 70 ccf in a month will see no change. A typical residential electric customer using 1000 kWh in a month will see an increase of $0.16 or 0.1%. A typical non-residential electric customer using 40 kilowatts and 14,000 kWh will see an increase of $2.78 or 0.2%. A non-residential customer served at transmission voltage using 10,000 kilowatts and 4,000,000 kWh will see an increase of $134.97 or 0.04%. Non-residential gas customers will see no change in their bills from this application.
Any corporation, association, body politic or person may by motion within thirty (30) days after publication or mailing of notice of the proposed rate changes, submit a written request to intervene to the Public Service Commission, 211 Sower Boulevard, P.O. Box 615, Frankfort, Kentucky 40602, and shall set forth the grounds for the request including the status and interest of the party. The intervention may be granted beyond the thirty (30) day period for good cause shown. Written comments regarding the proposed rate may be submitted to the Public Service Commission by mail or through the Public Service Commission’s website. A copy of this application filed with the Public Service Commission is available for public inspection at Duke Energy Kentucky’s office at 1262 Cox Road, Erlanger, Kentucky 41018 and on its website at http://www.duke-energy.com. This filing and any other related documents can be found on the Public Service Commission’s website at http://psc.ky.gov
Scotty Hasting, who grew up in Greater Cincinnati, started to play guitar during COVID to relieve the effects of PTSD from his time in the Army. Provided | Black River Entertainment
Northern Kentucky offers a wide collection of breweries and distilleries with great drinks and even greater vibes. This week, we explore some of NKY’s top places to grab a cold drink this summer. Photos by Hailey Rhoden | LINK nky
16 Lots Southern Outpost at Newport on the Levee puts on many events through the year, including drag brunches, movie nights, live music and benefits.
16 Lots not only features a wide variety of on-tap drinks, but also touts itself as the only brewpub at the Levee that both brews beer there and offers an in-house kitchen.
Barleycorn’s Brewhouse has both an indoor and outdoor space and a dog-friendly patio built inside a former fire station.
Longtime local favorite Barleycorn’s recently opened Barleycorn’s Brewhouse in Wilder. It’s a sit-down restaurant offering beers brewed on-site.
Braxton Brewing started at West Seventh Street in Covington. It’s since added locations in Cincinnati and at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
A major draw to Braxton’s Covington location is the rooftop bar and its one-of-a-kind panoramic views.
Opened in 2014, family-owned New Riff in Newport distills a variety of spirits, including bourbon, rye, malted rye and Kentucky Wild Gin.
Outside the Aquifer, New Riff’s third-floor taproom offers a large patio with great views of Newport and Cincinnati.
On New Riff’s third floor, the Aquifer taproom offers selections from the Whiskey Library, cocktails and pours of limited-edition releases not available elsewhere. Outside, a large patio has great views of Newport and Cincinnati.
By Hayley Jarman
DLudlow council updated on Cityview Station; residents express concerns
evelopers and residents clashed over concerns about flooding and water damage at Cityview Station during Ludlow City Council’s July 25 caucus meeting.
The Cityview Station development is set to create hundreds of new residential properties on 64 acres in Ludlow, resulting in estimated growth of a little over a thousand new residents. It is located south and west of Highway Avenue.
Representatives for the development from Fischer Homes and Grand Communities, a Fischer subsidiary, presented an update on the development’s progress at the meeting.
The president of Grand Communities, Michael Kady, reviewed outlines of preventative measures and structures they have built to prevent flooding and stormwater draining from the development. Kady displayed plans from the development’s engineers that the company already has implemented, including mulch berms, which are mounds of earth designed to retain water.
“So, it’s kind of an automatic action. It is just the ground up trees that were on site, chipped up into mulch, and then it’s mounted along the perimeter.” Kady said. He explained that, as the mulch gets wet, it gets heavier, staying in place and filtering water.
Kady told the council that the construction so far has been to improve the foundation, and that flooding would occur due to the rocky surface and separated soil. The measures Fischer Homes’ developers have taken are to prevent water drainage and flooding, he says.
“Knowing how to design the site to address those conditions is part of this project. So I just want to talk through our strategies and things we’ve done on other projects related to hillside slopes,” he added.
His remarks drew disapproval from attend-
ees. “I have zero confidence in anything that’s been spoken about.” Ludlow resident Jason Goff said during the meeting.
