Paducah Life is published six times a year for the Paducah area. All contents copyright 2025 by Mazzone Communications. Reproduction or use of the contents without written permission is prohibited. Comments written in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the ownership or management of Paducah Life
Subscription rate is $29.95 for six issues. Subscription inquiries, all remittances and all advertising inquiries should be sent to Paducah Life, 2780 D New Holt Rd. #346, Paducah, KY 42001. Phone: (270) 556-1914. This magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. All submissions may be edited for length, clarity and style.
It’s
I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE WHEN I SAY THAT RAY BLACK & SON, bolstered by the talented team that sustains this renowned company, exhibits, to this day, the very tenets of its founder, Mr. Ray Black.
As I read the colorful narrative that was published back in 1975 when the company celebrated its 50th anniversary, I was struck by the through-line of personal and professional characteristics that were attributed to Mr. Black. I immediately recognized those same traits in the current principals who now propel this century-old entity into the future.
I am proud to say that I met Bill Black, Jr. on so many occasions through the years, always at intersections which portrayed his patriotism, athletic prowess, environmental enthusiasm, or passion for preservation. (We have featured Bill on several occasions in Paducah Life Magazine.)
I have known Chris Black both on and off the construction site. I was the Director of Public Affairs when Ray Black & Son seamlessly added two floors to Lourdes Hospital in the late 80s. So, it was my distinct privilege to continuously inform the public of the tremendous accomplishment being instituted by the company. After work, Chris and I have frequently involved ourselves in matters of mutual civic duty or at dinner parties where he is endlessly entertaining.
It would be nearly 30 years later that Ray Black’s greatgrandson David and his wife Lindsay, would move into the house next door to us with their three sons. Having three of my own, we formed a fast and fierce familial relationship.
And as chair of the board charged with saving the historic Columbia theater, I say with gratitude that I am also DISTINCTLY grateful to have Chris and David at the forefront of the work to bring this architectural marvel back to LIFE.
So, my editorial assignment for our fall edition was literally a labor of love, to borrow a phrase. One man’s LIFE of devotion to his craft has now inspired four generations to follow his lead and to continue to build a legacy in his honor.
Darlene M. Mazzone
darlene@paducahlife.com
BY Darlene Mazzone
Centennial celebrating a
Ray Black & Son has been in continuous operation since 1925 and has been successively led by now four generations of family members. This incomparable corporate story has been told through hard times, world wars, historic floods, market crashes, industry fluctuations, worldwide pandemics, and societal changes that would have defeated many a going concern. But in this small western Kentucky community, one man built a company on a foundation of personal characteristics and business philosophies best outlined in this colorful narrative written by Bill Kressenberg and published in the Paducah Sun Democrat in August of 1975 celebrating Ray Black & Son’s 50th anniversary.
So, let’s begin at the beginning.
*
Photograph by Brad Rankin
O TO TOWN, YOUNG MAN,” ADVISED THE old fellow. The town was Paducah. The young man was Ray Black. And the year was 1922.
That year had dealt harshly with Kentucky’s tobacco farmers. Ray Black, 26, with his wife and two children, had struggled for six years on their farm near Lovelaceville in McCracken County. They raised tobacco and tried to sell it in a bloated market, often having the crop hit by the tobacco disease, “wildfire.” Old Man Chappel, as he was known, seemed to sense the hopelessness in the predicament of the energetic young farmer. So, he suggested Ray might be able to do some carpentry work “in town.”
Mr. Chappel had a contractor friend in Paducah who built houses and his friend needed a good carpenter. The interested old man, in so freely advising the young farmer to take a chance, ultimately helped launch a building career that would flourish for over fifty years.
Ray worked hard as a carpenter on his first job in Paducah. His efforts were rewarded by being named foreman on his second job. During the three years that followed, more and more responsibility fell on Ray. When the company went out of business, the responsibility of finishing the jobs was given to him.
When those houses were finished, people continued to ask Ray to build for them, and in August 1925, he signed his first contract to build a house for Mrs. Austin Owen. It is located next to the Young Historian Barkley Museum. [The building now known as the Smedley-Yeiser.]
A Crash and A Comeback
During the next four years, Ray Back built many houses and buildings, including Morgan School, Lone Oak High School, and the West Kentucky Vocational School dormitory. His reputation spread, and by late 1929, he had managed to save several thousand dollars.
That was all lost when the banks failed subsequent to the stock market crash. Ray did manage to cash a $90 check he had just received for a job, and he had an additional $2.90 in his pocket. Then came four years of famine in the building industry. Ray managed to find a few jobs such as the Randolph home in Bandana.
During the lack of work in the Depression years, Ray discovered time for the old sport of quail hunting. He so developed this skill that his greatest hunting day saw him kill five birds with five shots on one rise of a covey—twice in the same day!
In 1933, the WPA rescued the remaining quail by allowing Ray Black to go back to work. He was chosen to supervise the construction of Heath High School, the first WPA project in Kentucky. Also,
Bill Black, Sr., standing, joined his father, Ray, in the family business in 1947. He arrived back in Paducah after graduating at the top of his class from the inaugural Merrill Lynch Executive Training program in New York City. In a Paducah Sun-Democrat article in 1961 by reporter Bill Powell, Ray said of his son, “You don’t have to worry about Bill. He’ll do the right thing and do as much as he can.”
The building of the McCracken County courthouse was an enormous point of pride for Ray Black. From left are George Goodman, County Judge Brady Stewart, Ray Black, and Les Daly. It was Judge Stewart who referred to Ray Black as a “master builder.”
Bill Black, Sr., standing, joined his father, Ray, in the family business in 1947. He arrived back in Paducah after graduating at the top of his class from the inaugural Merrill Lynch Executive Training program in New York City. In a Ray “You and
during this period, Ray ran one of his most remarkable jobs in the building of the Shirt Factory at 8th and Burnett Streets. Fourteen carpenters and 12 laborers worked on the three-story brick structure and were paid in “script.” Men wanted work so badly that scores stood around the perimeter in the hope that if someone were fired, they might take his place on the spot. Forty-four carloads of lumber went into the building, all of which was cut by hand saws which “Mr. Ray” sharpened personally.
The flood of 1937 extended the Depression for many, but it boosted Paducah’s construction industry by creating a flurry of post-flood restoration. During this time, Ray’s major remodeling project was the Kresge building in downtown Paducah.
George Goodman, a native Paducahan who headed the Kentucky WPA, sent Ray a telegram requesting that he take over the supervision of a troubled housing project in Louisville. Ray completed several houses within a few weeks and enough funds were saved to build more. Following that, he was given the job of building the University of Louisville Law School and the Uof L School of Chemical Engineering.
In 1940, he returned to Paducah to take over the McCracken County Courthouse job which had stalled in
One Hundred Years of Building with Integrity
• Ray Black abandoned farming to become a Paducah carpenter in 1922.
• The company he originally worked for went out of business in 1925 and with the support local businesses Ray assumed responsibility for the jobs begun by the company.
• Ray Black founded Ray Black & Son in 1925.
• After WWII, Ray’s son, Bill Black Sr. returned to Paducah with his wife, Virginia, and two sons, William Ray Black, Jr. and David Bruce Black
• Two of the couple’s four children, Bill Jr. (1971) and Chris (1980), joined the company.
• Architect Rick Coltharp (Bill Sr.’s son-in-law) joined the company in 1992.
• Ray Black retired in 1980 and died in 1992 at the age of 96.
• Bill Black Sr. retired in 1995 and died in 2002 at the age of 81.
• David Black, Bill Jr.s’ middle son, joined the company in 2003 as the first member of the fourth generation of management.
• Bill Black Jr. retired in 2008 and died in 2017 at the age of 71.
• Rick Coltharp retired in 2011.
• Jamie Black, Chris Black’s youngest daughter, joined the business in 2022. Jamie is the second member of the fourth generation to work in the business. rick coltharp
To quote Lou Gehrig: “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” In 1964 I met Ginny Ann Black, and soon after the rest of the family—Mr. Ray, Granny Vay, Mr. Bill, Miss Ginny, Billy, David and Chris. The quality and integrity of the family was apparent immediately, and from the beginning I strove to live up to their standards. So did/do the men and women of the Ray Black & Son family. By example and encouragement, we were shown how to live our lives, how to treat each other, and how to serve our clients. We have always striven to provide the best product we can—cutting no corners. And in doing so, we preserve the honor of our past and future. The company is in its fourth generation. This longevity can only be accomplished by dedication to each other and the dream of the long run.
the embryo stage. He continued to do carpentry work on the jobs he supervised, and the wooden banisters on the stairs inside the courthouse bear his personal mark. Despite constant heavy courthouse traffic, those bannisters have never loosened.
post war production
World War II took Ray Black away from Paducah for the second and final time in his career. Rust Engineering Company had hired him as a superintendent on the K project near the present site of Paducah’s A.E.C. plant. After that job, Rust sent him to Front Royal, Virginia, to work on the 22-acre American Viscose Building which produced war materials. In the course of this project, Ray was to encounter phenomena somewhat foreign to his building experience— workers, conditioned by years on massive government projects, who didn’t like to work; and management, conditioned by cost-plus contracts, who hardly appreciated his finishing a job in half the time allotted. Ray refused to compromise with either the job steward or with the qualified expectations of management. His war-time work challenged him, but by 1945 Ray Black felt glad to be back home. 1947 brought the most significant change yet to Ray Black’s business. His son, Bill, returned to join him in Paducah after three years in the Army and two years with Merrill Lynch as a young executive. The company became Ray Black & Son. Construction by the new partners grew quickly and the scope increased as they built Modine Manufacturing, Black Oaks Apartments, Hill Crest Apartments, and the Metropolis Junior High School.
