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Today's News for April 24, 2007System NewsState News National News Legislative Update Photo of the Day 'Mikado' to open Friday at WKCTC 4/22/2007 Paducah Sun "The Mikado," Gilbert and Sullivan's musical comedy, will be staged next weekend at West Kentucky Community & Technical College's Clemens Fine Arts Center. Curtain times will be 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. April 29. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 students and children. "The Mikado," or "The Town of Titipu," is the timeless tale of two young lovers, Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum, whose romance remains unfulfilled due to countless obstacles. The fun begins with Nanki-Poo, the son of Japan's Emperor (the Mikado), fleeing an arranged marriage to a homely older woman, Katisha. Nanki-Poo arrives in the town of Titipu disguised as a minstrel in order to pry Yum-Yum away from her insidious guardian, Ko-Ko. The melodrama is compounded when the Mikado and the forsaken bride arrive in the once-peaceful town. Heading the cast are Lee Gottschalk as The Mikado of Japan, Joseph Mahoney as Nanki-Poo, Janet Bloomingburg as Yum-Yum and Donald Maley as Ko-Ko. A 10 a.m. matinee on Friday is available to schools and community groups at $4 per person. Information: 534-3212. Adam Martin places in Skills USA Automotive Technology competition in Louisville 4/18/2007 Mountain Citizen, Inez Adam Martin, an Automotive Technology student from the Pikeville Campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC) brought home a bronze medal last week from the State Skills USA competition in Louisville,KY. Adam is the son of Lorraine Martin of Drift, KY. He is a sophomore at BSCTC and will graduate in May, 2007. After graduation Adam plans to open his own business locally, repairing and working on automobiles. Lorraine Martin, Adam's mother said, "I am so proud of Adam. He has always loved working with his hands. He loves mechanics, building cars and plans to operate his own shop." Ms. Martin is a Social Worker for Community Based Services in Paintsville, KY. Skills USA, formerly known as VICA, is an professional student organization that showcases skills in technical fields and leadership. Students build and demonstrate skills through professionalism in the classroom and competitions at local, district, state and national levels. Skills USA is an opportunity for students to set goals and strive for excellence, a chance to shine among their peers at many levels. Students who participate in the Skills USA experience are better students, employees and members of the community because of their commitment to work ethics and job place success. BSCTC has recently reintroduced Skills USA to many of their classrooms in an effort to promote leadership and professionalism. Adam Martin is an example of excellence among the BSCTC graduates. Forrest Stewardson, Professor of Automotive Technology at BSCTC said, "I am so proud of Adam Martin. I know he will succeed in whatever direction he chooses to take his career. Skills USA has made a big difference in his life." Addington spends day saying her goodbyes - Tenure as OCTC president ends after 10 years Writer: Joy Campbell 4/24/2007 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer The board room in the administration building at Owensboro Community & Technical College was commandeered Monday as a receiving room for outgoing president Jacqueline Addington. On the conference table were scrapbooks that told the stories of her past life at OCTC, as well as framed pictures of two smiling grandchildren that represent a big part of her future. She was saying goodbyes on her last official day of a 10-year run and capping a career that spans more than 30 years. "My smart husband has allowed me to do what I needed to do in my career, but it's time for us to get along with the next phase of our lives," Addington said between visits with faculty, staff and board members. Addington announced her retirement last April and agreed to stay until her replacement was hired. Paula Gastenveld steps in today as the college's fourth president. "It's been over a year," she said. "While it's no less painful, my staff and I have had a chance to get used to the idea of my leaving. ... They've been my family." Addington is moving to Houston when her house is sold. She and her husband, Jerry Glover, will live four doors down from their daughter, Jill Jackson, the mother of those 2-year-old twin grandchildren, Catherine and Caroline, who have been beckoning. "She has been the best person to work for," said Linda Calhoun, her administrative assistant for all of the 10 years. "She has been like a mother to me. ... I lost my mother three years after I started working for her." Calhoun said Addington's leadership style -- caring and understanding while modeling success -- are what have made her so endearing. "During consolidation (of the community and technical colleges) she worked so hard, traveling to all three campuses and listening to concerns," Calhoun said. "If not for that, the transition would not have been so smooth." Addington recalled consolidation as one of the highlights of her OCTC career. "We had such wonderful faculty at both, and they learned from each other," she said. "At first they were fearful because they didn't know what each other did." She's also proud that OCTC established a College Assembly right after consolidation that includes both faculty and staff members. "A lot of colleges have college assemblies for faculty, but both faculty and staff play important roles in the governance of the college," Addington said. Other notable times for Addington are those centered around construction of the Advanced Technology Center, which has been more than 10 years in the making. Addington said she had hoped that project would go a lot more smoothly. The project was originally planned to have dedicated space for Western Kentucky University, but the legislature split it in half. The state allocated $13 million with second-phase funding nixed last year by Gov. Ernie Fletcher. The new center will teach cutting-edge manufacturing technology skills in the classroom and provide a factory lab where students will move a product from the design phase to production. "If there is one thing I am, it's persistent, and other people here have also been persistent," she said. "A lot of people recognize how crucial it is to have the focus on technology and for a four-year, public institution. This community is overwhelming when it decides it wants something; that's one of the joys of working here." Stacy Edds-Ellis, director of Discover College, and Christi Midkiff, director of grants, said the retiring president has been a role model for them. "She's one of the hardest-working people I know," Midkiff said. "And she cares a lot about students." Vickie Hayden, a student who also works at the college, said Addington inspired her and convinced her she can accomplish her goals. "I hope to go into elementary education, and every time I doubt myself, she says, 'Look at your GPA -- stop that,' " Hayden said. Mary Durr works