The Whitley County Fair and the recent deaths of two local residents will be three of the topics for this week’s column.
Williamsburg Dry Cleaners owner Pat Michael Marple died on July 15 at the age of 79.
Most people in Williamsburg knew Pat from his time owning and operating Williamsburg Dry Cleaners for over have a century.
Pat’s father, Pat Marple Sr. founded Williamsburg Dry Cleaners in the late 1930s.
I did a story about the younger Pat and Williamsburg Dry Cleaners in 2001. The business never charged to clean an American Flag or a Christian Flag. It was a practice’s Pat Marple Sr. started and one his son continued.
One interesting thing I found out doing the story is a dry cleaning is not actually dry. It just doesn’t use water. Instead, it uses a non-flammable petroleum type liquid. It is something like a non-flammable kerosene.
I got to know Pat pretty well when he helped head up anti-alcohol efforts during wet-dry election referendums in Williamsburg in 2006 and 2012. It got defeated in 2006, but voters approved alcohol by the drink sales at restaurants in 2012.
Pat thought alcohol was bad for the community, and he wanted to keep it out of Williamsburg as much as he could.
I wrote about the issue and both sides of it in 2006 and 2012, but Pat and I had a few private conversations about it. I was personally in favor of allowing alcohol sales at restaurants. My position was Williamsburg was the wettest dry area of the state and we had all of the problems of alcohol and none of the benefits by being dry.
We had some good discussions with each of us talking about our reasoning behind our stances and listening to the other’s reasoning. Sadly, you cannot do this with everyone especially today.
Pat always complimented about the fairness of the stories I wrote concerning the alcohol votes, which I appreciated.
Local attorney Lee Gilbert died on June 21 at the age of 61.
I got to know Lee pretty well personally and through some of his relatives. His dad, Leroy Gilbert, was Whitley County Judge-Executive for five years. His cousin, Dave Gilbert, has been a friend of mine since first grade. He was Lee’s roommate for a while when Lee was in law school and Dave was in college at the University of Louisville. (I tried to never hold it against either of them they went to college in Louisville…LOL.)
Lee was a local lawyer and we ran in some of the same circles. If we bumped into each other somewhere and neither of us was in a big hurry, then we usually stopped and chatted for a few minutes. He was fun to speak with and we had a lot of good conversations.
I also interviewed Lee when he ran for county attorney in 1998.
I interviewed him in 1998 a few weeks before the election. I think my first question was what do you think are the biggest issues in this race.
His response always stuck with me as part of the reason we do not have better election outcomes in this country.
Lee told me I was the first person to ask him about the issues. Mind you this was approximately six weeks before the election occurred. Then Lee gave me his answer to the question. He had good reasoning.
Lee was just an honest, straight forward guy. This is one of the things I liked best about him. He also ran for district judge in 2008. I think he would have done well, if he had been elected to either as either county attorney or judge.
The Whitley County Fair took place last week. Kudos to the organizers for a job well-done. I am glad the weather was at least cooler than it was earlier in the month.
One of the attractions at this year’s fair was a “corn pit” where kids could play. (Had the fair been in early July, the corn pit probably would have turned into a popcorn pit because it was so hot…LOL.)