He has the natural ability to lead men. He can quickly, and usually accurately, “size people up.” He doesn’t try to change people. He accepts them as they are, keeping aware of their limitations while best incorporating their strengths into his overall plan of work.
He is honest—both to his customers and to himself. He knows what his fair profit should be on a job and he limits himself to that, even though trusting customers might be willing to pay more. Neither will he cut himself short of his own fair share in order to get a job.
A Leader among men
How does a man in construction, an industry full of keen competition and marked by a high rate of business failures, manage to succeed over a period lasting half a century? There is no clear answer to this question. If there were, construction would not be a risky business. Nevertheless, one might find some hints to the answer in studying the
People sometimes mistakenly equate honesty and perfectionism, in the assumption that an honest man is a perfectionist. A good contractor cannot be an unyielding perfectionist. To attempt perfection on everything would either cost the owner unnecessarily or run the contractor out of business. Ray Black has the knack of keeping the big picture in mind; of knowing what is important to produce a sound building. His remarkable judgment allows him to demand perfection where it is needed, and to allow compromise without hurting the building.
And finally, for Ray Black, building is fun. He knows the exhilaration of combing skilled men’s talents to fashion materials into a sound building within an owner’s budget. Otherwise, why would a man in his 80th year still be contracting?
jamie black
Project Engineer / It’s an honor to be part of something far greater than a family-owned construction business. I am part of a legacy—one begun by a remarkable man whose influence goes beyond the success of projects. His legacy and values are woven into our community. Growing up in this family, we were taught to pursue excellence and to always act with thoughtfulness and consideration—in our words, actions, and intentions. These same principles are the foundation of Ray Black & Son. Being a fourth-generation member of the Ray Black & Son legacy fills me with pride, and as the first woman managing construction in this lineage, I am deeply honored. I look forward to being part of the next chapter of our story.
From Bill Powell’s Notebook
Bill Powell, an inductee into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, was a long-time journalist and opinion writer for the Paducah SunDemocrat. In his 1961 column, he spoke about the addition to the newspaper office being constructed by Ray Black & Son. As usual when writers start penning copy about this exalted company, the kudos come fast and furious. Below are excerpts from the article.
We’re rebuilding you know, and the men are working in the old editorial room between our new addition and the composing room. I run into some construction man every time I go through the dusty old place and about a dozen times a day I run into Ray Black, whose company has the contract to build our new space.
Usually, Mr. Black is standing with his leg hitched over a stair rail or a wooden horse, or he may be sitting on a pile of dirty lumber. But all the time he is watching what is going on. This is more to answer questions than anything else, because I’m sure Mr. Black’s men don’t need watching; men who need watching don’t work very long for him.
After he built the courthouse, Judge Brady M. Stewart called Ray a “master builder.” That he has been, and no doubt will always be.
The ancestry of art and science
Four Generations of Builders Have Exemplified the Artistry of Fabricating the Future
by D ARLENE M AZZONE
T AN AGE WHEN MOST PEOPLE IN the construction industry are still paying their dues of experience, Chris Black knows the satisfaction of accomplishment. At 31, he still appears to be the college rugby team captain he once was. The youth in his face amplifies the delight he feels about the projects he supervises; he behaves as if he were showing off a car he’s modified, but the project is an oncology unit, a hospital addition that will house state-ofthe-art equipment for the treatment of cancer.”
Thus began an article in Kentucky Constructor in 1987 which profiled the intrepid Ray Black & Son company in Paducah. Despite nearly 40 years since the magazine appeared amongst the organization’s peers, little has changed in terms of the company’s resume with perhaps the exception of Chris’s age and rugby expertise and the new guard of family leadership. Founder Ray Back, Bill Black, Sr., and Bill Black, Jr., have left the century-old family business in the capable hands of Chris and his nephew, David Black.
The Black family is an institution in and around Paducah. To stand nearly anywhere in this western Kentucky community is to be within sight of a building the Blacks had a hand in erecting, renovating, or adding to. From residences to the county courthouse, to civic institutions, to numerous churches, to the region’s medical facilities, to historic landmarks, Black family leadership, innovation, and industry has helped define the community as both forwardlooking and tradition-inspired.
At the time of the article, the family patriarch,
Generations Of Leadership
There is more than just history in these family photos.
There is first the backdrop of a revived building that housed an oil distribution company Ray Black and Son literally “chopped in half” and brought to their current site. Over the decades, the respective generations of leadership posed in front of the “loading dock” of the early building to chronicle their family’s legacy.
From left are Bill Black, Jr., Ray Black, Chris Black, and Bill Black, Sr.
From left are Bill Back, Jr., Rick Coltharp, Chris Black, and Bill Black, Sr.
From left are Bill Black, Jr., Rick Coltharp, Chris Black, and David Black.
Ray Black, was 91 and notably “stopped by the offices nearly every working day.” This unparallelled work ethic has, and is currently, an ancestral thread that’s been woven through the very fabric of every succeeding generation at Ray Black & Son.
The article accurately noted that the company has a broad base of industry experience, however, an emphasis on the medical field and historic preservation consistently rise to the surface. Much of the construction picture from the company’s perspective lies in work for both Lourdes and Baptist Health along with restoration of the area’s historic buildings.
Bill Black, Jr.’s obsession with historic authenticity resulted in the ultimate revival of numerous architectural landmarks—most notably the salvation of Whitehaven. The 1848 home stands today as a shining testament to Bill’s unyielding mission to advocate for materials and techniques as close as possible to the original. He had been known to warehouse entire storefronts and to piece together shattered Corinthian columns like jigsaw puzzles. And the same craftsmen who work on operating rooms and oncology units also construct ornate ceilings and crown moldings in restorations. The team effort is one of art AND science.
It’s the most successful contractors who cannot hide their enthusiasm when referring to their projects. Then again, construction is a collaborative medium. “The quality of the craftsmen we use far exceeds the run of the mill,” says Chris Black. “And our project supervisors are committed to excellence. We just manage a project. They build it.”
Build it they have, for more than 100 years.
at the hand of the master
Chris Black is Leading a Century-Old Company Into the Future by Looking Back at the Lessons He Learned From Those Who Came Before
★
by D ARLENE M AZZONE
HE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY COULD not be more vivid than the virtual expression of the Black family’s history living within the framework of a museum-like collection on the walls of Ray Back & Son’s original offices. There are photo collages of college graduations, weddings, military service, football victories, rugby matches, and hunting outings, flanked by the stunning art of Chris’s mother Virginia.
Stepping through the front door of this company’s own personal version of historic preservation, Chris Black starts the tour. “Now this was the front porch of the building. In the late 40s my father and grand-
father used this as the job office and tool shed for the Modine manufacturing facility. Once that project was completed, they moved it down the block and began using it as an office,” he explains. A bit later the company bought a midtown building that had served as a bulk oil distribution center for Texaco, chopped it in half, and moved it to the current site to make room for a carpentry shop. “Then as time went by, we took a corner and another corner and we just kept going,” Chris says with a smile. (You can still see the oil barrel rings on the floor of David Black’s office.)
Ray Black is the namesake of this now century-old concern, but Chris looks to his father, Bill Black,
Chris Black and his father, Bill, were featured on the cover of Kentucky Constructor magazine in the summer of 1987. Ray Black & Son was identified as one of the state’s leaders in construction management. / Bill Black, Sr. was a member of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees in 1978 when his son, Chris, graduated from UK. “It was one of my father’s most tightly held principles that community service was a privilege. He served on the Paducah City Schools Board of Education for more than 20 years,” said Chris. / Chris Black fostered the family’s athletic accomplishments not on the gridiron like his father and brother, but on the rugby pitch. Chris captained the University of Kentucky club and was inducted into the UK Rugby Hall of Fame in 2019.
as someone whose intelligence, integrity, and inspirational attributes were critical to the succession process and to the company’s success.
“Mr. Ray was a kind man who loved to talk and tell stories. He loved to tell me and my brother about all the adventures of his life in Paducah,” Chris remembers. “At the same time, our father was more reticent to speak about himself, even though he was an enormously accomplished individual.”
Bill Black began a lifelong legacy of leadership as young as 17 when he was the star quarterback for Paducah Tilghman High School. He went on to play for the University of Kentucky but was sidelined by a knee injury. However, he continued to play baseball at UK until 1942 when World War II took the team’s coach into the service and Bill was made the player/coach of the team. Although Bill raised his hand to be a part of the Marine infantry, his injury precluded him from acceptance, so as an officer in the Transportation Corps, he was sent to New York to work at the port of embarkation and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Turns out, that was a monumental assignment. That’s where he met his talented wife, Virginia, who would become the matriarch of the next generation.
On the Path. On the Pitch.
“My sophomore year as a transfer student at UK, I literally started at the As in the course catalog and ran my finger down the list to try and determine what I wanted to study,” Chris recalls. “After that year, I went home and asked my parents if I
could take some time off ‘cause I was wasting time and money not knowing what I wanted to study. Their singular answer was—no.” Wisely, his parents replied that someone would teach him what they wanted him to do. “You’re there to learn how to learn,” they advised.