Goff has been a resident of Ludlow for three years. He told council his home, on Highway Avenue, had incurred water damage, and his basement was flooded with muddy water in March.
Multiple residents with homes on Highway Avenue were present at the meeting and also expressed distress due to their homes’ suffering water damage that they say is the direct result of Cityview Station.
Multiple incidents have occurred on Highland Avenue and the area surrounding the development, including flooding from heavy rain and land slippage. Land slippage isn’t an uncommon occurrence in Northern Kentucky due to its geography. Another land slippage incident occurred on Ky. 8 in Campbell County only a day after the one in Ludlow.
Council member Abigail Miller is also a resident of Highway Avenue who says she’s been facing the same problems as her neighbors. She was one of the homeowners on Highway Avenue that was affected by the flooding that happened in March and is still seeing water pooling in her backyard.
“What I can tell you is that the amount of water coming off the hill has changed,” Miller said. “And that’s why I have standing water in my backyard, because this drain cannot handle that amount of water.”
She has opposed the project from the beginning and fought before she was elected to council for it not to be approved. Miller was elected to council in November 2022. At that time, three council members were stepping down, including the former mayor, Josh Boone.
“I said, ‘Please, don’t vote on this. You guys are largely a lame duck council. Most of you have either been voted out and replaced by me and several of my friends,’” Miller said.
She asked the council to table the vote to grant Fischer Homes an industrial revenue bond until the new council members were seated. Her request was denied.
Her concerns, along with the other residents of Ludlow, weren’t unfounded. The Kenton County Planning Commission voted 14-1 against the project in June 2021, citing concerns of instability with the hillside property. This was based on a history of slippage on the land.
Two months later, though, Ludlow council members voted unanimously to reject KCPC’s decision and moved forward with
the development.
Fischer Homes established a hotline for residents affected by the flooding in April and inspected multiple homes after the floods began but told residents that they couldn’t confirm they were responsible for the damage and excessive water. Miller said that Fischer Homes’ inspector told her flooding happened at her home due to a clogged drain.
LINK nky reporter Nathan Granger contributed to this story.
Flooding under the overpass leading into Ludlow’s central business district on April 2. Photo taken from video provided by Ginger Roberto
Catrena Bowman, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission, suspected something was up for a while, but she wasn’t certain until a few week ago, when her landscaper sent her a photo of a note scrawled on a paper bag he’d found in her yard. It was the same bag the Erlanger resident and business owner had spied at a distance earlier but didn’t think much about.
On one side of the paper was a drawing of a gawking face. On the opposite side were a swastika and the words “MB Hates N****s.”
“He sent me the pictures of the note, and I was just like, ‘I knew it,’” Bowman said. “In a way it was confirmation that I knew something was going on, just based on all of the things that have been happening.”
The paper in Bowman’s yard was not the only one. In Covington’s Eastside neighborhood, leaflets bearing images of Ku Klux Klan members have been distributed on streets. Residents are concerned and are calling on fellow community members to speak out.
“We just ask for anyone who saw something [or who] may be aware of something to contact their local law enforcement,” said Jerome Bowles, president of the NKY branch of the NAACP.
Bowman doesn’t know who or what the MB on the note refers to, but she said there had
been several incidents leading up to finding the note that had made her suspicious. She’s lived at the property for six years, but she said these incidents didn’t become a problem until the last year or so. These included the destruction of a street lamp in front of her property, which prompted Bowman to install cameras, and the repeated slashing of the tires on her mother’s car. Bowman’s mother used to live with her.
Bowman said that, a few months back, her mother had even been the target of racist insults while walking around the neighborhood. All of these events compounded, Bowman said, into a situation where she felt she’d been targeted, like she’s being watched.
“These people have no idea who I am, what my background is; they don’t know anything about me,” Bowman said. “But just because you see a Black woman, you can get to the point you say that you hate them.”
Bowman complimented the Erlanger Police Department, which is investigating the case and has stepped up security in the area.
Meanwhile, in Covington’s Eastside neighborhood, there have been recent distributions of leaflets bearing KKK imagery. Specifically, the papers show a hooded Klansman pointing toward readers and telling them, “You can sleep sound tonight. The Klan is awake!”