at the switchboard near Addington's office. "She could be tough, and also kind and sweet and gentle, and you have to have that balance," Durr said. BSCTC "Serenade" performs at Pikeville United Methodist Church 4/18/2007 Mountain Citizen, Inez Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC) was pleased to present the Pike County debut of Serenade, a new community-based singing group, at Holy Week services at the Pikeville United Methodist Church on Monday, April 2, 2007. The group performed two selections including "I Can Only Imagine," and "When You Believe." Serenade is a female ensemble comprised of BSCTC students, high school students, and community members who are chosen through an audition process and are also made part of the larger community female chorus, InHarmony. In addition to InHarmony and Serenade, BSCTC also boasts The Big Sandy Singers, the Big Sandy Idol Program, and children and adult theatre troupes. Members of Serenade (from left) include Melanie Stapleton, Ashley Hall, Melissa Hicks, Kelly Powers, Terri Tipton, Brandi Brown, Rachael Hayes, and Director Laura Ford Hall. Serenade will be performing in concert, along with The Big Sandy Singers, InHarmony, and Big Sandy Idol winners at the Mountain Arts Center on Friday April 27, 2007 at 7:00 PM; tickets are $5.00 and are available at the door. BSCTC & the MAC present East Kentucky Live: A Concert for Music Education, April 27 4/18/2007 Mountain Citizen, Inez Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC), along with the Mountain Arts Center, will present East Kentucky Live: A Concert for Music Education on April 27, at 7:00 PM at the Mountain Arts Center. Admission is $5. The concert will feature BSCTC's Big Sandy Singers, InHarmony Women's Community Chorus, Serenade, and the 2007 Big Sandy Idol (high school vocal talent scholarship competition) winners. The Big Sandy Singers will present a variety show of pop, country, and gospel music. The Singers is the elite, auditioned, student singing group directed by BSCTC Instructor and veteran Kentucky Opry member Laura Ford Hall, with Timothy Cooley - album producer and technical director, and Kentucky Opry member Clayton Case, assistant director. The group released its first album, "Down to the River to Pray," last March and have sold over 1,000 albums, with all proceeds benefiting the college music and drama department and music scholarships. This December, the Singers released their second album "Going Home," and will be performing the songs from the album live, including "Boondocks," "Some Gave All," and "I Have a Father." The Singers have performed several times on WYMT, at the Eastern Kentucky Exposition Center and previously at the Mountain Arts Center as well as many other venues. The group also takes shows into area high schools and elementary schools, presenting a "go to college" and "drug free" message. InHarmony will be presenting several selections including "Fields of Gold," "Lean on Me," "My Guy," and a medley from the movie "My Best Friend's Wedding," along with several other pieces. InHarmony is a female, community-based singing group whose members consist of BSCTC students, faculty, staff, and members of our eastern Kentucky community. Hall also serves as director for the choir, with Cooley as technical director. Mountain Arts Center Kentucky Opry Orchestra pianist Alicia Hughes serves as the accompanist for the choir. Serenade is a female singing group comprised of community members who audition for their position in the ensemble. Serenade will be performing selections such as "I Can Only Imagine," and "When You Believe." Admission is $5.00 or a donation of your choice. All proceeds will go to the BSCTC Music and Drama Club, which helps to fund the performing arts programs at the college. Everyone is invited to attend! The weekend following the concert, Saturday, May 5, auditions will be held for The Big Sandy Singers. Anyone eligible to enroll in college for the 2007 fall semester, is eligible to audition. Those chosen will receive a $1,200.00 scholarship to attend BSCTC and album recording experience, with the option to make a free solo album. Those interested in auditioning are encouraged to attend the Big Sandy Singers concert on April 27, and then to arrive at Gearheart Auditorium on the Prestonsburg Campus between the hours of noon and 5 PM on the 5th. Auditionees will be taken on a first come, first served basis. For more information, call Laura Hall at 889-4764. Chris McCarron Writer: Maryjean Wall 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Students attending the North American Racing Academy receive hands-on training from a Hall of Fame jockey. Here is a look at Chris McCarron's career: * McCarron won the Kentucky Derby twice: on Alysheba (1987) and Go for Gin (1994). * He also won two jockey Eclipse Awards, nine Breeders' Cup races and major stakes races on 12 Eclipse Award champions. * The champions he rode included Alysheba, John Henry, Paseana, Precisionist, Lady's Secret, Sunday Silence, Flawlessly, Glorious Song, Turkoman, Bayakoa, Northern Spur and Tiznow. * McCarron has won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes twice and has won virtually every major race in North America. * Beginning jockeys might find it interesting that McCarron finished last in his first professional ride at Bowie Race Course in Maryland in 1974. But over his 28-year career, McCarron set records for races won and money won. The first jockey to reach the $200 million level in earnings for horses he rode, McCarron retired in 2002 as the all-time leader in that category with more than $260 million in purse earnings. Crowd trolls for food at fundraiser Writer: Doug Waters 4/20/2007 Bowling Green Daily News Nearly 800 people swarmed the Sloan Convention Center on Thursday night to get a taste of the city's offerings and to benefit charity. The Kentucky Restaurant Association's annual Taste of Bowling Green featured 39 vendors, live music by Skip Bond and the Fugitives, and an auction that raised $800 for The Dream Factory, a national organization that grants dreams to chronically and critically ill children. Proceeds from the $35 tickets benefit the charity and the event has raised more than $80,000 for it in the past five years, said Tyler Bronger, past president of KRA's southcentral chapter. Although ticket sales weren't tallied by this morning, he said 28 patron sponsors each contributed $200 and 11 table sponsors each gave $1,000 for a total of $16,600. This year, Wha Bah Steelhorse Ranch won the best decorated booth contest among vendors, followed by the Hartland Cafe inside the Holiday Inn and Bowling Green Technical College's Culinary Arts Program. The contest is a way to reward vendors that "go above and beyond" normal table decor, Bronger said. There is no best-tasting food competition, he added, because the restaurant association believes "everyone brings delicious food." Kristy Jones, 22, of Bowling Green noted that it's easy to overeat at the event, as she returned to her table with a plate stocked with food from the Culinary Arts program's table. She said last year's event was a bit stressful because she