Don Estep

A salute to the men who work for the Kentucky Department of Highways. Monday, during a massive thunderstorm, they arrived just minutes after a tree fell on the road near the 770 bridge that leads to Cracker Barrel restaurant in north Corbin. My daughter Amber, who was heading back home in west Kentucky with her three children, was following me to the I-75 interchange on Highway 312 when the vicious storm started. The rain was coming down in sheets which made it barely possible to see the road. Before we came to the 312 bridge we started looking for a place to pull off the road. Other vehicles had already taken...

My wife and I chose to dine at Seasons Restaurant on Main Street in Corbin to celebrate our 54th wedding anniversary. A great choice! I had one of the best steaks I have ever eaten. Not only was the steak delicious, all the sides were excellent. But that is what I have always found when when eating at Seasons. As I told Shea Hensley and Jason Matthews, the proprietors, Corbin is fortunate to have an establishment as good as this. It probably is the number one tourist attraction in Corbin. I say that because tour buses make it a regular stop, and like the five people in an out of...

We are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the establishment of Whitley County. Kentucky had been ratified as the 15th state just 26 years earlier. The western most part of Kentucky, west of the Tennessee River, was sold to the United States the same year, 1818, that our county was formed. Previously that area was recognized as hunting grounds belonging to the Chickasaw. Looking back 200 years gets us to the beginning of life here. The great majority of Kentuckians were farmers. They grew most of their own food, using the corn crop to feed hogs and to distill into whiskey. They obtained their cash from sales of burley tobacco, hemp, horses and...

Williamsburg, Whitley County and this newspaper all have big plans for celebrating the 200th anniversary of the county and the city in April. An impressive list of the many activities were listed in last week’s edition of the News Journal. More information will be published in future editions of this newspaper. Already some businesses are publishing their histories. Look on page A-8 for one this week. I have been doing some research in anticipation of the big event. I have a copy of the Williamsburg Times, a newspaper that preceded the Whitley Republican. It is dated December 21, 1899. It was only four pages and mostly a trade issue with...

With global warming I thought the deal was that we would have warmer winters and blasting hot summers. Not so. This winter has been miserably cold. So that’s how much I know about science. I liked the winters when I was a kid. Today I looked at a picture taken in the 60’s of a snowfall on Vandorn St. hill. That is one of the hills we went sleigh riding on in the 1950’s. Sleigh riding took place in big numbers all over town back then. We had big snows and very little traffic. Now and then a car would come by with chains on and we would throw snowballs at...

Is it the end of an era? Maybe and maybe not! When Corbin’s Mayor Willard McBurney chose not to seek re-election it will limit his term in office to 12 years. That will make him the longest serving mayor in Corbin’s history. It may also ended an era of McBurney and Vermillions in public office. That could change because there are children and grandchildren that someday may choose to run for office. Mayor McBurney’s uncle, Dick Vermillion, served this city as mayor, elected in 1960. He also served as city manager and was elected to the offices of County Judge and Sheriff in Whitley County. The mayor’s uncle Jack “Bat” Vermillion...

Last week my wife and I went with our daughter Amber and her three children, ages 3,5 and 7, to see the Harlem Globetrotters. She lives in Henderson, Ky. which is just across the Ohio river from the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. Actually we didn’t go to see the Globetrotters. We went to see our seven year old granddaughter, Adelyn, dance at halftime of the game. That was part of the best part of the evening. The other best part was watching her and the other two grandchildren react to the antics taking place on the floor, especially Adelyn. Prior to the game she got to meet the players. She was really...

Tom Dowling was a leader in every aspect of life. He was a leader as a coach and as commissioner of the Mid-South Conference. But I remember him most as a great leader at Central Baptist Church where I was a member of his Sunday School class for several years. Tom died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer Sunday. It was a joy to participate in that class. Tom was always well prepared. Often he would begin the class with a photograph shown on the big screen in the auditorium of the church of some event or place taken many years ago. He did this to open participation and discussion....

You may have not attended a football game this year. You may not know the team’s record. But you do know when your hometown team is playing for a state championship. That is when everybody gets excited. Corbin will be playing for the state 3-A championship against Boyle Co. this Friday night at 7 p.m. at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington. It has been a while, but it is not uncommon for the Redhounds to be playing in the state finals. This will be the eighth time they have been there since the playoffs began in 1962. I was there for that game. It was against Danville, a team they had beaten during...

Make plans now to visit the Corbin Center, located below the Arena, between Nov. 18 to Dec. 30 to view the Smithsonian Museum’s traveling exhibit, “Hometown Teams.” I first heard about this event a few months ago from Gary West, our friend, author, and columnist for this newspaper. With a gleam in his eye he said,”The exhibit is going to be good.” No doubt, it will be good. Some of the exhibits will feature items supplied by local people. Yearbooks, sweaters, letterman jackets, photos and a football from Corbin High School’s 1927 team will be among the memorabilia. Perhaps you have a treasure or two that you could provide to the display....