The flyers bear the name of the Trinity White Knights branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a subgroup of the KKK based in Dry Ridge in Grant County. The flyer also sports a phone number with a 606 area code, asking readers to report “crime and drug dealers.” The 606 area code covers eastern and parts of south-central Kentucky.
Melissa Kelley, president of the Eastside+ neighborhood association, shared a photo of the flyer with LINK nky. She said it wasn’t clear if the flyers were meant as a recruiting tactic or a way of intimidating people but that the neighborhood would be working with local and federal law enforcement
to figure out how to handle the situation.
Similar flyers have been distributed in other parts of Kentucky and Indiana.
Ari Jun, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, spoke with LINK last year following the distribution of antisemitic literature in Covington’s Mainstrasse neighborhood. Jun said white supremacists and other hate groups often travel from place to place. “Some of these folks don’t even live within the state, and they’ll just drive up the east coast of the U.S., leafleting as they go.”
Tensions seem to get worse during election season, Bowman said.
“That’s just me anecdotally saying that,” Bowman said. “It’s just what it appears to be because those flyers and all of that were being circulated during the last election season, too.”
The NAACP’s Bowles said the region as a whole has been improving in its efforts to improve diversity and its openness to different cultures, so it’s “disheartening” when incidents like these occur. “But it just goes to show that we still have a lot of work to do together to overcome racial issues in our region,” she said.
Bowman encouraged community members to speak out against racist rhetoric when they encountered it in their everyday lives. “We have to have allies out here to help us to combat this and to fight against it and to stand against it.”
Bowles met recently with FBI officials to discuss the matter further. He encouraged anyone who may have seen anything related to these incidents to contact their local police.
Kenton deputy honored for arrest of man alleged to make terrorist threats
Kenton County Deputy Will Hausermann has been honored by the American Police Hall of Fame for his role in apprehending a man, Casey Woolums, who law enforcement officials say had been making terror-
ist threats against government offices in Franklin County.
Hausermann, along with several other deputies, were presented with honors at the July 23 meeting of the Kenton County Fiscal Court.
“I am tickled to death to do this,” said Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn before presenting the honors. “I feel like General Patton setting about after the Battle of the Bulge.”
Woolums, aged 33, made the threat in December. Court documents indicate that he called the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Medical Review Board around 12:30 p.m. Dec. 28. “I will just kill everyone in Kentucky who made the complaint and go from there,” Woolums said on a recorded line. It’s not clear from the documents what “complaint” Woolums was referring to.
A warrant was issued Jan. 3 for Woolums’ arrest.
“He was disgruntled about the system as a whole,” Hausermann told LINK nky, “and he was being very vocal about his ideas and was openly threatening to harm multiple city and government buildings.”
Hausermann believed Woolums may have been a veteran suffering from PTSD. The initial warrant indicates that Woolums was unhoused.
Multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, were involved
Continues on page 12
Will Hausermann at the Kenton County Fiscal Court meeting on July 23. Photo by Nathan Granger | LINK nky
One side of the paper left in Catrena Bowman’s yard. Provided | Catrena Bowman
in the case. When Hausermann got the call, the local director of Homeland Security and Kenton County Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders also were on the call.
“I said [to Hausermann], ‘You get him,’” Korzenborn said. “And he got him.”
Hausermann coordinated with Kenton County Dispatch to track Woolums down. Hausermann was able to narrow Woolums’ location down to the Fort Thomas area. He then contacted the Fort Thomas Police Department to get a group of officers to arrest Woolums.
They found Woolums near the Jeff Wyler dealership in Fort Thomas. Woolums had been working as a delivery driver.
“I located him in a box truck about to leave the area when I was able to call him out, and he knew that he was in trouble at that point,” Hausermann said. “We had a brief moment [where] he didn’t want to comply, and I had to verbally negotiate with him to exit the vehicle where I was able to safely place him into custody.”
The time between the warrant for Woolums’ arrest was issued and his arrest was about 48 hours.
Hausermann took Woolums to the Kenton County Detention Center. In February, the
state moved him to Eastern State Hospital to undergo psychological examination and treatment to determine if he was fit to stand trial. In June, he was released to his mother pending trial.
“I do feel like I did good service to the citizens of Kenton County and the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Hausermann said, “Because later on I heard that he had actually tried to inquire or tried to find ways to get his hands on equipment that would have been harmful to the public.
“So while it wasn’t a huge threat then, it could have been a very, very big threat later on.”
