Columns

With pensions and tax reform and a super-tight budget cycle, among other concerns, there’s one proposal before the Kentucky General Assembly this year that may not be the most exciting thing on the agenda, but I think it’s one of the most important. In her excellent legislative update, which you can read on page A-8, 82nd District State Rep. Regina Huff briefly outlines the proposal, HB 23, that would move the election of the state’s constitutional officers, including the governor, to even-numbered years. This would coincide with the election for U.S. President. I’ve wondered for years why Kentucky has this odd-year, outlier election. Voter turnout is bad enough in the most...

It’s pretty common that I will hear someone say they feel our area is stagnant. There is no growth or new jobs. Nothing ever changes. There is nothing to do. We are stuck in the mud. I disagree. There have been a lot of significant developments, physical improvements, and economic progress in the 21 years I’ve lived here. Perhaps it’s just my profession. I’ve covered, in great detail, many of the things that have happened over the years, so they are etched in my memory, I suppose. I just think about Corbin, and the immediate surrounding area, 21 years ago. The Corbin Bypass didn’t exist yet. The overpass hadn’t been built. There was...

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 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...

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....

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...