[Local News]

Clay County Car Crash Kills Two

A car crossed the center line on US Highway 421, hitting another car and leaving two people dead. The accident happened Sunday afternoon two miles north of Manchester in south-central Kentucky. A passenger in the car that crossed the center line, 26-year-old Elbert Smallwood of Fall Rock, was dead at the scene. The driver and another passenger were taken to the hospital.

A passenger in the other car also died after being taken to Manchester Memorial Hospital. She's been identified as 27-year-old Joann Hill of Annville. The driver and passenger in that vehicle were also taken to the hospital with injuries. The Kentucky State Police are investigating. A wet roadway may have contributed to the crash.

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WLEX-TV Lexington

[Local News]

Strong winds leave Clay County senior citizens homeless

The following article appeared on a website in the United Kingdom

MANCHESTER, KY, United States -- Strong winds and thunderstorms cut through Kentucky during the early morning hours Friday, leaving dozens of Clay County senior citizens homeless. At about 12:45 a.m. Friday, winds blew the roof off of a five-story assisted living apartment in Manchester Heights in Clay County, Ky., reported WTVQ-TV.

Senior citizens evacuated from their homes were living at the Clay County High School until permanent arrangements could be made. Manchester Assistant Police Chief Todd Roberts said it was miraculous no one was hurt. The National Weather Service was investigating whether the damage had been caused by tornadoes, WTVQ-TV reported.

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news.monstersandcritics.com

[Local News]

Despite being 87 percent Republican, More Democrats hold state jobs in Clay County
Stumbo excluded from team that prosecutes Fletcher

By Jack Brammer, HERALD-LEADER FRANKFORT BUREAU

A judge ruled that Attorney General Greg Stumbo cannot be involved in the prosecution of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, but said his staff may proceed with the case.

Meanwhile, attorneys for Fletcher, who is to stand trial Nov. 8 on three criminal misdemeanor charges of violating state personnel laws, asked the court yesterday to dismiss the indictment against him. Fletcher has pleaded not guilty. The governor's attorneys argued the charges should be dismissed because a sitting governor cannot be indicted and prosecuted without first having been impeached by the state House and convicted by the state Senate.

Recently, Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert made that argument in a footnote in a high court decision about state workers' pay. It caused considerable controversy. After a hearing yesterday morning in Franklin District Court, Special Judge David Melcher overruled Fletcher's request that Stumbo and his entire staff be disqualified from prosecuting him because Stumbo has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor next year.

Fletcher, a Republican who was indicted in May by a special Franklin County grand jury, has said he will seek re-election in 2007. Stumbo, a Democrat, has maintained that he is not running for governor at this time.

Melcher, in a four-page order, said, "The attorney general himself shall play no role in the prosecution of the defendant, and is hereby disqualified from prosecuting or participating in the prosecution of this case."

He said Stumbo's disqualification is based on state law that says a public servant who appears before a state agency "shall avoid all conduct which might in any way lead members of the general public to conclude that he is using his official position to further his professional or private interest."

Steve Pitt, an attorney for Fletcher, said he, too, was pleased with Melcher's ruling. He did not elaborate. In a lengthy motion, Fletcher's attorneys yesterday said there are "several statutory grounds for dismissal" of the indictment against Fletcher. They said prosecution of the governor "amounts to selective and vindictive prosecution" in violation of the state and federal Constitutions.

They also said "incontrovertible data" show "discriminatory practices" in state hiring during years of Democratic Party control of state government. Fletcher is the first Republican governor in Kentucky since 1971.

Fletcher's attorneys said there are numerous examples of heavily Republican counties in which registered Democrats hold "a massively disproportionate number" of state merit jobs. The state Merit System protects rank-and-file state workers from the use of politics in deciding job actions.

Fletcher's attorneys said that Clay County voters are 87 percent Republican and 12 percent Democrat but there are 94 Democratic merit employees and 90 Republican. They said the data from Clay and other counties show that a politically based patronage system had been in place many years before Fletcher's election in 2003.

