Don Estep

Hot weather? I sympathize with those who have to make their living under the hot summer sun. I had my introduction to outdoor work immediately after graduating from high school in 1957. It was not what I had planned, but I had no other alternative. After graduating I had my mind set on attending the Midwestern School of Broadcasting in Chicago. In the 50s, radio was big and I had always wanted to be a play-by-play sports announcer. My good friend, Phil Taylor, and I even had a show while in high school on radio station WCTT in Corbin each Saturday morning. It was called the “Teenage Platter Party” and...

News Journal Publisher Trevor Sherman made an interesting comment to me about living in the 1950s recently. He said, “No Internet. No cell phones. No social media. I think I would have liked it.” I, too, think you would have liked it, Trevor. It was a much simpler time. The pace was slower, and the stress was much less. But, obviously, without the Internet and the advances that have been made we could not publish this newspaper with the ease that we do now. However, I do cherish those times in the 1950s when I was a teenager. I can only speak from that perspective. It was a “Happy Days“ time...

This coming Monday, May 26, is Memorial Day. It is a day that serves as a solemn tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States. The tribute began three years after the end of the Civil War, on May 5, 1868, and was called Decoration Day. In 1968, the federal government changed the name to Memorial Day. From my childhood days until now, my family always decorated the graves of family members. Decoration Day, as it was called in my youth, was huge. I remember my mother and neighbors sitting on the front porch with packages of different colors of crepe paper using their thumbs to...

My sincere appreciation to the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation for selecting me to receive the Media and Technology Award at this year’s conference, which took place last week on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University in Manchester. It was an outstanding event attended by a large crowd of people, including Gov. Andy Beshear, who was the keynote speaker. WYMT-TV showed a short video of each award winner, and after the video each winner was invited to the stage to accept a nice engraved plaque. Both the video and plaque were exceptionally well done. When it came my turn to make my presentation, the last thing my wife said to me was, “Don’t...

Baseball season opened last week. When I was a young boy baseball was undeniably king. Today, it is overshadowed by both professional football and basketball, but back in the summer of 1950, when I was 10 years old, I knew very little about any professional sports other than baseball. I had never seen a big league game and neither had any of my friends. That didn’t stop us from knowing about the game. The box scores were in the newspaper every day, and the Mutual Broadcasting Company broadcast a “game of the day” every weekday with Al Helfer and Dizzy Dean on radio station WCTT. We also saw clips on...

The Kentucky boys’ high school state tournament has been delayed a week this year because of the NCAA tournament being held at Rupp Arena last week. I have a long history of attending the tournament, both as a fan and a broadcaster. I could share a thousand stories or more, and in this column, I’ll share a few. My first broadcasts were from 1960 to 1963 for WVLK in Lexington. The most memorable game I did at that time was in 1961 between Breathitt County and Dunbar, played at Memorial Coliseum It was memorable for one reason... because of a racially biased referee. Sitting next to me was Earl Cox, famed...

I have just had a bronchoscopy at the local hospital to check for cancer in my right lung. This is nothing new for me because it is the third time that I could possibly be battling cancer in my right lung. In 2010, fifteen years ago, I had to have the lower right lobe of my lung removed because of cancer. Then, four years ago, I had radiation in the same lung to stop the growth of cancer which resulted in the collapse of my trachea also. Now, my latest dilemma has two growths in my right lung, discovered the day after Christmas. I’ll have the results of the bronchoscopy...

A long with journalists from all corners of the state, I attended the Kentucky Press Association’s “Excellence in Kentucky Newspapers” awards banquet last Friday, held at the Hyatt ballroom in Lexington. What a night for the News Journal staff. As they have done for years, their journalistic entries in the contest won another “General Excellence” award. There are 27 categories, such as Best General News Story, Best Sports Story, Best Sports Picture, and more, for entries. The News Journal staff won 26 awards, thus earning the top award for large weekly newspapers. I had not attended the awards banquet for the last several years, and I wanted to be there in my...

For 37 years I have started my column on this date by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I’ll do the same this year, but this will be my last year to do it as publisher of this newspaper. Starting next week, I am pleased to announce that Trevor Sherman, a young man who started his newspaper career with us 14 years ago, will be the new publisher of the News Journal. Trevor is talented in many ways. He has experience in selling advertising, writing news and sports copy and composition. When I told our staff that my health would no longer let me carry on the duties of publisher, all...

Gary West, columnist, author and my good friend, writes in the column below, “I knew this day would come.” He is informing us that it is his final column. I was surprised when he sent us the column, because, by coincidence, this is my final month as publisher of this newspaper. I will still write columns when our new publisher, which I will reveal next week, asks me to write one. In my 37 years and seven months as publisher of this newspaper, Gary West made possible some of the best memories that I will carry with me. In 2013, I first met Gary when he approached me seeking information about the history...