Mark White

I have a real love, hate relationship with eggs these days. When it comes to eating eggs, my preference would generally be scrambled eggs although I do like fried eggs too. Periodically, I enjoy a good ham and cheese omelet. I have never been a big fan of the boiled egg except when I was hunting Easter Eggs as a kid. Then there are other times that I hate eggs. The last four weeks come to mind as my house and vehicles have been egged four times during that time period. Technically, the last time we got egged, the vandals just got our driveway and sidewalk, and there was even a whole unbroken egg in...

Anyone that has ever been around toddlers is familiar with the dreaded temper tantrum. Young children will get upset over something and will lay on the floor kicking and screaming until they get their way. Sadly, we are living in what I would affectionately refer to as the temper tantrum era, only in this case it involves adults. On the left, some people are upset over social justice issues. Some are taking to the streets in protest. To their credit, most are doing so peacefully. But then there is the temper tantrum portion of the crowd, who are setting things on fire, smashing glass windows, breaking into buildings and looting. On the...

Let’s face it. 2020 was quite the year from a worldwide pandemic to the third highest flood in Whitley County and Williamsburg history. Just in Whitley County alone, we were pretty much a war and a famine short of having our own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…LOL. Maybe 2020 wasn’t quite that bad, but it was a rough year folks. On the front page of last week’s News Journal, we detailed the top 10 COVID-19 related stories of 2020, and this week we are detailing the top 10 non COVID-19 stories of 2020 on our front page. Of course, you just can’t fit all the news from one year into a top...

There’s a line from the song, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,” which pretty well sums up the year that was 2020. “You stink, stank, stunk!” Unless you, a close relative or a close friend had a new baby in 2020 or you hit the Powerball big time, then chances are you HATED 2020. The vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats can all agree that 2020 really sucked! (Who said there is no bi-partisan agreement anymore…LOL.) While 2020 and conversely COVID-19 have been awful, there were a handful of things from this year that should probably stick around once 2020 and COVID-19 are gone. In-person, expanded early voting is a good example of...

We all know that our firefighters deal with a lot, particularly our volunteer firefighters, who don’t get paid for what they do. There are structure fires, brush fires, and auto accidents in addition to a host of other calls. There was one call that came across the radio scanner about lunch time Monday that caught my attention. Woodbine Fire and Rescue got a call to respond to a reported vehicle accident involving a car that supposedly occurred out in the middle of nowhere. When I say nowhere, I mean that pretty much literally. Whitley E-911 dispatchers received the accident report from an onboard vehicle device like an OnStar system, but it wasn’t...

Corbin’s reverse Christmas parade Saturday night was definitely an interesting twist on a Christmas parade. For those that don’t know, during a reverse parade the participants are parked along the parade route, which in this case was on the right side of Main Street in downtown Corbin, and those viewing the parade slowly drove to by in the left lane of Main Street to see the floats. This was done because of COVID-19 in order to reduce the risk of exposure for those, who came out to watch the reverse parade. While there were a few people, who didn’t quite grasp the concept of the reverse parade at first on Saturday...

Often after someone gives their two or three-week notice at a place of employment, they, shall we say, put it on cruise control. Frequently, they don’t put in an extraordinary amount of effort from the point where they give their notice until they walk out the door. As I said, this is frequently, but certainly not always the case. Our now former sports editor, business page editor, editorial page editor and generally go to guy Trevor Sherman is a good example of someone, who is an exception to this rule. Trevor told us about three months ago that he was planning a change in profession, and planned to go sell insurance for...

A few months ago, I was proofreading over a grant application that someone had written, and I remember commenting “Don’t tell me. Show me. Give me some local facts and figures that support this.” In regards to Gov. Andy Beshear’s latest executive orders regarding COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants, bars, indoor gatherings, and so forth, I would offer some similar advice. If you want buy in from the public, give us some state data from all of the contract tracing that has been done that shows us these shutdowns actually target where the bulk of our latest cases are coming from. Beshear’s lockdown orders ban indoor dining and drinking at restaurants and...

So how popular was in-person early voting in Whitley County for this year’s presidential election? Let’s look at the numbers. Out of the 15,000 or so votes cast for president in Whitley County, 10,017 were done by people doing early, in-person voting. To put it another way, two-thirds of the ballots were cast in this manner. As our elected leaders in Frankfort ponder in the coming months about whether to make early voting a permanent part of the election process, they should keep these numbers in mind. By and large, everyone liked early voting, and having the polls open on the three Saturdays prior to Election Day. This benefits people, who have to work...

Barbara Neubert was a fire cracker. While she may have been small in stature, that little lady packed quite a bit of energy in a small package. Barbara was a fixture in the Williamsburg community for what seemed like forever. She was a smart, classy lady, who you often saw walking around town and usually at a pretty swift pace. We were both members of the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club for a while, and she was always fun to talk to. She and former Williamsburg Superintendent Jake Mountjoy sitting at the same lunch table at Kiwanis always made for an interesting time…LOL. Barbara also served as the bookkeeper for the Whitley County Public Library...