"Yet, despite these illuminating and striking facts, there is no evidence that any of the attorneys general -- all Democrats - or any other state prosecutor, made any effort to investigate illegal merit system hiring or to prosecute anyone until Ernie Fletcher came to Frankfort."

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[Local News]

Shelby's political wit, practical wisdom
By Constance Alexander, Special to The Courier-Journal

Move over, Molly Ivins. Anne Shelby's new book -- Can a Democrat Get Into Heaven?: Politics, Religion & Other Things You Ain't Supposed to Talk About -- is hot off the press and rarin' to go. This spitfire collection of columns, many of which were first published in small Eastern Kentucky weeklies like The Manchester Enterprise, is filled with read-out-loud prose and laugh-out-loud satire.

Photo by Jamie Johnson at www.evamedia.com

With deep roots in Eastern Kentucky, Shelby lived in Lexington for 15 years before moving back to her family's old homeplace on Teges Creek, Clay County. Already a published poet and author of children's books, Shelby was determined to continue her writing career and to find a way to fit in to a community she perceived as "largely Republican and fundamentalist." She could not keep her opinions to herself for long, and ended up writing a weekly piece in the local paper that set new standards for the typical hometown pundit, which, according to Shelby, can be classified into three major types: preachers, "society" columnists and crackpots. Shelby proudly cast herself into the crackpot category and dove head first into topics that diverged enough from those of the church she had joined that they eventually parted ways.

One of the columns that might have gotten Shelby into hot water is innocuously titled, "Visit to a Little Country Church." She sets the stage with lyrical description: "It was a beautiful Lord's Day morning, the sun warm on the hills and fields, the air alive with birdsong, heavy with honeysuckle." The church folk behaved in the most usual ways. "Babies fussed; little girls roamed the aisles in organza dresses; little boys crawled under the pews to play with toy trucks."

The congregation sang old hymns; heads bowed humbly in prayer; offerings were tucked into the collection plate, and then the preacher mounted the pulpit to preach "for a solid 45 minutes and never talked about a thing in the world but sodomy." The word alone stops the reader as much as it must have captured the attention of the crowd that day.

As Shelby glanced at the faithful, surmising that most of them were heading home after services for hearty meals that featured fare like dumplings and banana pudding, she observes, "They did not appear to be a crowd that was teetering on the brink of some dangerous homosexual activity." Not content to end with a punch line, Shelby takes us further down the path of righteousness, remarking that her gay friends tell her God made them that way, and she believes them. Moreover, she assumes those who see gays as sinners will end up standing in line with them on Judgment Day because all of us are sinners. "It's going to be a long line," she concludes, "and nobody better pick up a rock."

Besides religion, Shelby takes off, with equal aplomb, on vote buying; George W. Bush's pretzel-choking incident; the liberal agenda; satellite dishes; displaying the Ten Commandments at the courthouse; and why she hates hillbilly plays. The essays are short and pithy, and if you are like me you will end up reading sections aloud to anyone who will listen. On the dedication page of her book, Shelby pays tribute to her husband, Edmund, and asks, "What're they gonna do?" As a small town columnist myself, I know what I'm gonna do. Buy a few more copies of Can a Democrat Get Into Heaven? so I can share this terrific and thought-provoking collection with others who enjoy a dern good read.

Constance Alexander is an award-winning newspaper columnist, public radio commentator, playwright and poet. She lives in Murray, Ky.

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[Local News]

Jess Wilson celebrates 88th birthday with visit to Eighty Eight

Jess Wilson of Possum Trot in Clay County was born on the eighth month (August) and the eighth day in 1918 and celebrated his 88th birthday in the western Kentucky town of Eighty Eight by "coming to this little crossroads and sitting a while."

Eighty Eight made national news during the 1948 presidential elections, when 88 of the town's residents voted for Thomas Dewey and 88 voted for Harry Truman. Seems two stories exist to explain the town's naming.