couldn't secure a table, but this year she made some strategic changes. "I use my husband to carry my stuff around," Jones said. Robert Douthitt, a culinary arts student, said his school's table had an "around the world theme," with foods from Germany, Italy, Greece, India and Australia. He said the school's goal was "to show off what we can do - a lot of people don't look at us like a top name" among culinary programs. Byron Palmiter, assistant manager of Tumbleweed Restaurant & Grill, recommended that people pace themselves for a long night of eating as they strolled through a thick crowd. Admittedly biased about Tumbleweed, he said Wha Bah's food was also worthy of sampling. Kevin Dillard, 32, of Bowling Green said while there was no shortage of food to forage, the event also represents a chance to see people, such as old high school friends and family friends, that he seldom gets to visit anymore. "It's almost like a family reunion when you come here," Dillard added. Also on hand was Anne Bunger, national director of The Dream Factory. She called Taste of Bowling Green "amazing," as it compares favorably to other events she's attended in other places. Bunger said 70 percent of children who the charity helps request trips to Disney World. Other popular wishes granted are chances to meet American Idol contestants and professional athletes. Some teenagers even opt to go on an electronics spending spree, she said. Dunn emphasizes fundraising, Murray campus improvements Writer: Leigh Landini Wright 4/21/2007 Paducah Sun MURRAY, Ky. -- Amid the academic pomp and circumstance of his inauguration, Murray State University President Randy Dunn outlined key goals for his tenure, including examining new higher education facilities in Paducah. Dunn unveiled his plans as he was installed as the school's 11th president during ceremonies Friday afternoon inside Lovett Auditorium. Among his plans are a capital campaign, which could begin as soon as this fall; emphasis on a regional stewardship program; emphasis on the Harry Lee Waterfield Library; discussion of continuing improvements in the housing complex, and emphasis on the extended campuses in Henderson, Madisonville, Hopkinsville and Paducah. "We must look at our facility in Paducah and assure that the facility is sufficient," he said. He then commented to West Kentucky Community & Technical College President Barbara Veazey, seated on the front row, that Murray is looking forward to working with the Paducah college and community. After the ceremony, Veazey said WKCTC and MSU are cooperating on projects, including the art school proposed for Lower Town and a postsecondary education building on the campus of WKCTC. Mentioning that Kentucky has seen a significant increase in the Hispanic population, Dunn said he wants to increase diversity on the Murray campus, including bringing in more minority faculty members. "We must broaden our reach to welcome more Latino students to our college campuses," he said. While praising Murray's accomplishments, Dunn said the university will roll out a capital campaign. The university held a capital campaign 10 years ago, but Dunn said the first major fundraiser came in 1922 when Rainey T. Wells embarked on a campaign to raise $100,000 for his dream of a college campus in western Kentucky. Looking through the school's history, Dunn said the to-do list of the first president, John W. Carr, is similar to those of modern presidents -- recruiting faculty, building facilities, advertising the school and canvassing for students. "As I look at these three areas -- excellence, community and partnerships -- the common thread that runs through these is outreach," he said, noting that Carr wrote in "Recollections" that his to-do list was not impossible back then. "It can be done, and it will be done for Murray." Fit riders have a lot to digest - No more killer laxatives or quack-doctor gimmicks; future jockeys learning to eat smart and stay strong Writer: Maryjean Wall 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader The mad scientist who frequented the jockeys' locker room at Tijuana racetrack was a quack in a white coat. He was fortunate not to have wiped out the riding colony. You might remember him -- and his home brew called Slim Jim -- from Laura Hillenbrand's best-seller, Seabiscuit, An American Legend. As Hillenbrand wrote, Slim Jim was a laxative intended for rapid weight loss, a "bowel scourer (that) proved to be so fabulously potent that bottles of it spontaneously exploded in the jockeys' room lavatory." "It'd kill you," Hillenbrand quoted a former rider saying. The chapter from Seabiscuit that described the methods jockeys have used to lose weight was assigned reading this winter for students in Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy. Jockeys from the Seabiscuit era resorted to every "designer" weight-loss method they had available in the 1930s. They ate the eggs of tape worms, hoping the parasite would hatch inside their innards and eat away the fat. They sweated in Turkish baths. They donned rubber suits and jogged for miles. They drank Epsom salts. They regurgitated their meals. "Most walked around in a state of critical dehydration and malnutrition and as a result were irritable, volatile, light-headed, bleary, nauseated, gaunt, and crampy," Hillenbrand wrote. "How prevalent is flipping?" one of the students in McCarron's school for jockeys and horsemen asked during class. The instant answer was that flipping remains very much in vogue, some 70 years after Seabiscuit's reign. Flipping -- also called heaving -- is the self-induced vomiting that takes place daily in jockeys' rooms everywhere. Along with the sauna, heaving is the most popular form of weight management among riders. Heaving is one practice McCarron hopes his student jockeys will avoid when they become professional riders. Proper nutrition and weight-loss methods were high on his list of goals for this inaugural class of students. All the same, McCarron and other instructors in this two-year course realize the prevailing culture in jockeys' rooms will pose a huge temptation for these students to lapse into unhealthy roles. For this reason, Reid McLellan, Ph.D., told the students as they were discussing the Seabiscuit chapter: "You're going to be around it every day in the jocks' room. Somebody's going to say to you, 'You don't have to worry about what you eat. You can go eat all the turkey and dressing and cornbread you want to, then throw it all up. It's no problem.' "It's not a problem until you get to your 30s and 40s and you've got the body of a 90-year-old," McLellan warned them. As a longtime horse trainer, professor, and co-developer of the Groom Elite certification program for racehorse grooms, he's familiar with the hazards of extreme weight-loss methods that jockeys use. The instructor for the nutrition class, Carolyn Dennis of Georgetown, then led the group in their textbook to the appropriate page concerning self-induced vomiting. "Got highlighter? Underline this," Dennis said, reading from the book: "'Even when vomiting follows the binge, 33 percent to 75 percent of the calories taken in are still