Mark White

A few weeks back, I went to take pictures at a WWE NXT event at The Corbin Arena. I have not watched wrestling in a few years, and I had never heard of any of the wrestlers, but I still had a good time. I grew up watching wrestling. While my mom’s mother despised it, my dad’s mother was the exact opposite. She loved wrestling. You did NOT try to tell her it wasn’t real. (She was one of THOSE wrestling fans…LOL.) Back then wrestling tried to maintain what has affectionately been dubbed “kayfabe.” In other words, wrestling did its best to maintain the illusion its story line was real. Every Saturday afternoon, Grannie would...

As anyone, who has played much golf in their life can attest to, golf is a sport, which can help you forget about your real-world problems for a while. This may come in the form of having a really great day where you are hitting nearly every fairway and green in regulation and you have your putter going. For most of us hackers though, it is usually because trying to hit the dang little white ball is so frustrating sometimes, you just forget about everything else. Either way, you are usually not thinking about the mortgage, your high cholesterol or the stress of your job for a while when you are...

The Jan. 20 Main Street blaze in Williamsburg, which destroyed four buildings, will have a legacy downtown beyond just the fire. Initially, it appeared much of the buildings could probably be rebuilt. However, Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison recently announced all four structures will have to be demolished due to the extent of the damage. While it is theoretically possible to save the buildings, it would triple the building costs. As someone, who worked in downtown Williamsburg on Second Street across from Croley Funeral Home for 25 years, I got emotional when I heard these buildings were burning in January and again after I saw the aftermath. I walked by them nearly every day...

The greater Corbin area used to have not one but two golf courses. Both are now closed. I miss one of these courses. The second one not so much…LOL. I suspect many of you, who played both courses, probably agree with me. I am talking about the old Tri-County Country Club and Sweet Hollow Golf Course. Both were nine-hole courses, but not every nine-hole course is created equally. Tri-County was in western Knox County between Old Barbourville Highway and the Cumberland Gap Parkway. When I say located between the two roads, I mean literally. The entrance for Tri-County Country Club was off Old Barbourville Highway. Cumberland Gap Parkway was visible from the...

When I was 12 years old, I was shot by a couple of guys target shooting at an old outhouse a couple of blocks away. (No. I wasn’t in the outhouse…LOL). I heard some bangs beforehand, but it was July 1. I figured some kids were probably setting off firecrackers and I did not think much about it. The men were using a .22 rifle and did not think the bullet would go through the outhouse. However, it ricocheted, travelled a couple of blocks and struck me in the leg. I was in the hospital for five days, and on crutches for two months. The doctors did not remove the bullet. They...

The Corbin Tourism and Convention Commission recently sponsored its annual Burger Week, which has proven to be a success each year. I’m all for honoring beef. I love a good steak and a good burger probably a little more so than the next guy. However, I would love to see someone organize a Wing Week too. Local restaurants could have a week-long special on wings. You could have a contest with two categories of winners like they do with the Williamsburg Chili Cookoff. You could have a judge’s choice award and a people’s choice award. A secret panel of judges could anonymously go around to all the participating restaurants, sample the wings and...

In 1996, Greg Norman entered the final round of the Masters Golf tournament with six-shot lead over his closest competitor, Nick Faldo. When the day started, nearly everyone expected Norman to pull out the win and probably in big fashion. This wasn’t meant to be. Norman struggled and ended with a final round 78. Faldo shot a final round 67 and got the five-shot win. It was painful to watch. You really had to feel sorry for Norman. Going into the final round of this year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York, Wyndham Clark began the day with a six-stroke lead. By the time my dad and I tuned into the final round...

May was a terrible, lousy month on many fronts for me personally with one vehicle death and two pet deaths just for starters. Our Mazda, for all intents and purposes, died. I can’t justify a $10,000 repair bill on a SUV with nearly 94,000 miles, but that is another column for another day. Some of you may remember how a few weeks ago, I wrote about the death of one of our cats, Gizmo. Approximately three weeks later, Gizmo’s sister, Gadget, started acting sick so we took her to the veterinary hospital in Richmond. She did not seem real bad. The vet’s office told us she was in her end stage. She was...

While the old nine-hole Pineville golf course was the first one I ever played as a high schooler in the 1980s, the first 18-hole course I ever played was General Burnside Island Golf Course in General Burnside State Park. Burnside was the third golf course I ever played behind the old Pineville golf course and Indian Springs Country Club in Knox County, which is a nine-hole course still in use today. Compared to Pineville or Indian Springs, I remember Burnside seemed huge when I first played it. The then 14-year-old or so me found having 18 different holes on a course cool to play. This was the first course I had ever...

I can still remember the first golf course I ever played. I was either in eighth grade or a freshman in high school when I first took up playing golf. My dad started playing golf about one year prior to this. I would see him out in the yard practicing and then I started practicing myself. The first course I ever played was this little public course in Pineville. I don’t remember if it was part of the state park system at the time. It was this pretty short fun little course. Almost everyone walked this course because it was a short distance. I think the longest hole on the course was hole number...