One has it that the town is 8.8 miles from Glasgow -- which it, indeed, appears to be -- and hence the moniker. The second story is that in the 1860s, a fellow named Dabney Nunnally was given the task of naming the town. Because he had 88 cents in his pocket at the time, voilˆ. (Theory One seems to be the most earnestly held to by Eighty Eighters.)

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[Local News]

Physicians Medical License Temporarily Suspended

A Manchester doctor of internal medicine has been ordered to stop practicing by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure. Dr. Joseph J. James agreed Friday to have his Kentucky medical license restricted indefinitely. He had been a practicing physician in Kentucky since 1986. An investigation found the doctor had practiced medicine with "gross incompetence, gross ignorance and gross negligence" specifically relating to record-keeping, diagnosis, treatment and prescribing practices, according to documents from the Board of Medical Licensure.

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[Local News]

Preserving a grandma's legacy
By Sharon Thompson, HERALD-LEADER FOOD WRITER

A family cookbook is a treasure, but first someone has to take the time to put it together. Wanda Reid of Manchester was the member of the Chesnut family to realize the importance of telling the story of Grandma Lillie Clark Chesnut -- and preserving her recipes.

"When I retired for the first time from National City Bank, one of the things on my list was to put together a family cookbook," Reid said. "When I helped my two small granddaughters bake cookies and cakes, I realized that I needed to write down some recipes.

"Since many of the wonderful cooks of the family are no longer with us, I wanted to preserve some of the cherished recipes and memories to pass along to future generations. Also, I liked the idea of having all my recipes in one place so I didn't have to search through all of them every time I wanted to cook something."

Reid's grandmother was born in 1880, educated at Berea College and taught school before marrying Ellie Chesnut and starting a family in Burning Springs in Clay County. The Chesnuts had two daughters and six sons.Reid asked other family members for old recipes as well as old photos and memories. Many of them recalled Grandma Chesnut's breakfasts: two freshly killed chickens (fried), gravy, homemade biscuits with churned butter, fresh fruit, and homemade jellies and preserves. She always cooked Sunday dinner for anyone who showed up to visit.

Grandma Chesnut passed along her recipes and love for cooking to her daughter Helen Hornsby and daughters-in-law Marie Chesnut, Anna Chesnut (Reid's mother), Edna Chesnut, Rachel Chesnut, Opal Chesnut and Martha Chesnut. Most of the recipes in the book are from these women, who now are passing along a strong food tradition to their families. Cooking With the Chesnut Family is available for $12, plus $3 for shipping and handling. Contact Reid at 150 Wallace Street, Manchester, Ky. 40962-7200, or e-mail [e-mail].

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[Local News]

Bishop comments on Stumbo "investigation"

Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo and his top deputy said yesterday they agreed to dismiss political patronage charges against Gov. Ernie Fletcher before they were sure they had seen all the evidence. And Stumbo said the public probably will never know for sure Fletcher's role in meetings that prosecutors say centered on how to use civil service jobs to reward political allies and punish others. Some critics, including the president of the Kentucky Association of State Employees, questioned whether Stumbo, a Democrat, gave up too soon on prosecuting Fletcher, the first Republican governor since 1971.

Attorney General Stumbo and Clay County Attorney, Clay Bishop

Clay County Attorney Clay Bishop Jr., president of the Kentucky County Attorneys Association, said he doesn't know whether Stumbo made the right call to end the investigation, but said he's "just happy it's over." Bishop, a Republican, said, "I sincerely doubt" that the public will ever get the full story.

"I don't know that they could do that for 20 years and ever get to the bottom of the matter," Bishop said. "In whatever way they were able to resolve it, I think is a good thing so that everybody can move forward."

The settlement agreement announced Thursday dismissed Fletcher's three misdemeanor charges relating to illegal patronage. In exchange, Fletcher admitted evidence existed of wrongdoing in his administration and accepted responsibility. He did not have to admit personal guilt. Stumbo said grand jury evidence remains under seal, but evidence collected by his office will be subject to the open records law once the investigation is closed.