absorbed, still causing some weight gain." Heaving is not the answer to weight loss that most jockeys think it is, Dennis reiterated. It's a mistake to think of it as a way to take off pounds. A healthy way of life McCarron, the retired Hall of Fame rider whose dream was to open a jockey school, started his program last fall with 11 students. Ten remain in the school. Those who graduate from the two-year program will get an associate's degree in 2008 from the Kentucky Community Technical College System. The second class will be enrolled next September. The majority of this first group had never ridden a horse when they began the program last September. But, beginning in January, they had progressed far enough to start galloping ex-racehorses on the track at The Thoroughbred Center on Paris Pike. They spent last fall learning to ride at the Kentucky Horse Park. McCarron never intended for riding to be the only skill they learn in this program, however. The students also spend time in the classroom. During this past winter trimester, they studied nutrition for the first half and equine reproduction for the remaining eight weeks, which end this month. They also had an eight-week course on the horse industry. Since the program began, McCarron has worried in particular about his students' eating habits. He was delighted when Dennis, the nutrition instructor, began bringing low-calorie breakfasts to class for the students to sample. The idea was to demonstrate what a healthy breakfast looks like. Breakfast turned out to be a great idea because class started at 7:30 a.m., after the students had already fed the horses under their care. One day, breakfast was fresh clementines served alongside whole wheat toast spread with goat cheese. Another day, Dennis brought cereals and a variety of fruit juices. Still another day, she offered the students boiled eggs and grapes. Her core philosophy was trying to find practicality in a fast-food world. "We all live in a world where convenience matters," Dennis said. "But there are some simple things you can do." She stressed repeatedly that healthy weight management is about adjusting your diet for the long haul, "so you don't have to resort to flipping." "The whole purpose of these eight weeks is to show why eating more healthfully has to be integrated into your lives," Dennis told her students. Health vs. convenience Dennis is a registered dietitian who retired in 2005 after 22 years with the Lexington-Fayette County Public Health Department. One of her projects, as a consultant and nutrition advocate who continues to work in her field, was to lead a task force that successfully urged the Kentucky House of Representatives to pass a bill in 2005 prohibiting soda in elementary school vending machines. In Frankfort, Dennis said, some people called her the nutrition Nazi. But at jockey school, the students said they liked the way she taught her course. "One thing I'm trying to impress on them is that for them to be the best athletes they can be, they have to learn how to take good care of their bodies, to be in peak condition," Dennis said. "The food they put into that, the fuel, is going to affect their stamina, their performance, and how susceptible they are to illness." Thus, the students learned the Carolyn Dennis whole foods way of eating healthy -- or the jockey-turned Hall of Fame trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons way, as told in Seabiscuit. His typical dinner during his riding career consisted of no more than a leaf or two of lettuce, eaten only after he let the lettuce sit all day on a window sill to dry the water out of it. One morning, student jockey Jackie Davis, whose father is retired New York jockey Robbie Davis, brought an energy bar to class -- and a practical question with it. Would this be something practical to eat for a hurry-up breakfast, she asked? To make this determination, Dennis led the class in analyzing the nutritional label. Reading labels was one of the first things they learned in this course. Their conclusion: pretty decent on the calories, not horrible on the sugar, sort of lacking in fiber, but with vitamins thrown in and with a lot of protein. "Since it's lower in fat and higher in protein, it probably sticks with you awhile," Dennis said. "I don't see anything harmful in this. My biggest concern is that they're about $2 each, so if you're having one every morning, that's $14 a week. A lot of you say you don't have a lot of money to throw away, so I'm wondering, how much food would $14 buy?" They considered the options, trying to find balance between healthy food and convenience. The price of seven of these bars might buy a bottle of vitamins and a box of cereal or some fruit. "On the other hand, it's probably not as convenient," Dennis agreed with the students. "They're not the worst snack you could have, and they beat the heck out of a candy bar or potato chips." The merits of strength When asked what skills jockeys must acquire in order to ride, McCarron said there is much more to this learning curve than people realize. "It's a lot more than just going out there and getting on a horse's back and warming him up in the post parade and getting in the gate and going," he said. This is why he designed a two-year course, including internships, for his students. In no way would three months of practice on a horse be enough to develop the necessary skills, McCarron said. Before they mount up for each morning's ride, the students adjust the radio equipment they wear to keep in constant contact on the track with McCarron and McLellan. McCarron usually goes out on horseback with the students. McLellan stands next to the rail, watching through binoculars. Both men encourage, advise, and correct the riders over their radios as the jockey wannabes roll around the track on retired racehorses. A mounted outrider, Susan Shurtleff -- the patrol person on the track -- stands by on her fast horse, ready to rescue runoffs. The students have worked hard over the winter to learn how to control their mounts at a gallop, to keep them from running off. They have to learn to use their entire body. They cannot rely on just their hands or their arms. Beginning riders tend to pull against a horse that is pulling away from the rider. It's a futile effort. "They don't have maybe 15 or 20 seconds of pull, and their arms are gone," McLellan said. When that happens, the horse takes control away from the rider. "I may have 15 or 20 seconds longer than they (the students) do," said McLellan, whose 240 pounds give him more strength than the jockey students. "But pretty soon, my arms are going to be spaghetti, too," he said. You cannot outmuscle a horse. "They have to learn how to use all of the body, the legs, their hands and their arms to get that horse under control," McLellan said. The goal is "to figure a way to handle this thousand-pound machine, because it doesn't make any difference how big and strong the rider is, he's a thousand pounds, and if he's going to take off and run 40 miles an hour, he's going." Now it is making sense to the students why McCarron was so insistent last fall that they develop body strength