Chris seemingly learned that lesson well. He first learned from his compatriots on the rugby pitch at UK. “I found my people within the UK Rugby Club. It became the thing that wed me to my college experience. The club was a veritable microcosm of student representation. There were med school majors, and law school students, and people who were hanging on by their fingernails with a 1.7 GPA. Here was a club that didn’t deny membership to anyone.” Lesson learned about camaraderie and commitment. Chris became the captain of the club and later was inducted into the UK Rugby Club Hall of Fame in 2019.
His passion for the game conjured up a work hard/play hard scenario after graduation. “I would work Monday through Wednesday every week, then hitchhike to Evansville to practice and play on the weekend, then take the Greyhound bus home on Sunday and start over,” he recollects. Still, not enough. He moved to England, played rugby there for several clubs, found work at a quaint Cotswold country inn, where to his delight tips were paid in pints—not pounds—and eventually made his move back to the states to stand before his father and ask for a job.
“In 1980, I wandered into my father’s office and said, I’m home!” Chris says.
A Happy Thanksgiving!
“A happy Thanksgiving in the 30s for Bill Black, Sr. was beating Mayfield in the afternoon and going home to eat turkey, while the losing Redbirds went home to eat crow,” wrote Berry Craig in a 1997 edition of Paducah Life Magazine featuring the Tilghman/ Mayfield rivalry. The Courier Journal, who selected Billy to its All Kentucky team, commented that he was a “cool, capable thinker and an excellent college prospect.”
Doing the job until the job is done can be exemplified by this “altered implement” which Chris Black used to tamp down a LOT of bricks in the beer garden at what was then the Twinkling Star.
Bill Black was thrilled to have his son back in the nest, but not in the business. “Interest rates were sky high in 1980, creating a recession. The company had only two employees working in the field,” Chris explains. So, Chris’s Construction was born of necessity.
“I borrowed a truck and some tools and went to work patching sidewalks for the gas company or jacking up homes in Lower Town,” Chris adds. “That year concluded with me finishing the beer garden at the Twinkling Star, hammering all those pavers into the ground.”
At The Hand Of The Master
By that time, there was room in the company for Chris to take up residence. The lessons kept on coming. “I think often about my father’s tutelage at that time in my life,” Chris reflects. “His door was always open. I aways felt free to look over his shoulder in his cubicle to watch and to learn. He was always there to teach and to lead.”
However, it was much earlier in the development of this future constructor that other men, those on the worksite, would teach Chris elemental lessons.
“There is no doubt that the men I worked with during my youth were instrumental in my understanding of this craft for my entire life,” Chris says. “The time I spent pouring concrete, shoveling loads of #57 stone into a wheelbarrow, and learning basic carpentry provided knowledge that serves as a core of my understanding of this industry.”
But it was at the hand of his father that Chris Black learned to manage a company headed into a new century. “There is rarely a day that I don’t think about how blessed I was to have been genetically predisposed to do this job,” Chris muses. “It is a great privilege to have been given such a unique opportunity to learn to do something I love.”
built by heart and Hand
by D ARLENE M AZZONE
AVID BLACK NAVIGATES HIS DESK chair over a wooden plank floor that dates back to the post war era. Beneath his L shaped corner desk, piled with plans and specs and documents are boxes and bins of reminiscences that likely belonged to his father who inhabited the same space before him. Some memorabilia even goes back to the earliest days when his grandfather steered the ship that ultimately came to be called Ray Black & Son. The walls and surfaces of this longstanding headquarters on South 31st Street, which has housed four generations of owners, are covered with parts and pieces of a century of history not only of this family’s dynasty but of Paducah’s very legacy.
In fact, it was the citizenry that helped to lay the
foundation for the future of the company. The story goes that when the company that Ray Black was working for went out of business, local homeowners and businessmen pledged to provide the resources for him to finish the work he had started. It was literally friends and neighbors who helped him succeed.
And succeed he did. David tells the story about the time Ray was working on a house in the early years. “He had taught himself to use a framing square. This was technology at the time,’” David explained. “He used his math skills and the tool to measure and cut the rafters without going up on the roof. The supervisor, who worked for Mr. White, the owner, said, when those don’t fit, you’re gonna be fired. But they fit precisely and Mr. White fired the supervisor and promoted Ray Black.”
Despite the obvious blueprint for his future, David never felt a compulsion to work at the family business. “There was never any implied pressure or obligation that I was expected to join the business,” David recalls. “We were always allowed to choose our own path.”
The hunter/gatherer gene was successfully embedded in the current generation of Blacks. David Black is the proud caretaker of his great-grandfather’s circa 1907 Remington Autoloading shotgun, quite possibly the one he used to take down five quail from one covey as the story goes! / David Black is passing down his and his great-grandfather’s love of hunting to the next generation of Blacks. David’s sons, Dawson, Ford, and Nolan are following their forefather into the duck blinds of Ballard County where patriarch Ray Black perhaps shot his storied covey of quail.
David Black is the Fourth Generation in a Centennial Lineage of Community Builders ★
David did work summers at Ray Black & Son. After one particular summer and an encounter with his Uncle Chris, it’s a wonder he ever picked up a set of plans again. “I made the mistake of telling Chris that I would like a different assignment than the one I’d been given and he replied in the affirmative,” David remembers. “So, that summer I dug a French drain installation by hand around a 4,000-square-foot house in July. I knew I shouldn’t have made that request.”
Despite this uncomfortable experience with “construction” and a year at Transylvania seeking new avenues, that Christmas David began to think differently about becoming a member of the family force. “When I came home for the holiday, I asked Chris what I should do for school if I wanted to pursue construction management.” Chris came back with a handful of suggestions, one of which was Purdue, which is where David completed his degree.
The job market wasn’t terribly good in Paducah after graduation, so David took a job at a large construction management firm in Nashville. He worked in the city for three years, met his wife, Lindsay, and at the completion of a large project, decided to consider a move back west. As it turned out, Ray Black & Son had an opening. “I applied for the job and I got hired!” David says with a grin.
Working with family isn’t always a formula for success, and David has learned that compartmentalizing is a valued skill. “There are certainly moments of contention,” David admits. “When you put determined, dedicated people in one room, there are going to be disputes.
Ray Black & Son Is A Jewel In Paducah’s Corporate Crown
Congratulations to a family doing business the “old fashioned way”—with integrity, character, and professionalism!
One Thanksgiving I walked in on Uncle Chris and my dad in a heated debate. The next day in the family dining room I saw them laughing and talking and I asked Chris, what about yesterday at the office? His reply was a matter of fact—that was WORK. That has nothing to do with how I feel about my brother.”
This anecdote exemplifies a set of tenets that have been effectively transferred from one generation to another. Artifacts ABOUND inside the small but sprawling maze that is the company’s offices. During our conversation, David opened an envelope (among SCORES of such files and folders stacked in and around his workspace) which literally held a series of tiny notebook pages written in the hand of his grandfather in the 1950s. (Yes, it was at his fingertips.) “These are his notes about how to live a good life,” David explains. The list of aspirations was quite simply an extrapolation of the golden rule. “There is a certain selflessness to the succession of generations in a family business,” David believes. “It’s hard to explain, but I think it takes the previous generation choosing the next generation potentially over themselves. I really think that’s a requirement.”
David attributes his family’s longevity not just to a fundamental integrity, but also to a sense of duty. “I think trying to do the best job you can do and providing the best possible service to your clients are critical to a business lasting. My father and grandfather embodied that philosophy and they taught their children those same non-negotiable attitudes. They also felt it was important to give back to a community that had served as the very backbone of their success. I think we are all trying to instill that in our children as well.”
The visual effects of such a set of conscientious creeds can be seen all around the Paducah community and beyond, particularly in the realm of historic preservation. “My dad was always interested in history,” David remarks. “He was a history major at Princeton, so his work in preservation in our community was just a natural extension of that passion.”
From the old to the new to the next embodiment of what lies ahead, David Black is dedicated to putting his own personal stamp on a history that his forefathers literally built by heart and hand.
Bill Black Sr. signs the contract to begin the restoration of Whitehaven, the 19th century home which now serves as a welcome center for the state of Kentucky. Bill, and his son Bill Black, Jr., were instrumental in preserving not only this monumental Paducah structure, but scores of others in the community.
David and Chris Black will soon put one century behind them and begin one anew in a headquarters building now under construction and aptly adjacent to the one they’ve inhabited for four generations.
preserving paducah’s history in bricks
reservationist and amateur archaeologist, the late Bill Black, Jr, was Paducah’s own Indiana Jones. The story goes that while patrolling the ruins of the infamous My Lai incident in Viet Nam, Bill salvaged a brick from a Buddhist altar and sent it home to Paducah as a remnant of the tragedy. Later, it became his mission to preserve local bricks as he discovered and uncovered them throughout his life.
In his collection, Bill has bricks that provide a window into the lives of their makers. For example, in the patio of a Lower Town home, Bill discovered bricks with numbers and arithmetic, possibly the calculations of a worker paid by the brick. Bill thought this was quite unusual, until he found a matching brick in another sidewalk.
“The script is by the same hand; his fives were identical. It is the same guy and he made mistakes in arithmetic on both bricks,” Bill said. Later, when two bricks from a demolition were brought to him, he was amazed to discover that these bricks were by the same early brickmaker, and he was still having problems with his math.