"We don't know if they produced it all," Stumbo said. "But I'm saying now I think it's going to be easier to get those records."

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[Local News]

Clay County Residents Gather For First Annual Bert T. Combs Symposium

Clay County residents gathered Friday for the first annual Bert T. Combs Symposium.

Bert T. Combs was elected Governor of Kentucky in 1959 and was born in Manchester. His widow and those that worked alongside Combs attended the event. There was also talk at the event of a scholarship in Combs' honor that will go to a Clay County resident.

"Our goal for the Bert T. Combs Scholarship is $20,000 and the interest off that would provide about a thousand dollar scholarship a year," said Manchester Baptist Church Pastor Ken Bolin.

The group hopes to collect extra money to be able to provide more than one scholarship a year. Secretary of State Trey Grayson attended the event saying he owes much of his current success to Combs. The city is also working on having a statue built to honor his memory.

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[The Mayor]

McKee Police Chief Resigns Leaving City Police Department Empty

An Eastern Kentucky town doesn't have any city police after their police chief, the only police officer, resigns. The mayor of McKee says Chief Robbie Peters turned in his badge and gave a verbal resignation Monday, but the reason behind it all, is where the controversy begins.

McKee is now without a city police department. The one and only officer was Police Chief Robbie Peters. That was until Monday.

"He resigned verbally and said he'd put it in writing too, but we don't have that yet," said McKee Mayor Dwight Bishop.

When asked why Peters quit, the mayor didn't have an answer.

"I don't know, when I gave him his check he gave me his badge and a backup gun the city supplied," Mayor Bishop said.

However, the Jackson County Times quotes Mayor Bishop saying it all stemmed from an accident on August 26th when Peters wrecked the city cruiser and allegedly refused to take a drug test if the city didn't pay for it. The chief was then suspended with pay.

"The wreck was worked by Constable Johnny Peters, who is the chief's brother," said Jackson County Sheriff Tim Fee.

When questioned about the crash, Peter's brother, constable Johnny Peters said no comment and quickly left. Police say that same night, even more trouble stirred in the family.

"That same night, we arrested his son on drug possession charges and that was meth," said Sheriff Fee.

Mayor Bishop says the Kentucky State Police and the Sheriff's Department have agreed to patrol the city until a new chief is hired. The mayor says several people have applied for the newly opened police chief position. In the meantime, Robbie Peters has not been charged with any wrong doing.

This press release is courtesy of WYMT TV.

www.best-web-search.net/search?said=67&q=WYMT.COM

[Local News]

Hacker involved in Accident
Wreck closes I-75; raw meat, oil on road
HERALD-LEADER STAFF REPORT

Raw meat and oil closed Interstate 75 southbound in Madison County for about 11 hours yesterday, Kentucky State Police said. About 7 a.m., a tractor-trailer driven by Jorge Agutar, 39, of Louisville, entered the highway from a rest area and had started to pick up speed when a second tractor-trailer hit it from behind.

The driver of the second truck, Johnny Hacker, 44, of Manchester, told police he thought he'd fallen asleep. Debris flew into the path of a 2004 Mazda van driven by Sarah Barger of Richmond, causing severe damage to that vehicle.

The tractor-trailer driven by Hacker leaked fuel onto the road. The other truck spilled some of its load of uncooked meat onto the interstate.

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[Local News]

Paces Creek Elementary shows biggest increase in state
Public schools inch forward on statewide test scores
By Linda Blackford And Linda Johnson, HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS

The vast majority of Kentucky's public schools inched forward on the statewide achievement test over the past two years, although fewer of them met their two-year goals than in the previous cycle. Roughly 96 percent of schools made some progress on the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, according to a Herald-Leader analysis. But only half of those schools met their testing goals for 2005 and 2006, compared with 55 percent for the previous two-year period.