through exercise. As spring came to the Bluegrass, the students were progressing so well that, the day before the trimester ended last week, McCarron allowed each of them to breeze a horse in a speed drill for one-quarter of a mile. McCarron decided they were able to control their horses so well that the breeze came in April instead of May as he had originally planned. "I thought how nice it would be to do this before they went home (for their two-week spring break)," he said. The students had another glimpse into the future on a field trip to Darley at Jonabell in their horse industry class, taught by Dan Fick and Remi Bellocq. They were looking over the young stallion, Bernardini, when a horse breeder from Lexington, Robert Courtney Jr., also looking, turned around to say hello to them. "One day, one of you folks will have an opportunity to ride a horse like this," Courtney said, referring to Bernardini, champion 3-year-old last season. The question everyone wondered about this inaugural class was which of the group that person might turn out to be. Hardwick, Tarter will be honored Writer: Patricia WilesMessenger 4/24/2007 Madisonville Messenger The Madisonville Lions Club will honor two of Hopkins County's most energetic do-gooders at Thursday's annual awards dinner. Noel Hardwick of White Plains and Retha Tarter of Madisonville were selected for the club's Man and Woman of the Year awards. Tarter is the Ticket Services Coordinator at the Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, and as volunteer coordinator manages the center's 180 unpaid helpers. When she was notified of the honor she was "shocked, then humbled," she said. Tarter's involvement in the arts goes beyond county borders. She is a member of the Appalachian-Kentucky Artisans Gateway Center Authority Board and was appointed by Gov. Ernie Fletcher to the Kentucky Arts Council board of directors. Tarter has been the Kentucky Dental Assistant of the Year and served as president of the Kentucky Dental Assistants Association. She is a past president and Woman of the Year of the local Business and Professional Women club. She is on the Madisonville Community College Lions Club board of directors, the banquet coordinator for the Hopkins County Red Cross's 90th anniversary celebration and serves as Sunday school secretary at Grapevine Baptist Church. "The Lions Club motto is 'we serve,'" Tarter said. "All of us have talents, we just have to put those talents to use." Tarter said her family, friends, work opportunities and her church sustain her. "Anything I have accomplished has only been through the support I've received--especially from my husband and children," she said. Glema Mahr, the arts center's namesake, is Tarter's source of inspiration. "I try to follow in her footsteps," she said. The club's Man of the Year was surprised to learn he'd been chosen for the award. "I was totally caught off-guard ... I didn't have a clue," Hardwick said. Nomination letters submitted on Hardwick's behalf noted his years of service as White Plains city commissioner, as a board member of the YMCA and Habitat for Humanity of Hopkins County and past president of the Madisonville Lions Club. His most recent efforts have been devoted to the Hopkins County Long Term Disaster Recovery Corp., in which he serves as volunteer chairman. Hardwick credits his father and grandfather for teaching him to honor his civic responsibilities. They taught that being blessed "goes beyond taking care of your family," he said. "An excuse is the easiest thing in the world to make up" as to why you can't be on a committee or serve your community, Hardwick said. Hardwick said it was a "tremendous honor" to be chosen. "All you have to do is go down the list of people that have been selected and it's pretty humbling to say that I've been included," he said. The awards dinner is $10 per person and begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. The public is invited to attend. In My View - Success in college takes goal-setting Writer: Katie Keller 4/24/2007 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer Note: Katie Keller partiipated in the Discover College campus-based transfer program at Owensboro Community and Technical College. She is graduate of Daviess County High School and a sophomore at the University of Kentucky. The transition between high school and college is one of the biggest changes anyone will ever have to face. Leaving the comforts of a small town and a life of simplicity can be especially tough when a student is unprepared for the huge leap. As I finish my second year at the University of Kentucky, I thought it important to share my tips for beginning college on the right foot. The first step to a successful college career is to begin building habits for success. Studying is one of the most important things a person can do to stay up with the challenges of a college curriculum. On my first day of Biology 102, my professor told us for every hour in the classroom we should spend two hours studying outside the classroom. I will not claim to maintain this rule, but simply getting ahead on projects and tests by looking over your notes every day can help in being prepared. Communication skills make the transition a little easier from high school to college. From my personal experience, moving to Lexington was not much of a jump from what most consider a small town. On a campus with more than 24,000 undergraduate students, it is important to get to know your professors and teacher assistants. Talking to a professor allows the instructor to pick a face from a crowd in 500- and 600-person classes and will allow them to make a connection if you ever need a little extra help. A big step for many young people is adapting to life beyond home. I will be the first to tell you that I thought I was ready to move on from the walls of my high school, but now that I've been away from my comfort zone for a few years, I can't help but look back and wish I had taken more advantage of it. Life in college is a growing and a learning period. Yes, you will gain weight if you do not eat healthy and exercise. The parties you may or may not partake in will not help you with the waistline or grades! Home-cooked meals have never tasted better on Thanksgiving and Christmas; do not ever take them for granted. The first year of college separates the serious students from the ones that may need another year at home. High school is the time to get prepared. A tragic idea many parents and students think is a rite of passage is the senior year slack. Never should a person ever believe the idea that a student's senior year of high school should be a break. If three years were enough to ready a person for a collegiate career, why are four years of high school required to graduate? I had the opportunity to benefit from the early college program when I was a senior, allowing me to bring 15 college credit hours to start my educational career at UK. If anyone is counting, that is a full semester out of the way -- a full semester for which my parents did not have to pay university tuition and a jump-start on the level of a college curriculum. Another great