Don Estep

We are delighted with the $51 million expansion in Williamsburg of Firestone Industrial Products that will add 250 jobs. Think of what 250 jobs will mean to the area. Obviously it will mean employment for that many people, but the effects of those being employed will mean additional housing, more money spent at the grocery store, on gasoline, in restaurants, and the list goes on and on. It will be a huge shot in the arm to our economy. Add to this expansion the Cumberland Mint Historical wagering/off track betting facility currently under construction in Williamsburg and the Cumberland Run race track being built in Corbin which will employ several hundred...

You know that life could have been back to normal if everybody had been vaccinated against Covid-19. And you also know that coronavirus infections nationwide would not have quadrupled in July had everybody been vaccinated. And you are aware that had everybody been vaccinated we would not be talking about children having to wear masks when they go back to school and that hospitals would not be running over with Covid patients and on and on with the bad news, if only everybody had been vaccinated. Then why on earth are one-third of the population refusing to get the shot? The latest surge has been called the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But...

I am on a planning committee at Central Baptist Church for the 100th anniversary of the church. The celebration is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Oct. 23rd, and Sunday, Oct. 24th. On Saturday the plan calls for a “meet and greet” type of activity with a program to start at 4 p.m. Our preliminary plans call for a short program to be held in the sanctuary of the church and followed by tours of the church along with refreshments being served in the old sanctuary which will feature pictures and histories of the church. Then on Sunday morning plans calls for the Sunday School hour and the Morning Worship to...

In anticipation of writing this column while driving to work today I counted the number of garbage cans and the number of houses on one block in Corbin. There were nine houses and 26 garbage cans at the edge of the street waiting to be emptied on this particular street. This is about three cans per household. With each can holding 32 gallons it would take three cans to fill one of the proposed 95 gallon cans the city of Corbin will be giving to each residential home. Perfect! After years of debate and controversy the city of Corbin made a huge positive step by budgeting $209,000 to purchase 3,500 new...

Heaven on Earth is the front porch at my old home place on a summer evening. My sister, Wanda, lives in the house where I was raised and recently with the nice evenings I have spent some time on her front porch in that swing that I loved so much many years ago. Nothing, no, nothing, a swimming pool, a recreation area, nothing is as satisfying as sitting there and relaxing and talking. We did plenty of that many years ago before air-conditioning. Families on our street would sit on their porches in order to escape the heat. We had standard time and it would be dark in the summer by...

I remember standing on the hillside several years ago where the Corbin Arena is located with a group of city leaders and former Senator David Williams said something to this effect. “I want this arena to be an arena for all of southeastern Kentucky, for Corbin, Williamsburg, Barbourville, London and Somerset.” Although the honeymoon soon ended with Sen. Williams and his name was removed from the arena, he was right about it being for all of the area. We have seen evidence of this with the number of graduation exercises by area schools being held there. Last week in this newspaper I read the story about a 13th Region prom for...

Congratulations to the Whitley County Colonels boys baseball team for making it to the state Elite Eight! This is an accomplishment they will remember the rest of their lives. It is historic because it is the first time a Colonel baseball team has made it to the state. My fondest memory of a Colonel’s team going to state was the year the girl’s team won the state basketball tournament played in Bowling Green. It was 1985 and they beat Louisville Atherton 38-37 in the finals. I had the good fortune of broadcasting the games on cable television in Williamsburg. Paul Estes, the owner of the company, called me and asked if I...

One of the treasures we have of living in a small town is Gail Frederick’s School of Dance. Miss Gail, as her dance students refer to her, has been teaching dance here for 44 years. Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday she presented her 43rd dance recital (last year’s was canceled due to Covid.) With two granddaughters taking dance lessons and since they didn’t perform on the same days, my wife and I attended two of the performances. As always we were delighted with their performances. Several years ago two of our daughters took dance lessons from Miss Gail. Thus, we have been to many of the recitals. One in particular stands out....

As a child I remember it as Decoration Day. I would see many of our neighbors sitting on their front porches making flowers from crepe paper to put on graves. Not my mother though. She cut the roses and other fresh flowers that grew in our yard to put on the graves of those buried at Corinth Cemetery. The big decoration went on my brother’s grave, Howard “Bug” Estep, who was killed during World War II in a plane crash on June 17, 1943 in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was only 21 years of age. He left behind a wife and a newborn baby. I was only four years old...

Last week I started a review of my 34 years as publisher of this newspaper, from my first interview with Terry Forcht to the first issue of the Whitley Republican we published on our new Mac Plus computers. This week I will move the story further to the big splash we made on Aug. 12, 1987. It was the first issue of Corbin! This Week. It was also the first full color edition of a newspaper in this area. We printed 10,000 copies of the paper and mailed them to all the households in the Corbin area. We had to go to Danville to get it printed because they had the...