Forty-three schools actually lost ground and will get some measure of state assistance. On the up side, however, 44 schools have reached a score of 100, the goal all schools are supposed to attain by 2014. Schools set goals in two-year increments, based on what gains they need to make in every cycle to reach 100 by 2014. The further away a school is from 100, the bigger jumps it will have to make over the next eight years. The average score for all schools across the state is 80.4, up 4.3 points from the last two-year cycle.

"We're pleased overall because the majority of schools are making progress and that's the point of the system: It's progress, it's not how well you stack up against your neighbor, it's how well you do," said Lisa Gross, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education. "But this system has goals that get larger as the years go on, so schools will have to struggle."

Reading scores have improved each year, she said, but math appears to be the stumbling block at every level. Schools are tested every year, but are judged on progress only every two years. Created in 1990 as the centerpiece of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, the system was one of the first in the country to reward schools with money when they met their goals, and to mete out sanction and aid when they declined.

The schools with the least progress, for example, are assigned a "highly skilled educator," who works with teachers and administrators on everything from curriculum to parental involvement. The legislature gave out between $20 million and $24 million to schools every two years, first as bonuses to teachers, then to school programs. But in 1994, the General Assembly directed that money to the General Fund and has not yet restored it.

The test itself, the Kentucky Core Content Test, is an essay-based exam that starts in fourth grade. Total school scores also include a national multiple-choice test and non-academic data including dropout and graduation rates. CATS results are also used to determine pass and failure rates under the federal No Child Left Behind act. April saw 477,000 students tested.

The school with the biggest increase between 2004 and 2006 is Paces Creek Elementary in Clay County, which posted a 27.1-point gain for a score of 98. Principal David Murray said that seven years of hard work at the 240-student school is starting to pay off. Teachers initially focused on strengthening reading skills, but have now moved on to social studies and math.

"It took two or three years for it to start kicking in," Murray said. When Murray arrived at Paces Creek, he said, teachers were disillusioned.

"As teachers have gone along and have had some success, that has really helped their attitude," he said. "They've really taken pride in what they do."

Tests being added

In the past legislative session, lawmakers passed a law to add the ACT test -- used in college admissions in many states -- to testing in the junior year to see how well prepared students are for college. Two other career-prep tests will be added in the sixth and 10th grades. These tests will begin in the spring of 2008.

Gross said she did not yet know whether adding the ACT results to the accountability test would affect the reliability of trend data -- for example, whether test scores from 2008 and beyond could be compared with past scores. But it will be yet another challenge for teachers in the ongoing curriculum and testing demands, Draut said.

"The first thing a teacher wants to know is 'What do I teach?'" he said. "Once you blend in ACT, it does send a double curriculum message to teachers that will have to be sorted out."

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[Local News]

Clay County drug suspect’s plea implicates city official, assistant police chief
By Bill Estep, HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

A Clay County man alleged in his plea agreement today that an assistant police chief and a city council member agreed to protect his drug operations in return for his burning a house that stood in the way of construction of a new emergency dispatch and police headquarters.Bobby Joe “Fabio” Curry said Vernon Hacker, head of the city-county 911 system and a city council member, and Manchester assistant police chief Todd Roberts first conspired with him in the summer of 1999. They asked that he burn down a Manchester house in exchange for protecting his drug business, Curry alleged in the agreement entered today. The property owner had refused to sell and was holding up construction of the new buildings.

That protection included tips on police activities. In addition, Roberts gave Curry police-seized drugs to sell, and both Roberts and Hacker bought stolen guns from Curry, he said. Other Curry customers paid for their drugs with the guns, he said. Curry is considered a key witness against Roberts and Hacker, who were suspended from their jobs after they were charged last month. The indictment in the case charged that between November 2000 and May 2005, Curry, Roberts and Hacker took part in a conspiracy to sell $1 million worth of cocaine and prescription pills. Curry allegedly sold the drugs himself or hired others to do it. Hacker and Roberts have pleaded not guilty.