program in our nation's schools is the advanced placement classes. If a high school student finishes with his or her regular classes, push for excellence with a tougher course. The six advanced placement classes I took in high school taught me valuable lessons in study skills and gave me an opportunity to earn even more college credit with the AP tests at the end of the course. Both programs I have mentioned prepare students for the demands of a college atmosphere and are necessary for a senior to prepare for college. Being prepared does not fall only on the student's shoulders. It is important that every person in a student's life push for personal goal-setting, good study habits and simply forming good life habits as well. The school staff should be available for students in need. High schools need to offer services or classes to help underperforming students to grade level, and they need to start early. Basic skills need to be taught in school as soon as students enter secondary education. Counselors, teachers, faculty and parents all should be available to help students form essential habits for success. The last advice I can give is to refuse to settle for mediocrity. Absolutely no one should accept anything but excellence in goal-setting, homework assignments, tests, application for college and eventually applying for jobs. What you do today will affect your future, and there is no room to be average. No one rises to low expectations. Good luck in everything you do! In wake of Va. Tech tragedy: Just in case - schools' security plans in place Writer: Jeff Noble 4/19/2007 Breathitt County Voice, Jackson Throughout this week, the scenes painted from the awful events in the Blue Ridge of Virginia leave a deep scar on the American soul. As we write, 33 persons, including the gunman, have died as a result of the senseless shootings on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. Now a school and community grieve. Students, parents and friends are beginning the long healing process. And once more, we as a nation ask the one-word question. Why? Here in our county, and elsewhere, school administrators ask the question no one wants to hear. What if? The schools the Voice talked to this week have plans and steps in order, in the event something like what happened in our neighboring state should ever occur, God forbid. "Do we have a security plan? Absolutely," said Tim Johnson, who's the Safe Schools Coordinator for the Breathitt County School system. "In fact, we have plans that cover not just persons invading the schools, but for weather events like tornadoes and floods, earthquakes, and even falling aircraft. It's a sign of the times, but we've had "lockdown" drills, and have practiced them, ever since the Columbine school shootings in Colorado back in 1999." Johnson added that those lockdown drills are rehearsed regularly, as an attempt to limit an intruder as they enter the school premises. "We've got personnel who are screened to watch for unusual activity from anyone suspicious, we have video cameras in place at key locations. Most of all we have a plan to take action, and who to contact and work with, to keep our students, our teachers, and our staff safe. Just in case." "We were the ones that initiated the lockdown proceedures, and we passed it on down to (State Representative) Ted Edmonds in Frankfort. He made that mandatory at schools statewide," said Jackson Independent Schools Superintendent Tim Spencer. "We practice lockdown drills at City School, and we'll do another one in a few days. All doors are locked except the main door, and you have to use a keypad to get in. We have cameras to keep an eye out on suspicious activity, and codewords that teachers know. I hope and pray we never have to do it in real life, just in a drill." "We're a safe campus, thanks to students, faculty, staff and the community at large. However, we do understand that we're not exempt from catastrophic events like the one at Virginia Tech," noted Doug Fraley, who's the Vice-President for Student Services at Hazard Community and Technical College. The Lees Campus in Jackson falls under Fraley's watch, and he told the Voice, "We're constantly revising and updating our safety and security plan as circumstances change. We have three active work groups to address those needs - the Safety Committee, the Crisis Management Team, and the Pandemic Flu Team. We have excellent working relationships with police, fire, and sheriff's departments. Our classrooms have a phone where students can dial 9-1-1 from. And we have a safety manual that will be reviewed, as will all our proceedures due to the recent events." Fraley also said that the Lees Campus dorms have electronic key passes and security cameras, to monitor unusual activity. The need for security has also worked its way down to smaller schools, such as Oakdale Christian Academy. "The majority of our buildings have alarms, and we do have a campus-wide Neighborhood Watch," said Chris Peterson, who's the Business Administrator at Oakdale. "When a visitor checks into the office, they are given a badge, so we can tell right away if they're supposed to be there." Responses from Riverside Christian School, Mt. Carmel High School, and Kentucky Mountain Bible College were unavailable at press time. The schools were contacted by the Voice on Tuesday morning, in order for them to be part of this story. Like the rest of the nation, the educational community in Breathitt County continues to reach out to their bretheren in Virginia, as more about the events on Monday continue to play out in front of us. "It is an unbelieveable tragedy at Blacksburg, and our hearts and prayers go out to all those affected," said Johnson. "The events at Virginia Tech have reminded us just how fragile life is. We hold a heavy heart, and pray for those affected to find comfort in these trying times," added Spencer. "We have placed bows with Virginia Tech colors - maroon, orange and white - on doors of the Lees Campus, and we're circulating a banner to be signed by our community, expressing our condolences," noted Fraley. "We will send that to Virginia Tech. We realize their pain, and wish them peace and hope over the coming weeks, days and years." It's turn off the TV week - Get to know your family Writer: Lori Harrison 4/22/2007 Madisonville Messenger A variety of activities next week are geared toward just one goal -- getting families to turn off their TV sets. "It's a good time for parents to spend time with their kids," said James Larmouth Family Resource Center coordinator Janet Nichols. National TV-Turnoff Week, which runs from Monday through April 29, coincides with the first week of Commonwealth Accountability Testing System assessments. Local organizers are encouraging people to "Turn off the TV for testing." Activities are planned from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday at Parkway Plaza Mall. Here is the schedule: Monday -- "Let's Get Physical" night, featuring cheerleaders, dance team, karaoke, ballroom dancing, karate demonstration, healthy foods and tattoos for the whole family. Winners of the essay and poster contests will be announced. Tuesday -- "Homemade Fun" will include line dancing, a family trivia game, reading/PJ party, arts and crafts, MADD Hatter Tea Party, spelling bee, and basic aid training. Wednesday -- "Church Night" will feature events offered by different churches. Thursday -- "Taste of Culture/Let's Get Tasty" will involve the tasting of different breads and foods, dancing, getting in shape for summer, hip hop or step team dancing, and Red Cross First Aid training. A clue for an alphabet scavenger hunt, sponsored by Madisonville Housing Authority and Concerned Citizens Society, will be given out each night. Organizers hope the events will help reduce stress related to testing. "The other states they've done it in have seen improvement in test scores and bringing families together -- not right away, but over the long period," Nichols said. "I think, too, while we're doing it, it will relieve some of the nervousness from the kids thinking about testing. They're going to be out there enjoying themselves, but a lot of the activities are education, and it's going to help them figure out things on the test." Other local sponsors include Adult Centers for Educational Excellence family literacy, Audubon Area Head Start, Hayes Karate, Hopkins County Schools/Family Resource Youth Service Centers, Hopkins County Board of Education School Dads program, Hopkins County Health Department, Madisonville Community College, Hopkins County-Madisonville Public Library, Pennyrile Allied Community Service Nutrition Program and MCC's Rhoads Scholars. JOCKY SCHOOL: Falling off their studies - Students in new jockey training program learn to get back up on their horses and ride Writer: Maryjean Wall 4/24/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Jason Truett lay on his back in the dust, his legs sticking straight up in the air. Talk about a bad day. Jockey school at the Kentucky Horse Park was no joy ride for Truett on this cold December afternoon. But his ride wasn't over. Chris McCarron's new North American Racing Academy is no place for wimps. You get back on your horse when you fall off. With McCarron beside him for encouragement, Truett returned to his mount, Deuce, and rode like the jockey he wants to be. Early on, some people questioned whether McCarron's idea for turning young people into jockeys while awarding them a college degree would get out of the starting gate. Now, with the first trimester in this two-year program completed, McCarron's 11 students have progressed from simply learning to ride to riding racehorses at a gallop in open fields. They learned, even if they fell off their mounts occasionally. Falling off is part of riding. Even McCarron, 51, sometimes hit the dust during his long and storied Hall of Fame career. McCarron retired in 2002, worked on the Seabiscuit movie and briefly worked as president of Santa Anita racetrack in California. But for a long time he'd had this idea that he would like to teach aspiring jockeys how to ride. He moved from California to Kentucky. He floated his idea past Keeneland president Nick Nicholson, Kentucky Horse Park executive director John Nicholson and others who shared McCarron's vision for a school. They urged him to go ahead. One huge assist was getting the program set up under the umbrella of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, which will award the associate degrees. The inaugural class of student jockeys began work in September. The next four months would see them studying equine science and horse physiology. During other trimesters they will also study math, science, personal finance, nutrition, computer applications and oral communication. Most of all, they were to learn to ride. Some had never been on a horse. Learning means falling Keep him on the rail. You look like you're drunk-driving. Riding instructor Aimee Knarr was reminding a student to keep a straight course. The jockey wannabes found it hard, in the beginning, to steer their mounts. It's like steering a car. To turn right, you squeeze the right rein or pull with slow, steady pressure downward toward your right knee. When changing gears -- called gaits on a horse -- you try not to pop the clutch. Five days a week, the student jockeys learned by riding in the lesson show rings at the Horse Park. They built up their time from 20 to 30 minutes, when they began on the park's tamed mustangs, to an hour a day on thoroughbreds. McCarron gave most of the lessons, often with help from his daughter, Stephanie, 27. McCarron, speaking: Bring your wrists down closer to his neck, Brad. McCarron, Stephanie, Knarr and Racing Academy projects manager Jennifer Voss-Franco work the lesson rings on foot, reminding the students constantly about proper form. The students need to develop leg strength to ride with their seats balanced on top of, but not in, the saddle. This is the racing position. It's not easy. But it is easy to lose your balance. Every time a rider fell off his horse, someone drew a little horseshoe on the dry-erase board outside that particular horse's stall. A gelding named Toots had collected the most shoes: four. Nearing the end of the trimester, Truett had taken the most falls: six, including one resulting in a black eye. Despite this, he has taken to riding "like a duck to water," according to McCarron. He jokingly called him "Duck." Truett might turn out to have what it takes. Cassie Buckley had the worst fall, breaking an ankle. But she appeared to be getting back into good form before the Christmas break, eager to make up missed time on horseback. She was galloping horses in the fields with her classmates. McCarron is discovering a new side to himself as a teacher. He is articulate, patient with students, and obviously enjoying himself in this role. Like a duck to water, as he said about Truett. McCarron said that, throughout his career, he was accustomed to showing other jockeys how to improve techniques. He was able to demonstrate technique to anyone looking for a better way to change leads -- the horse's leading leg at the gallop -- or how to switch the whip from one hand to the other or pull down another set of goggles. Teaching beginning equitation to the student jockeys was another matter. The basics had become so subconscious to McCarron that he found it hard to articulate these to beginners. He asked his daughter for help. Stephanie McCarron is a show-ring rider and trainer who recently opened her own training barn for hunters and jumpers on the McCarron farm in Scott County. "Stephanie has been such a great help," McCarron said. "It's a lot easier for me now that they're cantering and getting their stirrups pulled up in the position I'm used to being in." McCarron, again: Subtle cues for her, Corey. She's not as lazy as Luke. The thoroughbreds go by names of Luke, Eddie, Lilly, Toots and so on. These are their new names since retirement. Many are offspring of well-known sires, including Conquistador Cielo, Runaway Groom, Bet Twice, Wild Wonder and Malabar Gold. Some people gave horses to McCarron. He got two on loan from the Secretariat Center, operated by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation at the Horse Park. He's looking for more