Higher cost, more time spurs cities to rethink construction projects
Rising construction costs, especially with subcontracting work, legal requirements and other ancillary expenses, has some local leaders concerned.
The topic was broached July 20 at the Kenton County mayors group, when Erlanger Mayor Jessica Fette discussed a sidewalk extension project in her city.
Starting at Brightleaf Boulevard and running along Narrows Road onto Nelson Road, the project dates to 2017. The original cost of the project was projected at about
$220,000, and the city had sought a grant from the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments to offset some of the expenses. OKI advises many local governments on transportation projects.
The grant was an 80/20 split, meaning OKI would provide 80% of the project’s total cost if the city provided the first 20%. This would have put the city’s responsibility at about $44,000. Fast forward to 2024, and the project is still in its design phase. The estimated total cost is now $522,000.
Some of this difference can be chalked up to increases in the cost of essential materials for construction, which have risen anywhere from 33% to 77% since February 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index.
“With direct material cost making up a significant portion of overall expenses, even a moderate increase can significantly inflate project budgets,” according to a July report from the National Association of Home Builders. “This can lead to delays in the production process, cost overruns and increased financial risk for contractors and developers.”
What’s more, Fette said ancillary costs related to the requirements set out in the city’s agreement with OKI drove up costs even more.
Remember your loved one
IS NOW OFFERING OBITUARIES
NKY is filled with close-knit communities and incredible individuals who have called Northern Kentucky home for decades. That is part of what makes our region special - the people
This is why we felt it was important to offer a place to honor your loved ones. With a convenient submission process and low, all-inclusive pricing, LINKnky provides a chance for you to focus on what really matters.
“You have to have the inspector on their project every single day; that’s about $1,200 a day,” Fette said. “You have to have this state-approved contractor go out and secure all of the land necessary and easements. So, it just makes everything a little more expensive.”
“We’re not even in [the] construction process,” Erlanger’s Director of Economic Development Mark Collier told LINK. “We’re still in the design phase, which means that, by the time we get to construction – which could potentially be in a year to 18 months – presumably those costs will still continue to go up.”
Once plans are submitted to OKI, they can’t be changed, Collier said. So the city can’t reduce the scope of the project to control costs if it still wants to be eligible for OKI’s grant. The city would be responsible for paying about $328,000 if it chooses to accept the OKI grant.
As a result, the city will likely relinquish the grant and replan the project with a smaller scope, Collier said, one that doesn’t require as much land acquisition. This will bring the city’s total cost down to about $320,000.
“We just recently decided that we’re giving them back grant money because the cost of doing the grant with them exceeds what the cost would be if we just did it without them,” Fette said during the meeting.
Crosstown Comedy Festival: Sam Ragar, 7-8:30 p.m., Commonwealth Sanctuary, 522 Fifth Ave., Dayton. Semifinalist round with host Sam Ragar. Each round’s winners will be determined by a mix of audience voting and judge’s pick. Admission $10. Information: programming@commonwealthsanctuary.com or commonwealthsanctuary.com.
NKY Chapter, Kentucky Public Retirees meeting, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Golden Corral, 4770 Houston Road, Florence. All retirees from state, local and county governments who receive a pension from KERS or CERS; support staff from Kentucky state universities and independent school systems; state police; and spouses may attend to learn about issues that affect their retirement, show support with other public retirees, and participate in group activities and events.
Meet Children’s Author Brittany J. Thurman, 2-3 p.m., Boone County Public Library, Florence Branch, 7425 U.S. 42, Florence. Thurman, who will represent Kentucky at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., will read from her work, followed by a question-and-answer session. Free. Information: 859-3422665 or boone.libnet. info/events.
Brews and Baseball, 5:30-9 p.m., Thomas More Stadium, 7950 Freedom Way, Florence. Northern Kentucky Young Professionals sponsors fun-filled evening, including an inside look into the success of the Florence Y’alls business model. Registration required (includes game ticket, concession voucher). Information: 859-5788800 or business.nkychamber.com/events.
Alexandria City Council meeting, 7-8 p.m., Alexandria City Building, 8236 W. Main St., Alexandria.
Boone County Board of Education meeting, 7-8 p.m., Ralph Rush Professional Development Center, 99 Center St., Florence. Information: boone.kyschools.us.