As part of the plea agreement, Curry pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and prescription pills, distributing drugs and two counts requiring him to forfeit land and money gained through illegal activity. A fourth person named in the indictment, Tammy Napier, has pleaded guilty to selling drugs for Curry. She has agreed to testify against the others named in the indictment.

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[Local News]

London man dies in Clay County wreck
Minton was not wearing a seat belt and alcohol involvement is suspected
Times-Tribune Staff Report

A London man was killed Wednesday in a single-vehicle traffic crash on Kentucky 687 in Clay County. Michael G. Minton, 43, of London, was northbound on Kentucky 687 at approximately 5:30 p.m. when he lost control of the 1995 Oldsmobile he was driving in a curve, struck a ditch and overturned. Minton was ejected from the vehicle during the crash and received fatal injuries.

Minton was not wearing a seat belt and alcohol involvement is suspected, according to a statement from Kentucky State Police. Trooper Donald Wilson was assisted at the scene by Troopers Nick Metcalf and Josh Wilson, Clay County Coroner Jim Trosper, Clay County EMS and the Manchester Fire Department. Wilson is investigating the accident.

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TheTimesTribune.com

[Local News]

LARRY STROUD: "What the...?"
guardonline.com

Opinion & Editorial

The Marked Rock in Rawlings-Stinson Park in Manchester, Ky., contains numerous inscriptions that, according to a sign erected beside the big stone, offer messages in at least eight Old World alphabets.

“These alphabets were extinct when Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492,” the sign states. “The alphabets are first century Greek and Hebrew, Old Libyan, Old Arabic and Iberian-Punic which probably dates from the 9th century B.C.; Ogam, Germanic runes and Tiffinag-Numidian are also on this stone.”

The stone, which fell from a cliff onto Kentucky state Highway 66 near the community of Eriline in Clay County on Dec. 7, 1994, is also known as the Red Bird Petroglyphs. Five years before it fell, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Red Bird River Shelter Petroglyphs. It is approximately 18 feet long and slightly more than four feet tall, and about 2.6 feet thick.

The inscriptions may have been made hundreds of years apart. The makers of the sign in Rawlings-Stinson Park give no indication of who interpreted these inscriptions or what their qualifications were to do so. One inscription is, according to the sign, a first century Christian monogram in Hebrew and Greek letters; it means “Jesus Christ Son of the Father.”

Another is said to be an Ogam rebus in the Gaelic language that means “the right hand of God.” Having seen a number of pictures or drawings of other ancient rebus inscriptions, it looks to me that could be an accurate interpretation. A rebus, of course, is a puzzle consisting of words or pictures. If you wrote the word Catfish and made the C look like the catfish’s head, and somehow made the h look like its tail, stringing the other letters, in order in the middle to represent its body, that would be a rebus. At least, it would be one style of rebus.

The late Gloria Farley found an apparently ancient rebus petroglyph of a ship in Picture Canyon, Colo., in 1973. The late Berry Fell interpreted the writing, which he said was ancient Berber connected with Numidian letters, to say “Ship of Ra.” The remaining five inscriptions discussed on the Red Bird Petroglyph sign are said to be contain the name of the Egyptian sun god Ra in various languages, with one having been “carved here by Nile mariners.”

The Red Bird rock is another in a long line of ancient inscriptions in the Americas. Archaeologists, by and large, pay these ancient writings no attention whatsoever. Most are interested only in looking the other way, at least partly in order to safeguard grants that pay them to peck around in American Indian sites.

Probably the best Internet site for readers wanting to take a look for information about the “marked,” “Red Bird” rock is the penelope.uchicago.edu site. The entire Web address is too long to reproduce here; just Google “Marked Rock” “Ky” and look for the penelope site among the Google offerings. In most other countries, when such a phenomenon is reported, archaeologists are sent to investigate and make a report. But not in this Columbus-worshipping country.

Larry Stroud is the associate editor of the Batesville Daily Guard. He can be reached at [e-mail].

A closeup view of the ancient drawings on the "rock" on display at Rawlings Stinson Park. Photos by the Mayor.