Bill’s collection is a remarkable archaeological preservation of Paducah’s history in bricks. This is especially true of the bricks that have anomalous marks.
One brick has the hoof print of a goat, the pioneer’s lawn mower. Other bricks reveal the paw prints of cats and dogs—family pets that strayed too close to the drying bricks. The presence of chicken tracks on a brick reminds us of the simple agrarian life of these early Paducahans. Fingerprints, hatch marks, names, dates, and initials, some possibly even from slaves, are all recorded on Paducah’s historic bricks.
These bricks and Bill’s meticulous preservation of them are monuments to the ordinary laborer, the pioneer, the slave, and the forgotten founders of our city who left their marks in the fired clay they made from their own land.
construction is the art of craft
We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
hese construction projects are but a mere sampling of the scores of “monuments” to a century of proficiency and prowess attributed to the men and women who have built the legacy that is Ray Black and Son.
CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT
The McCracken County Courthouse / Modine Manufacturing / Sorrento’s
The University of Louisville Law School
Don and Heather Calvin from Grafton, IL are happy buyers of a home in Marshall County in July 2025! The lender is Rachel Worley with Paducah Bank. Attorney Kent Price with McMurry & Livingston, PLLC handled the closing. Jennifer is making a Donation to Three Crosses Church in their Honor. www.threecrossesbenton.com
“Jennifer stuck with us for three years until we found the house we were looking for. Seems like she showed us at least a couple hundred houses. It doesn’t matter if it’s early morning or late evening, she’ll do what it takes to show a house for you.”
—Don and Heather Calvin from Grafton, IL
service generator, sprinkler system, sunroom, deck, pation & private back yard! New roof/shingles-2023. Maintenance free siding-2024, new Cambria Clovelly Quartz countertop in kitchen. Finished apartment w/full bath, kitchenette & NEW HEAT
Co ho o
LOW L Settttiin t
O TO Sta e g ng the ER T WN for e f agge
O KEE YS T AY OR W OOK F L AT A BILL BL
OVER INNER ANUAR wif
1 Y UARY J IN R D R
, his ancy e N fe ., his r lack, J B Bill
Ann and her husband Rick Ginny
AH’S AR ADUC P P
Coltharp, s sister 978, CHEN T T INT
elamenting CK AND FRIENDS GA A
the fact that each e lamenting an old buildin
thefactthateach g wer
al heritage. architectur e of it aducah lost another piec n, P w as torn do w or house in the older parts of th g
aducah pr st P ship, the fir artner orth P Wa y g I
Nor g area two-block on a g ort, c ffo
e enue, an old r v Av ark arrison to P om H eet, fr Str
wyer s, la s doctor aducah’ e P wher neighborhood
orth.” alnut N Wa v their endea
entie s of the tw year y ed in the earl v chants li mer
alnut so t Wa called y as originall w treet ixth S S
wer ation plan eserv s in this pr The partner
thought might be candidates f , the entury th c s, and esidential ixth th S eservation ormed the fo s e city h time f .
W or “W ancy TAACT AS AL P CHITECTUR
Ann Coltharp, y and Ginn lack, Rick
TAABLE VERBIAL KIT O OUND A PR THERED ‘R htime
AnnColtharp, andGinny Black,Rick y N
al e S fe ucas and his en L Annette Ladt and K
chitects e ar wer Toommy and ledge, Rick know ound and historical onstruction backgr s c Bill’
wif T ould be f
nstead of just talking about the losses, they Walnut N eff entering along A h family ee single- ed thr had acquir y 1979 or demolition fo
e p as to acquir w st item of business The fir wellings. to old d wi feeasible w what them to determine ombination of expertise c , a as an engineer w
they y pr egard ith r allowing en s, and K eservation l pr . Besides lly and Toommy , ill and e B r called y they T operty TO
homes, one March y . B
Setting the Stage for Lower Town
HEY MOM & DAD! DON’T FEAR THE BACK-TO-SCHOOL
The Geibel House at 611 North 6th Street, an example of "river
SNACK
duplex, one tri-plex, a six-unit structure (the Colonial at 333 North 7th) and some building “shells.” Most were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Phase One of the Walnut North plan was to begin repairs that would allow people to move into the area. The intent, said Bill, was to act as a catalyst for preservation and restoration of the original architecture and also develop a neighborhood concept.
Bill noted that the first thing they had to do was to bring electric wiring up to code and to modernize plumbing. Next was to correct defects in ornamental work, where, especially outside, they had to find skilled craftsmen to do the work. Bill pointed to room additions and “over porches” as “remodeling wrongs.” And he emphasized that the original brick should be left as it was.
“Sandblasting, I think in Paducah, would be the greatest threat. Paducah has a wonderful heritage of brick. The clay was dug in Paducah. The kilns were in Paducah that fired the bricks, and the red brick of Paducah is one of its most charming features in the old buildings,” Bill said. He added that sandblasting “makes the brick very vulnerable to a fast deterioration.”
Bill was adamant that if an architecturally sound building is not remodeled properly, more damage is done than if it were left alone. They followed the Secretary of Interior’s guidelines for preservation of historic buildings and passed this information on to people who began renting some of the houses and apartments they were working on, using the rent money to finance much of the work. With Phase Two of Walnut North, Bill hoped to get other people interested in restoring buildings in the adjacent area.
Reflecting on the legacy of Walnut North, original partner Rick Coltharp, who also spent 20 years with Ray Black and Son, said recently, “We didn’t single-handedly save Lower Town, but we did slow its destruction until other programs saved it.” It took another 20 years before the partnership’s concept took wings in the form of Paducah’s Artist Relocation program beginning in the 2000s. Today, Lower Town, which now encompasses 20 or so blocks, is a vibrant historic community.
In 2005, Johanna and Allan Rhodes bought a vacant lot at 320 North 6th Street, one of the lots the Walnut North partners called "missing teeth" in the smile they hoped Lower Town would become. They opened Etcetera
Preser v ing
What’s Ea s ier to Neglect
IN 2024, THREE PADUCAH TILGHMAN
all of which he had saved in boxes, to better grasp the situation. Through this process, I was able to fully understand how he was feeling during the restoration; the vision, the frustration, and the love for the history. I hope this video is a testament to his ability to see what others couldn’t, and his unwavering determination to execute the vision. The video follows the process chronologically to present day. The audience is able to see the success over time that my grandfather had seen since the beginning. “
From left are National History Day award winners
The sense of place was an elemental part of the team’s efforts. “I was excited to pursue this project because Paducah is such a special place to me. After living here my entire life, choosing to highlight its history for this project felt very right,” said Elena Adkins. “We got to learn how the Paducah we live in and enjoy came to be, and I found that to be such a rewarding venture.”
★ by D ARLENE MAZZONE
seniors were awarded the national History of Place Award by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of National History Day. The award is given to the outstanding entry that documents and analyzes the power of place in American history. Liam Black, Elena Adkins, and Azlyn Goodyke wrote, directed, and produced a tenminute documentary on the history of Paducah’s Lower Town neighborhood.
“This project was especially close to my heart because of my grandfather Billy Black,” said Liam Black. “We had every primary source we could have possibly needed, and more, because of his intentionality. I used his notes and documents,
This documentary was the team’s final collaborative project for National History Day among earlier submissions. “The documentary was by far my favorite topic that we’ve ever covered,’ added Azlyn Goodyke. “It really gave me a deeper appreciation for Paducah. As an artist myself, I was fascinated to learn more about the Lower Town houses and the people that helped save them. We have such a diverse community in Paducah. I really think that growing up in a town where art is so deeply ingrained has helped shape me as a person.”
Liam Black is a sophomore at Centre College. Elena Adkins attends Western Kentucky University studying English with a concentration in writing. Azlyn Goodyke also attends WKU and is seeking a BFA in graphic design.
Liam Black, Azlyn Goodyke, and Elena Adkins.
Revitalization as a Turning Point for Paducah and Smalltown America
Despite its once treasured place in America’s landscape, in the 1970’s many speculated that the idea of the American small town was becoming obsolete. However, citizens in one small Kentucky town recognized its potential. By making a cognizant effort to preserve what was easier to neglect, the revitalization of the Lower Town neighborhood in Paducah, Kentucky was a turning point for the community.
Created in the late nineteenth century, the neighborhood housed the wealthiest families in the city. But a century later, the area had little to boast about. Paducah’s Lower Town was proof of years of neglect. Lower Town had a poor reputation due to its lack of upkeep, crime rates, and most importantly, its lack of community. But in 1978, one group of citizens saw the neighborhood’s potential.
Walnut North was the first group to institute a city-wide discussion that introduced the potential of the area. This group led the initial efforts to invest in historic preservation, but they needed the help of others which led to the organization of The Lower Town Neighborhood Association which held its first meeting in 1980. The meeting featured discussions on how to change the public’s negative perception of the area, and established the group’s plan for moving forward. The group decided that their first step in persevering Lower Town should be to gain national recognition as a historic zone.