For more events, scan the QR code or visit: https://linknky.com/events/
Providing You and Your Business
Space to Grow
Skyline view, ample space in Taylor Mill
Address: 410 Mason Road, Taylor Mill
Price: $895,000
Bedrooms: Five
Bathrooms: Three (plus one half-bath)
Square footage: 4,000
School district: Kenton County
County: Kenton
Special features: This Taylor Mill property offers views of the Cincinnati skyline and seasonal Licking River views on over 3.77 acres. The living space features a great room, kitchen, first-floor bedroom, and a primary suite with a sitting area and city views. The property also has a second floor and lower level with recreation rooms, a workshop and storage.
An exterior view of this Taylor Mill home. Photos provided | Jane Ashcraft-West with RE/MAX Victory + Affiliates
This home offers views of Cincinnati and seasonal Licking River views.
Great food, great
views
on Fairfield Ave.
By Maria Hehman
Fairfield Avenue in Bellevue boasts countless restaurants, bars and shops for all occasions. Whether it’s a late night ice cream fix or a quick and casual meal, Fairfield has you covered. The spots we visit this week all offer riverfront views to watch a summer sunset.
Enson Harbor
Since its revival, Enson Harbor has been a go-to spot for guests wanting quality dim sum and drinks. The massive menu focuses on classic Chinese dishes highlighted by dim sum – small dishes wrapped in dough as well as dumplings. These dishes can be ordered steamed or pan fried with a variety of fillings.
Choices include gua bao (pork belly served in bao buns), a great starter for those new to dim sum. They’re served almost like a hard taco, but the bao buns are dense, fluffy and chewy. On the fried side are crab rangoon, scallion pancake, and salt and pepper calamari, to name just a few.
Those wanting a full entree beyond their dim sum can choose from stir fried bowls, boiled seafood or combo specials. Stir fry bowls offer traditional Chinese favorites, like orange chicken and jumbo shrimp. Seafood choices include clams, mussels, crawfish, shrimp, scallops, crabs and lobster.
For refreshments, Enson Harbor has a full service bar, beer, wine and housemade cocktails – perfect for sipping on the outdoor patio. Green tea, milk teas and smoothies are options all ages can enjoy. These refreshing beverages also can be customized with toppings or boba for an authentic addition to any meal. The laid back indoor ambiance is great for a casual evening or guests with kids, but nothing beats the back patio’s views on a summer evening.
MRBL
MRBL is one of the most visually inspiring spots in Northern Kentucky. First, there are the stunning cityscape views outside, but MRBLs interior is just as appealing. The entrance welcomes guests with a watercolor wall. Leather dining chairs and green-tile bathrooms add to elevated – literally, since it’s on the fourth floor – ambiance. MRBL exudes modern elegance in each design choice.
To match MRBL’s physical elegance, its menu is also top of the line, primarily serving steak, seafood and sushi. For guests
that really want to take advantage of the fine dining experience, MRBL has nine options for steak.
Those wanting lighter bites should opt for the sushi menu, including a surf and turf roll with shrimp tempura, avocado, garlic cream cheese, seared sirloin, eel sauce and fried onions. Asian green beans or crispy Brussels sprouts are great additions to any meal.
Many of the craft cocktails are playfully named and pay homage to the area. The Gincinnati (Cincinnati gin, St. Germain, plum syrup, sage simple and elderflower tonic) is a refreshing, crisp drink, perfect for sipping while admiring the illuminated nighttime views.
New Riff Distilling
New Riff is perfectly situated between Newport on the Levee and Bellevue’s Fairfield Avenue business district. This distillery offers a variety of tours to celebrate special occasions or to expand your distilling knowledge.
The massive facility serves both as a working distillery, where award-winning spirits are crafted, but also as an event space that offers an overlook to the river. Tours are the best way to get a full experience and can be booked online. This is great for larger groups or to bring out-of-town guests to get a full Kentucky experience.
In addition to tours, New Riff also has an onsite tasting room that doubles as a bar. There, visitors can enjoy cocktail creations featuring New Riff’s award-winning whiskeys – bourbons, ryes and limited-edition “riffs” – and gins. Though I’m not a bourbon fanatic, the guide did an excellent job of explaining the process and beverages. Bartenders also work with you to find a drink that’s best suited to your tastes.
Whether you book a tour or pop in for a drink at the Aquifer, this place is sure to treat guests to true Kentucky hospitality.
