Mark White

You just can’t fit all the news from a year into a top 10 list, like the one running on our front page in this week’s edition of the News Journal. Sure, we get the big news events in there, but that doesn’t mean there still weren’t quite a few other interesting and memorable news stories in 2017, such as a naked streaker outside a local school or “Trophy Gate” as I affectionately dubbed it about some old trophies getting tossed in a dumpster at a different local school. Here are a few of some of the other interesting headlines from 2017 that didn’t quite make the top 10 list this...

VFW Post 3167 wants to be annexed into the Williamsburg city limits. The Williamsburg City Council is likely to vote on the matter in early 2018, but before they sign off on that request they need to ask some tough questions and insist on satisfactory answers. Unless you live under a rock, nearly everyone in small town America knows that certain veterans’ organizations have historically sold alcohol at their facilities. (Yeah, I know it’s a real shock…LOL). For all intents and purposes these are illegal bars. In the case of VFW Post 3167, they have historically had a really nice bar area that would be the envy of many restaurants. We have...

When I became a professional journalist nearly 25 years ago, there were a lot of things that I expected to cover. Some of it was somewhat exciting, such as car wrecks and fires. Other things not so much so, such as beauty pageants and government meetings. Over the years, I have learned to expect the unexpected as Whitley County just seems to be a magnet for the weird and oddball. There are just some things that you can’t imagine that you would ever be covering in a small town and Monday night happened to be one of those. I spent two hours covering a presentation that Kentucky State Police were giving to...

Misconceptions can be a difficult thing to overcome. Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles recently addressed the topic while speaking at the Whitley County Cooperative Extension Office. “A few months ago, the Washington Post’s front page story revealed the results of a national survey that showed 16 million Americans legitimately think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, and white milk comes from white cows. These are grown adults,” Quarles told the audience that was made up largely of local farmers. Quarles is right that misconceptions can be a hard thing to overcome. I found it interesting that he then perpetuated another misconception later in his address. “Millennials, those born between 1980 and the 1990s,...

Retired Whitley Circuit Judge Jerry Winchester was an old-fashioned country lawyer and judge, who knew that sometimes the best tools for addressing a situation were with humor and common sense. Back when circuit court was still in the old courthouse, there was a homicide trial many moons ago that had gone into its second day on a Wednesday. The News Journal had a newspaper rack in the lobby of the courthouse with a story about the trial on the front page that morning. Of course, some defense lawyers were objecting to jurors seeing the headline of the paper as they left and entered the courthouse. After reading the headline aloud in the...

Jake Mountjoy was an absolute hoot. Over the years I have gone to many Williamsburg Kiwanis Club meetings, and I always tried to sit at the same table as Jake when he was there for one simple reason. You never knew what the heck Jake was going to say next, but it was a pretty good bet that it was going to be funny. I used to joke that I longed to get to Jake’s age where you could say virtually anything you liked and be able to get away with it like he did. Oh the stories he told. There were the WWII stories of serving in the United States Navy on board...

In 2014, the Green Bay Packers started off the season losing two out of their first three games. The fans were starting to panic. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers famously had a simple answer for the panicking fans, “R-E-L-A-X. We’re going to be OK.” The packers went on to win 11 out of their next 13 games. Monday afternoon, PFM Group, a consulting firm, presented its report to the Kentucky Public Pension Oversight Board noting that Kentucky’s public pension system is underfunded by $37 billion to $85 billion. PFM Group made a number of recommendations, such as eliminating cost of living increases given to state retirees between 1996 – 2012, which could roll back the...

Whitley County is planning a party in 2018. It’s going to be a big, year-long party as the county celebrates the 200th anniversary of its founding. Williamsburg is also planning a big bicentennial celebration that will center around a month-long celebration in April 2018, which is the month the decision was made that Williamsburg would be the county seat of the newly formed county. Planning is already underway for both celebrations. Williamsburg hopes to have t-shirts commemorating the bicentennial ready to sell at Old Fashioned Trading Days this year. Starting in early January 2018, the city plans to put up banners across Main Street to commemorate the anniversary. Businesses will be asked to...

If you are going to drink alcohol and get behind the wheel then please consider the following for a moment before you do. In 2001, Lester Cook had been drinking when he got behind the wheel of his 1984 Corvette, sped off and lost control of his car running over a pregnant woman, who was working in the flower bed in her yard. His estimated blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was about twice the legal limit. In 2007, Raymond Garner, whose license had recently been suspended for drunk driving, was barreling up I-75 in his pick-up truck hauling a rickety old trailer with all his worldly belongings...

Whitley County lost a couple of very good men last week with the death of former Whitley County Judge-Executive Leroy Gilbert and assistant Whitley County Attorney Gary Brittain. I met both men early during my journalism career. My second job out of college was working at a certain local daily newspaper that shall remain nameless (LOL) covering Knox County. At the time, Gary was county attorney in Knox County, and I dealt with him frequently. The thing that I will remember most about Gary is that he always returned my calls when he got the message. Sometimes he didn’t get the message until the next day, but he always called me back,...