Across the country, historic buildings were being demolished to expand new industries or create room for modern housing. Without any protection, many historic buildings in Lower Town were at risk of the same treatment. Prompted by similar zoning programs in areas of other historic cities, the association combined their knowledge of these programs with the newly revised Kentucky statute to persuade the city of Paducah to apply for historic zoning. In 1982, the U.S. Department of the Interior placed Lower Town Paducah on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Normal Brand Clothing
• Gentleman’s Hardware
Apothecary • Hazel Village
• Baby Lit Primers • Rie Paper
• Pappy & Company
• Winter Water Factory Baby Clothes
• Books • Vintage Home Goods
• Bourbon Barrel Foods
• Gift Baskets!
125 N. 11TH STREET
Follow us on Instagram & Facebook
Now it was time to bring homeowners into the picture. In 2000, the Arist Relocation Project was launched. The idea was first proposed to the city by artist Mark Barone. The internationally advertised project would attract artists in need of a workspace and home ownership. The association had faith in this project, buying an apartment building to turn into an art gallery before the project was officially begun. However, the state of the homes and small-town location did not see an abundance of buyers rushing in. As the newly hired coordinator of the project, Barone conceived the idea of incentives.
The major incentive was the financing for housing. Buying the historic homes would come at extremely low costs, sometimes as low as one dollar. The bank provided low-interest loans to artists for the rehabilitation of the historic homes.
Ultimately, this project generated up to $15 million in private investment. Not only did it bring in revenue, it opened the door for tourism and new jobs. Specifically, the rehabilitation of the homes
This video clip, from the award-winning documentary, shows from left, Tommy Ladt, Bill Black, Jr., Rick Coltharp and Nancy Black as they explain their concept to save the historic homes in what would become Paducah’s Lower Town to WPSD reporter Johanna Comisak.
created more opportunity for construction workers and the flood of artists created a need for gallery and marketing assistants.
Despite the promises from proponents of revitalization, some were hesitant to accept the new vision for Lower Town. Citizens against revitalization were vocal with their criticism. There were disagreements about the policies for historic zoning, some worrying the protection would not be enough and others frustrated that too much land was now unavailable.
The housing debate was not the only issue created by the project. The art-based economy of Lower Town proved too fickle for many full-time artists to make a living. Several were forced to leave due to a lack of consumers. However, many artists were not dissuaded.
Art stores opened, and local businesses allowed artists to sell their products. The critiques did not harm the overall efforts of the city and the Lower Town Neighborhood Association to create a revitalized art district that opened the doors for more progress for Paducah.
The success of the renovation in Paducah’s Lower Town became an inspiration for other small towns in America. In 2013, UNESCO recognized Paducah as one of nine Creative Cities in America. Because of this global recognition, upwards of ten small towns across America have utilized the Artist Relocation model to bring success to their cities.
But national and international awards were never the goal of the revitalization. True success was seen in the flourishing community restored to Paducah. Lower Town became an integral part of Paducah’s society; a favorite of locals and tourists alike. As artists, business owners, and citizens came together, a culture of community was built. Paducah’s turning point revealed a new way to revive small towns everywhere.
Paducah Life Magazine documented the advent of the Artist Relocation Program in its 2003 edition featuring Mark Barone. The seeds planted in the 70s by a group of conscientious citizens ultimately resulted in the revitalization of the Lower Town neighborhood. products. The critiques did not harm the overall efforts of the city and
Frroom Cou to Cemen Rooad ry waalk nt Sidew ntr y R ds s
Mazzon
OF A TA IS A TES THE LIF T
Darlen E OF CHRIS DOCKIN FCOMMITMENT O THE COUR MENT T by e NS AGER ne
CHRIS DOCKINS ITH COMMITMENT S IS
ysical, on ph Million sSwank’ y ward es the in epburn in H anor of ard e and outw THE HIN ry familial, and emotiona millio e a wer There Baby. r M champion fighter in determination of Hilar
al obstacles
ete jungle to oncr the c e determination has tak who woman ame is a fr unsuspecti y this quietl the most stout-hearted e chal v ould ha w which sta y this scholarl g facing entucky of home. al the rur om en her fr ce se fier petite g within ut, d. B en llenged ev atistician in
lie s Tiffffany’s At fast y Auudr demea pois A ey Breakfast Tiffany’ Dolla oads o backr y K
Chris Dockins Rooted in Resilience
Home, for now five generations of land owners, is Livingston County. However, in the early 70s, Chris’s uncle (who ultimately became a second father to her) chose a path that many families in western Kentucky utilized to lift themselves out of poverty, enabling them to pursue a livelihood that would allow succeeding generations to reclaim the land of their family heritage. Chris’s biological father followed soon after.
"It was a plan that would require three generations of participation,” Chris explains. “The goal was to find financial success and bring the resources back home. Many parents looked their graduates in the eye and sent them off into the world to find opportunities. These young adults, like my uncle and father, had often not ventured far beyond their rural roots. They had to muster up the bravery and confidence to pack up their car and drive across the country to ‘the city’ to find work.”
It would take the next generation, raised in the city like Chris, to be willing to uproot their life of convenience and comfortable surroundings to move back to the
“Paducah has given me an appreciation of both city and rural living. For the my place.”
- Chris Dockins
land that had been in their family for generations—which is exactly what Chris Dockins did.
“My dad followed his brother to Merrillville, Indiana to work in the steel mills,” she explains. “That’s where I was born and raised. And unfortunately, it was the move and the subsequent asbestos poisoning that ultimately took my dad’s life at the young age of 48.” Fortunately for Chris and her mother, her aunt and uncle were able to step in and nurture Chris almost as if she were their own. “They honestly became parents to me,” Chris recalls. “And looking back, I credit my dedication to education to both my mother and my Aunt Teri.”
Chris’s mother married at 15 and by 19 had two children. Her aunt, a native American from the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, was a bit older and didn’t have any children. When Chris was pretty young, both her mother and her aunt decided to get their GED, and her aunt went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University. “During those college years, I was right by Aunt Teri’s side. When I was in elementary school, I sat next to her in her college algebra class and she would pass me arithmetic problems to complete,” she remembers. “In middle school, I was at the college library with her doing research. I spent plenty of time with her at the typewriter scrapping papers after we made a mistake!”
Chris became pregnant with her first child during her first semester of college at Purdue. (Recall the mention of obstacles?) She completed an associate degree, then earned her bachelor’s degree at Murray State, and finally a PhD from the University of the Cumberlands. “I received my PhD the same year that my youngest child graduated from high school,” Chris comments. “In the span of two generations, my Aunt Teri and I went from the GED to the PhD.”
In 2005, Chris’s uncle, who she affectionately calls Pa, retired from the mills of Indiana and sought to fulfill the family’s dream of going back to the farm in Livingston County. At this point in time, Chris had two children. “He didn’t want to leave me and the kids behind, so we all packed up and drove south,” she says. “I finished my degree at MSU and established my family on the longheld plot of land that had been the sustenance of our family for decades.”
Chris Dockins Rooted in Resilience
Once Chris’s son married, he and his wife moved onto the Livingston County homestead and Chris moved to Paducah. “Paducah has given me an appreciation of both city and rural living. For the first time, I feel like I have found my place.”
Life Interrupted
Around that time Chris started to notice that she was having a hard time staying awake. (Obstacle?) “I began to get sleepy for no reason. And as time went by, I realized that after I slept or took a nap, my attention was restored and it was easier to function. It was a complete mystery.”
During that time Chris was focused on her family (and her illness) since it was virtually impossible to manage a nine-to-five position. In 2016, she heard about a grant-writing job at the Livingston County School System. It was the perfect fit, since it was a flexible schedule. “My comfort zone was when I was using the executive functioning part of my brain,” she explains. “I was dysfunctional during more everyday mundane types of activities. That was the way this was affecting me. So, I was able to be very successful for the school system which was both gratifying for me professionally and also introduced me to my ultimate career path.”
An MRI determined that Chris had a tumor on her pineal gland deep within her brain. The ebb and flow of brain fluid was what was triggering her episodic bouts of wakefulness. “When these fluids get backed up and the flow is restricted, you slip into a coma,” Chris explains. So, for 20 years Chris’s body was regularly battling her tendency to become comatose. (BIG obstacle.) Doctors kept pushing it aside determining that nothing could be done. (Enter the scholarly Chris.) She began to do her own research and found a neurosurgeon in South Carolina who successfully removed the tumor in
2019. His only reassurance was that typically when his patients were high-functioning, after the removal they felt better. “That was ALL I needed to hear,” says Chris. “I was desperate. I was living my life in these little chunks of time. It didn’t scare me. I was more than ready to live a life of normalcy.”
This new lease on LIFE now opened up new possibilities, which included the development of a community foundation in Livingston County. “I knew I would need to do a deep dive into this new type of structure. So, if I was going to have to do this in-depth learning to be successful, I decided I should pursue the PhD.”
During that study process, Chris began to clearly see the impactful role of community foundations with regard to rural philanthropy.
“I began to realize how thoughtful, strategic philanthropy can change the economic landscape of these communities in ways that we haven’t even dreamed of.”
Now, as the Chief Operating Officer at the Community Foundation of West Kentucky (CFWK), Chris is one of those people who is astounded that she is getting paid to pursue a passion.
“Sometimes I think that my unique experiences have allowed me to instinctively understand the power of synergies—the energy across generations that brings forth a transformative change. At CFWK, we believe that the generosity of yesterday, when combined with the generosity of today, secures a fruitful future for tomorrow,” Chris says.
LIFE in Paducah is better, because Chris Dockins fought to save her own.