What to Know If You Go
Enson Harbor
Location: 25 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.10 p.m.; Friday, 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Saturday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Website: ensonharbor.com Phone: 859-360-6800
MRBL
Location: 119 Fairfield Ave., Suite 427, Bellevue
Hours: Monday-Tuesday, closed; Wednesday-Saturday, 4:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30-9 p.m. Website: mrblsteak.com Phone: 859-431-6725
New Riff Distilling
Location: 24 Distillery Way, Newport
Hours: Monday, closed; Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Website: newriffdistilling.com Phone: 859-261-7433
At MRBL, guests can savor wine and spectacular city views. Photo by Maria Hehman | LINK nky contributor
Chinese dim sum comes with a view of Cincinnati’s skyline at Enson Harbor. Provided | Enson Harbor via Facebook
New Riff’s third-floor tasting room, the Aquifer, lets visitors sample the distilleries products and offers great views from a large patio. Photo by Hailey Roden | LINK nky
Ryle lineman fast-tracked way to college commitment
By Marc Hardin
Ryle High School’s Dillon Smith doesn’t mess around on the football field. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound senior lineman is a well-prepared and productive player. He has risen to every challenge by fine-tuning his craft in a serious-minded pursuit of excellence.
Ryle coach Mike Engler praises Smith as an intelligent and efficient athlete. The twoway lineman is quick to absorb new information in the film room and during games. Engler highlights Smith’s high motor, preparedness and rapid processing abilities. All of it enables him to play at his fastest on defense. On offense, he’s part of a rotation at tight end.
“Dillon’s a very hard worker and an outstanding football player because of it. He can do a lot of things,” Engler said. “He’s going to get excited when we do well. But he’s also going to keep working hard. He’s a quieter guy as he goes about doing his job. From that perspective, he’s also a good leader, and he’s always been that way.”
From a young age, Smith made a swift impression on coaches with his size, strength and versatility. Playing as a two-way lineman in the Union Raiders program, he showcased solid technique and a willingness to learn.
Smith’s rapid rise through the ranks was partly due to his ability to play multiple positions. He played offensive tackle, tight end, defensive tackle and defensive end. His eight years of all-star youth football included a Kentucky Middle School Football Association seventh-grade state championship. He’s a member of the Union Raiders Football Hall of Fame.
At the high school level, Smith continued to excel and rapidly improve. He was one of just 10 freshmen to make the Ryle varsity team in 2021. He quickly became a full-time starter as a sophomore defensive lineman. His impact as an edge rusher was immediate: Smith led the team with nine sacks and 18.5 tackles for loss.
“Dillon checks all the boxes with ability, IQ, work ethic, leadership and productivity,” said Engler, who this season plans to use him more as an interior lineman – where Smith projects to play in college. “He’s off the charts with all that. He just picks everything up so fast.”
Despite increased attention from opposing teams during his junior season, Smith still managed to register six sacks and eight tackles for loss. He also had three interceptions, one of which he returned 70 yards for a touchdown. His performance earned him all-Division I honors from the Northern Kentucky Football Coaches Association. He was also an all-state honorable mention for the 8-5 Raiders.
“It all happened so fast,” Smith said. “And now I’m in my last year, and I think we’re going to have a great team.”
Smith’s stellar sophomore and junior seasons quickly put him on the radar of Division I colleges. He wasted no time in making his decision. Moments after receiving his first offer from Louisville during a campus visit in April, he accepted.
As a result, the Cardinals landed one of the top 2025 prospects in Kentucky. Smith ranks as the No. 11 senior defensive lineman in the Commonwealth, according to 247Sports.
“He accepted right there on the spot, before his junior year ended,” Engler said. “He’d been to Louisville several times, and they developed a good relationship. I advised him before he went that something like that could happen.”
There was no recruiting rollercoaster ride. No surprises, no headaches and no problems for the fourth commitment in Louisville’s 2025 recruiting class.
It was all smiles for the Smiths.
It was a whirlwind for the family, too, even though Smith experienced far less stress than the average recruit. The only issue is team allegiance.
“My mom’s a big Kentucky fan. She went to college there, and I’ve been a fan all my life,” Smith said. “Right now, we are a house divided when it comes to college football, but I’ll win her over.”
