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One week after finding out that the alcohol petition he submitted to the Whitley County Clerk's Office was six votes short of the number needed to place it on the ballot, Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison is back at it with a second petition. Harrison said that as of about 2:45 p.m. Monday, 176 people had already signed the new alcohol petition. "I feel that we will have enough signatures very soon," he said. Harrison said he hopes to get the new petition submitted next Monday. "I don't want the election to really go into July simply because you get into the holiday season and vacation season," he said. On March 31, Harrison submitted a...

The public will be able to learn more details about a proposed needle exchange program in Whitley County Monday afternoon during a joint meeting of the Whitley County UNITE Coalition and the Whitley County Health Department. The meeting will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the basement conference room of the Whitley County Health Department, which is located off Penny Lane in Williamsburg. The guest speaker will be Greg Lee, who is with the Cabinet for Health and Family, who will be discussing the Hepatitis and HIV epidemics and how they relate to drug use and the proposed needle exchange program. Whitley County Health Department Public Health Director Martha Steele said the...

Silence fell among the crowded district courtroom as 15 or more radios went off at once. Firemen from every volunteer fire department in the county listened carefully to see if they must call their meeting short and respond to a call. Thankfully, there was not an emergency, but that is not always the case. Talk of a countywide fire department subscription fee brought firemen, county residents and county leaders together on April 8. Bill Oxendine, Knox County PVA and Chief of Little Poplar Creek Fire Department, led the public forum discussing details of the subscription fee. Over two weeks ago, Oxendine asked the Knox County Fiscal Court to entertain the idea...

Third-generation evangelist Dr. William Franklin Graham IV came to Williamsburg to share his message concerning leadership based upon God’s principles. On Tuesday night, hundreds of people poured into a packed O. Wayne Rollins Center on the campus of the University of the Cumberlands to hear Graham speak about Christian leadership as part of the 11th Annual Excellence in Leadership Series, which is sponsored by Forcht Group of Kentucky. Graham is the third generation of Grahams to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the banner of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). He is the oldest son of Franklin Graham. The first of Will Graham’s crusade-style events - called Celebrations - took...

With the tax filing deadline less than a week away, Kentucky State Police at Post 10 in Harlan are asking residents to be on guard against calls from individuals claiming to be IRS agents attempting to collect unpaid taxes. Trooper Shane Jacobs, public affairs officer at Post 10 in Harlan, said multiple residents in Knox County have contacted the state police after receiving such calls Thursday. According to Jacobs, the caller claims to be a federal IRS agent from Washington, DC. The callers then advise the resident that they owe large amounts of unpaid taxes that must be paid immediately. “The caller(s) are very aggressive when they are questioned and demand that...

A Lily man accused of raping, sodomizing and sexually abusing two child relatives, has already served the majority of his prison term set out in a plea agreement that came down in lieu of a trial Wednesday in Laurel Circuit Court, but he will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Under the terms of the plea agreement, 57-year-old Condy O. Irvin pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. One count of first-degree rape was amended to first-degree sexual abuse. Additional charges of first-degree sodomy and incest were dismissed. In return for Irvin’s guilty plea, prosecutors recommended a prison sentence...

One of the rites of spring in the Tri-County area will take place Saturday as Laurel and Whitley counties go head-to-head in the annual Laurel Lake Cleanup. Volunteers are invited to come out to the spillway off of Ky. 1193 to join in the effort. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. with the cleanup kicking off at 9 and going until about noon. As in past years, Laurel and Whitley counties will be competing to turn out the most number of volunteers and take home the coveted “Cleanup Cup.” Whitley County halted Laurel County’s 11-year winning streak in 2013. Laurel County reclaimed the cup in 2014 and Whitley returned the favor in 2015,...

The first steps in returning Corbin’s rolling railroad stock back to pristine condition will begin Saturday. Corbin Tourism Director Maggy Kriebel, who led the effort to bring the L&N 2132 steam engine, tender, caboose and Pullman car to Corbin, said volunteers are welcome and appreciated to apply some elbow grease to the interior of the French Broad River Pullman car. Kriebel said work would include stripping out the old carpet, vacuuming a couple of decades of dust and dirt and washing windows. Kriebel said previously the Pullman car, which was donated by the Greater Cincinnati Railroad Museum, has been parked on a siding in northern Kentucky since it last saw service with Amtrak...

Monday afternoon Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison was feeling a little like the television character Maxwell Smart from the 1960s television show "Get Smart," whose famous catch phrase was "missed it by that much." "I wish Agent 99 would come and save the day," Harrison said laughing. A 328-signature alcohol petition that Harrison filed with the Whitley County Clerk's Office Thursday afternoon proved to be six valid signatures shy of the 197 valid signatures needed to place the measure on a ballot sometime this June. If approved the ballot measure would have allowed packaged alcohol sales in Williamsburg and also allowed alcohol by the drink sales at restaurants that seat as little as...

Whitley County will likely soon be joining a growing list of communities in Kentucky offering a needle exchange program. The Whitley County Board of Health unanimously voted last month to begin the process of starting a clean needle exchange program in Whitley County provided that adequate funding can be obtained. Federal law prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or operate needle exchange programs. "The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has shown drastic improvement in the prevalence of Hepatitis and HIV in communities that have clean needle exchange programs," Whitley County Public Health Director Martha Steele said in an e-mail to several community leaders Tuesday...