McMurry & Livingston, PLLC,
is pleased to announce that Lori J. Keen has joined the practice. Lori has been practicing law for 34 years and focuses her practice in the areas of general civil litigation, personal injury, transportation litigation, maritime, premises liability and professional liability. McMurry & Livingston has been in practice in Paducah for more than 50 years. We welcome Lori as the newest addition to our firm and McMurry & Livingston’s rich history of excellence in the practice of law.
Fulfillment in Lee Cole’s
Newe st Novel Find
★
by D ARLENE M AZZONE
IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT YOU’LL see names like Nietzsche, Derrida, or Baudrillard alongside Beaver Dam, Horse Branch, and Paducah, but that’s exactly what occurs in western Kentucky native Lee Cole’s second novel, Fulfillment
Lee Cole, who grew up in Melber, just west of Paducah, gained national attention for his first novel, Groundskeeping, with the attention of Jenna Bush Hager, who chose it as one of her book selections on the TODAY Show a few years ago. Since then, Lee’s notoriety has grown exponentially including most recently a review in The Washington Post
Lee
Lee Cole’s Newest Novel
with this headline: “Fulfillment Is A Splendid Novel By A Rising Literary Star.”
Lee’s debut novel, Groundskeeping, set in Kentucky in the run-up to the 2016 election, was described, also by The Washington Post, as “not only the story of a young man finding his vocation as a writer but also a wrenching examination of class differences, that third-rail topic in American literature, and of our current political polarization.”
His new novel is a return to western Kentucky and builds on those same themes—this time shifting the focus from the promise of youth to the specter of regret that haunts adulthood.
“I worked nights at the UPS hub in Louisville for about three years and I would always have these stories to tell about weird stuff that came through the warehouse and sort of this strange environment of a UPS warehouse at peak season,” Lee explains. “People kept telling me I should write about it and I thought maybe someday, so I took notes. I came back to those more recently and thought that this might be an interesting setting for a novel. I met a lot of interesting characters there and I wanted to kind of think about what my life might have been like if I hadn’t moved on, gone to college, and applied to an MFA program— what if my life had gone in a different direction.” The result was a story about class divides and privilege and resentment and work—about male loneliness and the broader question of what it takes–and what it looks like—to build a life of fulfillment and meaning.
takes and what it looks
Fulfillment opens as two half-brothers are brought home: Emmett, working as an unloader at a distribution center in western Kentucky but harboring dreams of writing a screenplay, thinking that might be his ticket out of the South; and his older half-brother, Joel, a seemingly successful academic and author who’s doing a lectureship at Murray State University, taking anti-depressants in secret, and wanting to save his mother from right-wing politics and show her that EVs are, indeed, the future. Between them is Alice, Joel’s wife, whose growing dissatisfaction with their marriage and connection with Emmett threatens to upend all three of their lives.
An Excerpt from
FULFILLMENT
The point is that there are only narratives, Joel said. There is no absolute Right or absolute Left; they only exist relative to each other. There is no objective central. Not in politics. Not in life either. We glimpse this in certain traumatic or sublime moments. The centerless void. Our desires spring from this lack. We try to fill it with one thing or another—money, love, conspiracy theory.
“I have to write about whatever is preoccupying me at the moment,” Lee says. “So, for my first novel it was the line that opened the book, that when I’m away from Kentucky, I feel homesick, and when I’m home, I want to leave, and how do I resolve that kind of emotional conundrum? So, writing for me is a way of working through whatever is bugging me at the moment.”
Though the storylines in Lee’s new book frequently center around ominous encounters, star-crossed lovers, and rifts between red and blue America, greater depth can also be found in the interwoven exploration of themes about capitalism, sibling rivalry, the South, American politics, small towns, and what it means to be successful, and more importantly, fulfilled.
“I really care about writing about work, about rural places, small towns—writing about the kind of characters that I don’t typically see in literary fiction that often,” Lee adds. “I hadn’t seen a book about warehouse work like this, and I had done it in Kentucky for three years.”
So how fulfilled are the characters when Fulfillment comes to a close?
“I wanted to think really carefully as I wrote this book about whether redemption would actually be plausible for some of these characters, or whether maybe they end up in some place they didn’t quite expect. I think for each of the characters, it’s different from where they started. It’s just not what they hoped for.”
That may be true for Emmet and Joel and Alice, but for the reader Fulfillment is a thought-provoking and satisfying read and all WE might hope for in a novel.
t That T ha SPIR
s the ’ ts RIT!
LEE EMMONS TR
O TS IN A SMALL T ROO
, ,
EMMONS
THEee, sister to this mom of thr foor y y ch ar the por FROM Y AWWAAY HOURS
oundation of F y er e Offic ecutiv appointed Chief Ex ecently- siblings, and the r six
WeestKentucky
AWA e plenty busy f of the Community W
d.”Goddar g r om the sun and ed fr ain or shelter to the r bob, “listening ast to her classic dark contr her bright smile in stark g ” ,feeeling Yo e that little else can peac a g por minutes on the few a P in her adopted w decades ago or no County g e F v Whether in her nati . est K leming aducah home, a ch can bring match. “You just get that good f she said, flashin emembering w- d, but at lo ed har work school, both night attending y ED b who earned her G , e, and her mother ar servic Wa orean his K
om ecipient fr tar r er S Silv , a s father Lee’ es, after all). lac Historic P
ational Register of on the N (o covered y y pr ch, and a chur e, a stor general northeast of Lexington, had a hamlet 70 miles d, a e Goddar Birthplac etty fancy bridge ( W
From Start to Finish State Farm is There
L ee Emmons That's the Spirit!
name tag, I told her, ‘I want to be called Lee.’”
The name stuck, and so did the habit of advocating for herself, a trait her parents instilled in their kids by dreaming big for them. “They wanted us all to go to college, to be the first generation in our family to do so,” she said. “They valued education as a way to make things better for ourselves and for those around us.” All six Emmons girls went to Morehead State University with grants and part-time jobs.
Getting her communications degree in 1986 changed Lee’s life, just as her parents hoped it would. It started her on a career path that began in Ohio, first with a non-profit agency, then into higher education— from Ohio State University extension office to West Kentucky Community and Technical College.
paying jobs, making the times pretty lean for the family. “We benefitted from programs like free lunches and food stamps,” Lee said.
Lee, the baby of the family, may have been tiny, but she knew what she wanted. In third grade—that was a pogo stick—a luxury item she did not dream Santa could provide. “I still remember opening that package,” she said, her smile broadening, “and the feeling that this was just the greatest moment of my life! I was on that pogo stick all the time—my family called me the Pogo Queen! I kept it for years. I taught my own kids to pogo, and I can still do it.”
The itty-bitty bouncing Pogo Queen had already learned large lessons from her sisters, including when to stand up for herself. Older sister Sarah taught her that on the bus for Lee’s first day at Head Start.
“My name is Lena, but my siblings called me Lee,” she recalled. “I wanted to be called Lee in school, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. As the teacher approached to call the roll for the first time, Sarah told me, ‘You just have to speak up—now.’ So, when the teacher started writing Lena on my
Lee’s family moved to Paducah in 1996, choosing to be near sister Martha Emmons. “We chose Paducah for family and for the feel of the community,” she said. “It’s a small town with a lot to offer in the arts, education, and just friendly people. I’m very social, so I love having so many friends in this town.”
Lee raised two sons and a daughter while working a variety of jobs, including a five-year stint at (yep) PADUCAH LIFE Magazine! She spent five years at the helm of Child Watch Counseling and Advocacy Center and another six years as Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Foundation Executive Director at West Kentucky Community and Technical College/Paducah Junior College Foundation. Before taking her current role, she spent more than
Life Lessons come early in a big family where consideration and cooperation are key—lessons Lee says she relies on to this day. From left are Barbara, Mary, Lee, Sarah, and Naomi. Martha, owner of Paducah’s BikeWorld, took the photo. Mary made the matching dresses for the girls to wear on Easter. “My mom and 4-H taught us all to sew, although my sisters were, and still are,
L ee Emmons That's
the Spirit!
two years as the Director of Philanthropy for the western Kentucky region of the University of Kentucky.
While working and raising her children, she completed an advanced degree—a master of science in organizational communication from Murray State University— an additional step in her parents’ goal to keep learning. “It may be cliché,” she said, “but I truly think every step in my career prepared me for this position.”
The foundation not only assists organizations, but also individual philanthropists who want to build a legacy of meeting unmet needs in the community. The foundation, founded in 1995 by then-Mayor Gerry Montgomery, has affiliates throughout western Kentucky, distributing about $7.5 million each year to non-profits.
It may be known best by its annual Fred Paxton Challenge, which invites regional charities to raise money over 90 days and earn up to a $10,000 match from the Paxton Foundation. Last year, more than $1.5 million was raised for 24 organizations.
In true Emmons style, Lee boldly embraces the foundation’s mission to enrich the quality of life for present and future generations, a love she traces back to her mother, Mary Lucy Emmons, a clerk at the dime store.
Although her family didn’t have much, Lee learned that they shared what they had, even if just the humble vegetables from the
"The work is not about me. There is so much need; so, giving is our people in a positive way."
- Lee Emmons
garden. Still, when it came time for seven kids to take Christmas gifts to school for their class parties, providing those items was a challenge.