No, Dillon Smith does not mess around. He does mess with opponents while playing defense. He disrupts schemes and dismantles game plans, leaving them such a shambles that it creates opportunities for teammates like Jacob Savage, one of Kentucky’s top tackling linebackers since Smith started wreaking havoc up front two years ago.
“A great teammate, and we’re good friends too. He’s pretty much my ride to practice every day,” said Savage, who has seven college offers including one from Louisville. “We live in the same neighborhood near Lassing Pointe. We’ve golfed there, but we usually wind up talking about football. I’ll say one thing, he sure can hit the ball far.”
Smith’s football goals are just as far-reaching: win a state championship at Ryle, excel at Louisville and convert his Kentucky Wildcats-loving mom into a Cardinals football fan.
“I will make her a Louisville fan while I’m playing,” Smith said. “I’m 100% confident.”
Ryle senior lineman Dillon Smith recorded 114 total tackles, 15 sacks and 26.5 tackles for losses over the last two seasons. Provided | Raider Sports Network
Raiders lineman Dillon Smith (0) is a force on defense. Provided | Raider Sports Network
Ryle’s award-winning football standouts Dillon Smith, left, and Landon Lorms stand with Raiders head coach Mike Engler. Provided | Ryle football Facebook page
Pair of new coaches to face off in Nov. as NKU women meet UK
The Northern Kentucky University women’s basketball team will kick off a new era in the 2024-25 season with a trip down I-71 for a clash with in-state foe University of Kentucky.
The game will take place Nov. 7 at UK’s Memorial Coliseum in Lexington.
Both teams enter the coming season with new coaches. Jeff Hans takes over the Norse, while the Wildcats will be led by Kenny Brooks. The matchup marks the 17th meeting between the Norse and the Wildcats and the first since 2015.
Hans accepted the job in April after 13 seasons at Thomas More, including 339 wins and two national championships. He has prior experience at NKU as an assistant for five seasons in two different stints. He not only retained a majority of the current roster, Hans added some pieces which should make the Norse competitive out of the gate in hopes of earning their first Horizon League title this season.
Brooks comes in from Virginia Tech, where he led the Hokies to a Final Four in 2023. He led Virginia Tech to winning seasons in all eight of his years at the helm.
Transfers bring more NKY flair to NKU golf team
The Northern Kentucky University men’s golf team has added more local flair to its roster. Already with three on the roster from the NKY area, the Norse have added Highlands grad Justin Gabbard and St. Henry grad Mason Butler. Both are transfers into the program.
Butler comes in from Thomas More, where he played two seasons. He competed in 19 tournaments for the Saints, finishing in the top 10 four times, and posted a career-best top five finish at the Roger Merb Invitational during the 2021-22 season.
He posted the top score for the Saints four times.
At St. Henry, Butler qualified for the KHSAA state tournament twice and finished second once. He also helped the Crusaders to a Class A state championship.
Gabbard joins NKU after three seasons at Xavier University. As a Musketeer, Gabbard played in 26 tournaments and finished in the top 20 three times last season, including a season-best 10th place finish at NKU’s home tournament in Batavia, Ohio, The Jewell.
With the Bluebirds, Gabbard won 8th Region Player of the Year in 2018 and 2020, winning the 8th Region Tournament in 2018. During the 2020 season, he finished top five at the KHSAA state tournament and earned First Team All-State honors.
He’ll join another Highlands alum, Luke Muller, who enters his senior season with the Norse. The five NKY golfers on the
Norse roster are Butler, Gabbard, Muller, incoming freshman Caleb Eaglin from Newport Central Catholic and senior Evan Stewart, who went to Conner.
Northern Kentucky opens the 2024 fall campaign in West Virginia, as the Norse are set to compete in Marshall’s Joe Feaganes Invitational beginning on Sept. 8.
Thomas More announces 2024 Hall of Famers
Thomas More University has announced its nine-member 2024 Athletic Hall of Fame class.
The nine-member class will be inducted Sept. 25 at the Thomas More University campus inside the newly built academic building.
The class includes women’s track and field national qualifier Christina Cook (’18), women’s soccer NSCAA First Team All-American Laura Felix (’17), men’s basketball 1,000 point scorer and baseball three time All-Conference Jim Fox (’82), D3 Baseball Second Team All-American David Kennett (’13), men’s soccer three time NCSAA All-Great Lakes Region Tim Knauer (’18), women’s volleyball career solo blocks leader Amanda (Matracia) Williams (’06), softball four time First Team All-PAC Mamee Salzer (’16), football three time All-PAC selection Trevor Stellman (’09) and DIII Women’s Basketball National Player of the Year Madison Temple (’19).