“Somehow, my mother always came up with something,” Lee said, “and she would even send a couple of extras with me because she knew some kids in the class couldn’t bring anything.”
Lee remembers those early lessons to help others as she considers her role in today’s world. “My parents were givers, and I have taken their desire to give with me throughout my life, from Fleming County to Paducah. The work is not about me. There is so much need; so, giving is our privilege to affect people in a positive way.”
And that’s the spirit that makes Paducah LIFE better for everyone.
About The Community Foundation
The Community Foundation of West Kentucky (CFWK) is a philanthropic organization committed to nurturing generosity and fostering a culture of giving throughout West Kentucky. By educating individuals on planned giving and raising awareness about generational wealth transfer, CFWK empowers families to create meaningful legacies that last.
From an endowment that includes 365 donor funds, the foundation distributes an average of $7.5 million annually that enhance the quality of life in our communities. The organization was founded in 1995 by former Paducah mayor Gerry Montgomery.
rd
Pr Jo by ceri daan o
P the
OSSIBLE Paaducah
y My no plans to c , I had ollege in 2010 or c fo
PAADUCAH LEFT I HEN P f ome back. M
wns, ent to ffeer esh experienc foorfr as self w eighteen-year-old
ow sh an lo wn d to do in the to elt har fe
y ge m forg w n, I also w eeper do . D hiny , bright, and anted new w el people. I v nd no
ooking f es, diff anted to for n path, and that f
e s her year early y ed m v up; I lo ow o gr
ough the Lone O thr oing
school system, ak
, s choir ’ en part of the childr a g Theater’s ouse et H inMark g
oup…all of it! I outh gr y ch outs, chur Girl Sc
ything n had an hometow my t think ’ ust didn
e eat plac gr t a ’ wasn aducah ot that P N aised me. hat had r p, articipating ootlights, being eft to offer someone in the ne stage of lif
le ju G F p go to th i e I fe w ffe
een to Gr w ed to Bo v So, I left. I mo . as entering ling W entucky sity
Then I got a ough 2016. e thr ed ther work nd ved and li y Univer y estern K We ttend
ead on a
teaching gig rfed bef enting
nice oom in a cheap r a e r foor fe ouch- ville, and c ash in N g
n house. ow y , I bought m in 2017 nally pennies, and y middle school, pinched all of m . I taught at ouse 15 minutes outside of the city
fi a h su le an att w y as definitel w ashville ship in N wner ome o H
o fo o f
ld paint needed d. O e har wer , but parts of it or
d been looking ’d experienc w ne of the new es I’ W
e had We eplacing. orn out shingles needed r epairing, s needed r window oken , br prucing
om the cab of o shots fr ed tw neighbor fir my , The next spring year. st ins that fir eak- o br w
le hi m tw w sp
er easons I nev or r fo driveway y up m is truck
f
e being wer area y riginal homes in m earned. O
Paducah the Possible
bought up and demolished by big developers, and the “tall skinny” trend set in with multiple houses being squeezed into narrow lots. Going anywhere in the city took at least an hour, and that was if the traffic was cooperative. Everything seemed twice as expensive as it should have been. Perhaps the hardest thing of all was that I wasn’t getting to enjoy any of it the way I wanted. I’d been dazzled by living in Nashville with all its concerts, restaurants, night-life, etc. but it was beginning to feel a little less bright and shiny.
My partner and I started to think about making a change. He grew up in a very small town in west Tennessee and was also starting to feel some of the constraints that come with living in urban America. His commute was terrible while mine was bearable, but neither were good. We were both hours away from our families. We had close friends, but didn’t get to see them because getting from West to East Nash required a full road trip playlist, car snacks, and a premier parking stipend. It seemed like we kept making excuses to stay in a place that just didn’t support us anymore.
We weren’t really looking, but we found a house in Paducah that we fell in love with. We made an offer and bought it with no other plan in place. We were both still working in Nashville, we both still owned homes there, but it was the first domino to fall that allowed us to start the process of moving back home and building the lives we really wanted.
While my priorities in what to look for when planting roots has certainly changed over the last decade plus (property values, crime rates, and school
districts vs. where to find tacos at 2 AM), I appreciate that all of the good things I remember about growing up here still exist and are amplified by the revitalization that has taken place. We’ve been able to explore my childhood favorites while also getting acquainted with all Paducah’s new, bright, and shiny. I think maybe Paducah is everything I wanted Nashville to be. There are hard things here too, but I’ve found comfort in the weekly dinners together with my family. I’ve encountered challenges while remodeling our historic home. I’ve experienced adventure while biking on the Greenway Trail and while hiking to Mantle Rock. I’ve felt excitement while stuffing my face at BBQ on the River or when taking in a movie at
Maiden Alley. I’ve seen beauty at our many nearby parks/lakes and when visiting The National Quilt Museum. I’m working on building community with my neighbors and friends through a weekly walking club and by taking my pup to the dog parks. I’ve felt happiness in Paducah in walking down at the river front, in getting a coffee, in sitting in my parents’ backyard, in browsing through the library, and in a hundred other small but significant ways.
I didn’t think Paducah had anything left for me, but I am glad to have been wrong on this point. It’s good to be home!
The History Of A House
Oh, if walls could talk! Any old house is bound to have some good stories, and we’re looking forward to adding the next several chapters to our midtown stone charmer. We’re also keen to keep the character of the house intact as we update and create spaces that work for us. Finding the balance between adding modernity while honoring history is important, and we’re excited to be building on this home’s already interesting legacy.
Our house was built in 1939, making it a whopping 86 years old. The Wallace Park neighborhood where it sits would originally have been part of the grand LaBelle Estate, which was later designated as Paducah’s very first park.
We come into the picture in 2023 when we purchased the house after having attended an estate sale at the property the previous fall. We’re only the third family to have lived in the home, with the previous owners having lived here for over 70 years. We fell in love with the
Paducah the Possible
house partially because of its good bones, but also because it was a time capsule and testament to days long gone. Solid built-ins and corner cabinets, cedar-lined closets, original hardwoods, and an avocado green Frigidaire Flair were just some of the things that caught our attention enough to make an offer!
Since officially moving in last year, we’ve definitely changed quite a bit. Walls have been painted, floors have been polished, and repairs have been made. We’ve come a long way already and we still have a long way to go, but it’s nice to see little glimmers of progress that speak to our style while still holding true to the history the house has lived.
The Frigidaire Flair gets daily use. We’re actually designing the kitchen remodel around it. My dad gifted us an old Philco radio cabinet that he modified so that it will Bluetooth connect to our phones, and we’ve placed this across from the front door so that we can play music throughout the house. We hung a chandelier in the foyer that came from a house that previously stood on the property where Immanuel Baptist Church is now. I’ve also kept samples of all of the wallpapers that were in the house when we bought it to someday hang in the kitchen.
I like to think that we’re adding to the history of the house instead of changing it. Good bones, quality craftsmanship, and functional beauty are staples that transcend time and trend, and that’s what we’re looking to continue in our new, old home.
★
by S USIE FENWICK
GuessWhat?
West Kentucky Native Chris McClain Johnson is a muse magnet (And, also the author of a newly published novela!)
YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT GRAVES COUNTY NATIVE CHRIS MCCLAIN Johnson’s new book is about. Three Guesses—and no that’s not how many attempts you have at naming the 60-year-old’s debut work, but it is indeed the name of her new novella.
“I think I’ve always been a muse magnet my whole life,” says Chris. “I grew up in the country surrounded by wide open spaces with fields that seemed to go on forever, curious places like barns and old house attics, creative spaces like my mom’s sewing room, my dad’s tool shed and the Scholastic Book Catalog. Stories swirl around me nonstop—more writer’s chock than writer’s block.”
Chris relates to American poet Ruth Stone speaking of growing up in rural Virginia and while working in the fields hearing poems coming at her. The poems came over the landscape and like a thunderous train of air would come barreling down over her. Stone described only one thing to do when she felt a poem coming at her. In her words, she would “run like hell” to the house to grab pencil and paper to capture the words before they escaped her and found another poet who would successfully commit the poem to paper.
Like Ruth Stone, Chris felt her muse come upon her on the wind and in the surf crashing to shore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1990. It was her first of many trips to the Outer Banks and certainly not the first time her muses had visited, but she knew then and there her muses brought voices and the voices had a story to be told.
The self-described muse-magnet crafted the epistolary novella over a period of roughly 30 years. She was always writing, but writing time was at a premium with demands of a day job preempting her creative time. Chris currently serves as Information Technology Business Analyst for Varsity Spirit in Memphis.
In mid-January of 2023, Chris’s father passed away unexpectedly. By mid-February her career was at a halt, and by mid-March she decided to take what she describes as a “life and grief break.” With grief raw and
Three Guesses is a heartfelt, character-driven story of human connection, told in letter form and composed of correspondence between three very different pen pals. It is a warm, funny, and smart tale of human nature at its finest.
time on her hands, she seized the moment and began focusing her energy on writing. She dusted off old stories and composed new. She submitted short stories to contests. In the process, she came across Regal House Publishing’s Fugere Prize recognizing finely crafted novellas.
“Fugere is Latin and means to fly but also means to flee or escape—all of which are very characteristic of my characters,” says Chris. “Plus Regal House is an independent press in North Carolina where quite a bit of the story takes place. It seemed perfect for Three Guesses, so I polished my manuscript and sent it in. A few months later I got word it won the $1,000 book prize plus publication in summer of 2025.”