The university will have a special recognition for the 1983-87 men’s tennis teams, which will be honored as the Teams of Distinction.
Ryle, St. Henry off to hot start in KHSAA golf
The first three weeks of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association golf season makes up over half the season. Prior to the start of school, golf teams around the state try to get in as many tournaments as possible before they’re limited to match play during the week and tournaments on the weekend.
Teams off to a hot start include Ryle, Highlands and St. Henry. Through the end of July, the Raiders won two tournaments, placed second in another and third in three others. St. Henry has posted two firsts, a tie for second and a tie for third. Highlands has won one and placed second in three others.
Ryle’s Paxton McKelvey is off to a blazing start with four individual medalists in tournaments.
The Raiders and Crusaders figure to be the strongest in the 7th Region and a leg up on the rest of the competition.
Those two teams figure to be the strongest in the 9th Region and a leg up on the rest of the competition early on. The top three teams in the region tournament advance to the substate round.
Highlands has separated from the rest of their respective region — the 8th Region. Harrison County and Bishop Brossart look to be their resistance from trying to stop them from winning a fifth straight regional title.
It also got them their first win of the season. They had three second-place finishes prior.
NKU’s men’s golf team added a pair of local golfers, St. Henry’s Mason Butler and Highlands’ Justin Gabbard. Provided | NKU Athletics
Thomas More University will induct its 2024 Hall of Fame class on Sept. 25. Provided | Thomas More Athletics
NKU’s women’s basketball team will take on the University of Kentucky on Nov. 7. Provided | NKU Athletics
The Ryle boys golf team is off to a hot start with three tournament victories through July. Photo provided | Ryle
PUBLIC NOTICE
CITY OF COVINGTON, KENTUCKY
NOTICE OF ALTERNATIVE INTERNET POSTING
PURSUANT TO KRS 424.145
Request For Proposals RFP240706
The Economic Development Department is issuing Requests For Proposals for Professional Mixed-Use Development Services to develop Covington Central Riverfront (“CCR”) Block K. Solicitations may be obtained through the City of Covington’s website procurement portal at https://covingtonky.bonfirehub.com after July 29, 2024, or by contacting Peter Hager, Procurement Officer, at peter.hager@covingtonky.gov, 20 West Pike St., Covington, KY 41011 or at 859-292-2178 from the hours of 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
SCAN THIS QR CODE TO GO TO OUR DIGITAL PUBLIC NOTICE PAGE
Kentucky now allows for Public Notices to be published digitally on LINK nky’s website. You can find public notices for the following organizations on our site at https://linkreader.column.us/search
• AJ’s Towing & Recovery
• Boone County Clerk
• Campbell County Clerk’s Office
• Campbell County Fire District #1
• Campbell County Fiscal Court
• Campbell County Planning & Zoning
• Campbell County Public Library
• Campbell County Sheriffs Office
• City of Alexandria
• City of Bellevue
• City of Cold Spring
• City of Covington
• City of Cresent Springs
• City of Crestview Hills
• City of Dayton
• City of Edgewood
• City of Elsmere
• City of Erlanger
• City of Florence
• City of Fort Mitchell
• City of Fort Thomas
• City of Fort Wright
• City of Highland Heights
• City of Independence
• City of Lakeside Park
• City of Ludlow
• City of Newport
• City of Ryland Heights
• City of Silver Grove
• City of Southgate
• City of Union
• City of Villa Hills
• City Of Walton
• City of Wilder
• City of Woodlawn
• Covington Public Independent Schools
• Cresent Springs Board of Adjustment
• Family Dollar Store
• Fort Mitchell Board of Adjustment
• Fort Thomas Independent Schools
• Highland Heights Planning & Zoning
• Keating, Muething & Klekamp PLL
• Kenton County Fiscal Court
• Kenton County Joint Board of Adjustment
• Larry Dillon Boone County Master Commissioner
• Northern Kentucky Port Authority
• Northern Kentucky Water District
• Planning & Development Services of Kenton County
• The Baker Firm PLLC
• The Hidden Chapter Bookstore LLC