A name familiar to Paducah, Tracey Buchanan, was included on the publisher’s list of authors. Seeing a name from near her home town, Chris reached out to Tracey and benefited greatly from Tracey’s help in navigating the world of publishing.
Three Guesses is a heartfelt, character-driven story of human connection. The story is told in letter form and composed of correspondence between three very different pen pals. It is a story of family forged by circumstances and choice, not by blood. It is a warm, funny, and smart tale of human nature at its finest.
Readers can only hope Chris McClain Johnson’s muses are present and active because a sequel to Three Guesses is a must.
FS in ARTA Stylee! y Sty
ALL beginnin of events edging us put together some fun ideas f and gatherings that call f choice. fall fashion tot summer- mar a s able and tacomfor is cool and ochet number cr vron This cute che . r. change in temps sometimes little e’s , ther s, change of pite the Des seasons in September t
temps, the start of school, and lots ooler ys, c of longer da g s the t’ so much anticipation. I IT WITH BRINGS L
ends, the addition of stud week warm - or those still fo agpies helped ens at M v le ma The sty schedule. busy eady s alr girl’ into a g ve
little glitz! or a fo halls, y
ysparklesThis s yle quotient with our fashi o e ’ onment,vir equir y r y ma t keep y the st napp beautifullyagainstthe ess st t dr ed shif re ins parkles. This y s py pir y th some but it e a sdais kees s up ks ta sy- s dais ack elik
een Gables. re of Junie B. Jones or A beautifully against the a shimmering el! Spin into the se leve wirling e t taak with this adorable skir
Get into the swing of top that t v Gr un fall. es ins e and a pir ................... Anne of eanda eason with w to a ne t and ir things e lik
e a fu e one to ha o er e y set that i y par e et ring attitude tt pr t ry v v .......................................
Paducah is Committed to CREATIVITY, Now More Than Ever
AA CHANGE IS COMING AT the national level, and it’s raising some pretty big questions. At the end of 2026, the United States plans to withdraw from UNESCO. As citizens of a UNESCO Creative City, we understand how that news can feel unsettling, but we’re here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. Here’s what the withdrawal means for Paducah and why creativity remains our guiding principle.
Paducah’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City has opened doors to cultural exchange, international recognition, and economic growth for the past 12 years. It’s part of our cultural identity… but we’ve been through this before. The U.S. withdrew from UNESCO in 2019, and—largely because the UNESCO Creative Cities Network is a group formed by and led by individual cities, not nations—our status was not affected. We are continuing our work in the
Pinecone Gallery in the Lower Town Arts District
UCCN with the expectation and hope that we will once again be permitted to retain our title as a UNESCO Creative City, with or without the membership of the United States.
In fact, we’re currently working with local artists Char Downs, Valerie Pollard, and Kathy Knotts to create a collaborative art piece that will be displayed in Santa Fe, NM (the country’s only other UNESCO Creative City of Crafts & Folk Art) this October. We’re eager to expand upon our relationships with the eight other Creative Cities in the United States and participate in international collaborations when possible.
Creative tourism continues to play a vital role in Paducah’s visitor economy. Visitors are drawn to our authentic blend of American heritage and artistic culture. The Creative City designation amplifies visitor outreach and creates opportunities for new partnerships around the globe, but it does not affect who we are on a base level: creative, curious, and driven to share Paducah with the world.
The core values of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network are collaboration, community, sustainability, and creative cultural exchange. We believe Paducah is doing all of these things very well. Next time you’re out around town, we invite you to look for it: the creative businesses on Broadway, the live music at your favorite restaurant, a tucked-away gallery on Market House Square, or the mural on the side of Community Kitchen. People make us creative, not policy, and that’s one thing nobody can change.
O e Thes HOM Old
Weebb Shannon by W
MES
PAAS T F AR A HE OR THE P TURE T AND S
OR THE FUT AN EYE F
ONE
AFT HOT
TERNOON
Asti andy and S
waterm old l of c bow them a ed neighbor appear a on a brickwork
, another neighbor i y that da
e We in P y the genu y d b caught off guar e Chicagoa v The nati dinner.
Astin s, the year er the Ov ” good people. ’tdon y busy y
ation & Repair ome Restor H
Trroy n, while T for r ha llh with neighbo their expertise scien g fo g adv estori chimneys, r g r s histo aducah’ s of P caretaker
Toown Low in er T smiling hospitality aducah. “W s in the or e, and sharing nc facades, ing oric homes— ome e bec v av ountain ns of F to be w get ho forg can be e it lov uine southern y e happil wer ans vited them to n melon. Later d and handed historic home, estoring e r wer in
t b ’ wasn ealized she “when I r Trro ”walking, as still w sale. “I she ” e this house, home. “I lik ont of stopped in fr suddenly enue neighborh v Av Fountain ollin e str wer , they n 2017 I call ho now y y community they A T as standing e callin agent?’” at the house. I he beside me. S remembered, y foor w t e said. I old stately a andy when S hood ough the thr ng ome. as f e listing
eople c . “P Trroy shares ”here, p T plenty , but they ebuilding ocating for building it th the g w e said, ‘So… ar a e, staring ther g w
These Old Homes
At the time, their son Jacob had recently moved to California for his dream job. Sandy had spent decades in manufacturing operations management; Troy worked in hospitality and restoration. Leaving their Chicago home wasn’t easy—they had just finished renovating it—but they knew they could make a beautiful home anywhere.
They hadn’t planned to start a restoration business, but the move set them on a new path. At first, Troy focused on restoring their own home. Neighbors soon began to stop by, asking what he was working on and whether he could help with theirs.
In 2019, the Astins launched Fountain Home, named for the street where it all began. Specializing in historic preservation and masonry, they found their niche in a skill set rare in the region. “We are not quickfix people,” says Sandy. “We work one job at a time until it’s finished.”
Troy and Sandy admit the work is demanding, but they believe deeply in its value, and how it matters for the rising generations. The Astins note how few young people are learning traditional trades like masonry. “We’re not seeing many younger faces. At some point, people age out. And if no one’s there to carry it on, these old homes will fall apart.”
They point to the cultural difference in places like the UK, where 20- and 30-somethings often pursue the trades early, building expertise that keeps historic structures standing. “Here in the U.S., college is often pushed over trades,” Sandy said. “But there’s real building science in this. Deep knowledge and skill. It deserves respect.” Their hope is that more young people recognize both the purpose and opportunity in
This 1930s Tudor home, right, was one of the Astin's early projects. Troy used an infrared heater to gently dissolve layers of plasticized paint allowing him to remove the paint without damaging the materials.
preservation work. “This country is getting older,” Troy said. “We’d better get with it.”
“I believe that people need a sense of heritage, a sense of place, and these old buildings, they give them that,” Troy added. “We believe in it, and I think plenty of other people feel the same way.”
Troy describes a recent job they were called out to evaluate—a modern home that had been clad in salvaged brick but sealed with epoxy resin. “At first, everything looked great. Five years later, the brick was flaking off like biscuits.” The sealant had trapped moisture inside, accelerating the decay. “The chemistry of historic brick is completely different from the new stuff,” explains Troy. “Many folks don’t realize that old brick and mortar needs to breathe.”
A 1907 Tudor-style home they worked on had been coated with layers of plasticized paint, locking in moisture and threatening both the stucco and timber. Troy used an infrared heater to gently remove the paint without damaging the materials. The exposed timbers were conditioned with linseed oil and the gaps between stucco and timber were packed with oakum, just as it was done a century ago.
Side by side on scaffolding and up on the rooftops of Paducah, Troy and Sandy have built a business and a shared life’s work that will last for years. They make an impactful team, blending their practical experience and shared appreciation for the soul of these priceless historic structures. The kindness and warmth of friends and neighbors have made this city a place they are honored to care for, brick by brick. “And we get to do this together,” Sandy says. “That was always the dream.”
LastWord the
★
“To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
—LEONARDO DA VINCI
New York native VIRGINIA GIBLIN married Paducah native Bill Black and in 1947 brought her artistic talents with her from the urban avenues of the nation’s largest city to the welcoming country roads of western Kentucky. Virginia studied at The Cooper Union in Manhattan and worked as a graphic artist at the renowned Ted Bates Advertising Agency in New York. Upon arrival in her new hometown, Virginia became a charter member of the Paducah Art Guild and subsequently the Yeiser Art Center. This oil painting by Virginia, reminiscent of her family’s local construction legacy, hangs in the offices of Ray Black & Son. Construction Workers At Night features employees of Ray Black & Son during a continuous foundation pour for the concrete silos near Island Creek.
68 • PADUCAH LIFE
Justin West
When Justin West takes the mound, he brings with him the pride of Paducah and Louisville. A standout pitcher for the University of Louisville, Justin helped lead his team to the College World Series—and now, he’s headed to the big leagues as a draft pick of the New York Yankees.
Whether he’s at home in Paducah or wherever baseball takes him, Justin chooses Paducah Bank for its hometown heart and big-league service. With full-service locations in Paducah and Louisville— and digital tools that go the distance—Paducah Bank keeps him connected to the community and the confidence that started it all.
Because choosing the right team makes all the difference, no matter where life takes you. JUSTIN CHOOSES PADUCAH
Visit paducahbank.com to learn more. / MEMBER FDIC