good horses. From worms to bugs Margi Stickney, director of education at the Horse Park, teaches the students their classes in equine science and physiology. On one day, she demonstrated why horses need to receive regular deworming treatments. Stickney passed around jars containing the various types of worms horses harbor in their systems if not properly dewormed. The worms in the jars, big wads of them, look ugly enough to make anyone ill. "Enjoy your lunch," Stickney said, laughing. Back inside the barn on another morning, Reid McLellan, Ph.D., joined veterinarian Duncan Peters in explaining to students about an abscess Lilly picked up in one foot. The injury was not serious, and not uncommon at the track. Peters welcomed the students' questions, for the more they understand about any malady or injury, the better they'll adapt to working at the track. McLellan, whose title is instructional specialist and whom the students call "Doc," manages the students in their barn work -- their class known as racehorse care. He helped McCarron design the program's curriculum. McLellan brought to the program a doctorate in animal breeding and genetics. He was co-developer of the Groom Elite program taught at many racetracks. He has headed up animal science teaching programs and was a racehorse trainer. Soon, the students will begin learning how to talk to owners, trainers, and the media. McCarron wants to polish them. He also wants them to learn to eat properly. Students will receive instruction in nutrition. He and his wife, Judy, are appalled at what the students eat. "Horrible" is how McCarron describes their eating habits. Judy, who once owned and operated a restaurant in San Marino, Calif., called To Dine For, said the jockey hopefuls need to learn how to diet -- and how to cook. One night she took one of the women to the grocery, partly to teach her how to read nutritional labels and how to shop for healthy foods. "She didn't even know those rotisserie chickens are good for you," Judy said. "They think if you eat salads all day long, you're going to get thin." The problem with eating only salads, as Judy explained, is you get hungry and begin eating junk food. And that's not how you maintain a jockey's low weight. McCarron said the jockey hopefuls need to trim down to no more than 107 or 108 pounds if they're to begin their careers with the apprentice weight allowance. The weight allowance, called "the bug," averages out to 5 pounds deducted from the weights their mounts are assigned to carry. Supposedly this makes up for the riders' inexperience. 'A very difficult world' The jockey wannabes move to their Equicizer machines every day after lunch. Their fitness routine is a killer. The Equicizer, developed by former jockey Frank Lovato in New York, simulates riding a horse. The neck bobs. The barrel moves up and down on springs. Jockeys use these machines to get fit after a long layoff. McCarron ordered seven Equicizers for the program. Each one wears the name on its saddle towel of a famous horse McCarron rode: Alysheba, Flawlessly, Alphabet Soup, John Henry, Precisionist, Tiznow and Sunday Silence. McCarron is teaching the students how to ride a race while working their Equicizers. They learn the rhythm of race-riding while watching videos such as the Hollywood Turf Cup that McCarron won on John Henry. They break from an imaginary starting gate, steady their Equicizers down the backstretch, then pick up their speed turning for home. McCarron makes them ride hard toward the finish line. Students sweat and run out of breath. "It's starting to stink in here," one of them said. If McCarron turned his back at all, some students slacked off their pace. They thought he couldn't see them, but they learned he has eyes in the back of his head. McCarron to student, with the John Henry video rolling: "Get your seat down in that saddle." Student to McCarron: "But your butt is up in the air." "And I'm telling you to get yours down," cracks McCarron. The exchange ends. The student reverts to hard riding. He probably won't sass McCarron again. On one particularly bad day, McCarron was exasperated. Students were not getting as fit as he'd wanted. He had been telling them for weeks that they needed to work out at home or at a gym in their free time. The students complained they leave school too tired to work out. "Give them a break. They're just kids," Judy told her husband. "But I can't give them a break," McCarron said. "I'm expecting to thrust them into a man's world, a very difficult world." That also goes for the four women in the program. If they had not gone to this school, the wannabes never would have received such personalized and detailed instruction. At the track, you're on your own if you want to ride a racehorse. You teach yourself and, "It's a literal crash course," said a professional exercise rider, Stephanie Slinger, 20, from Detroit. "A lot of people get hurt," Slinger said. "A lot aren't very good riders. They never learned the right way to do it." McCarron thinks riding in North America has suffered because standardized training has not been available. Horse owners invest millions of dollars in their stables -- only to discover no more than a shallow pool of people competent to ride. One trimester complete The most amazing thing is that no one had opened a jockey school in Lexington before McCarron decided to move here from California. "This country has fallen a little behind," said retired New York jockey Robbie Davis, whose daughter, Jacqueline, is a Racing Academy student. Other countries, from Japan to France to Peru, have jockey schools. The idea was a natural for Lexington, according to horseman Remi Bellocq. He said a core group including Keeneland, the Horse Park, himself, and the Jockey Club had looked into it. But, Bellocq said, "We really needed a catalyst." Their plans stalled -- until McCarron announced he was moving to Kentucky in 2005 to open such a school. The group got behind McCarron. Bellocq, chief executive officer of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association at the Horse Park, now is the Academy's vice president. With the first trimester completed, McCarron's 11 students are moving toward their next step: learning how to gallop a horse on the racetrack. Are they ready for this next phase? Will all of them make it? McCarron was more encouraged when they left for their Christmas break than he had been two weeks earlier -- on the day he "blasted" them, as he described his blowup over their lack of physical fitness. Their horsemanship had really progressed. They also rode their Equicizers much better by the time school had ended. But McCarron warned them that, if they backslid over the holidays, he wouldn't let them take horses onto the track. He knows the horses will pull. The riders will need strength. When they hit the track, these former racehorses are going to have "racing flashbacks," as McCarron put it. School picks up again Monday when class transfers to The Thoroughbred Center on Paris Pike, where there are two racetracks. As they left for the holidays, students signed a Christmas card for their teachers. McCarron will be eager to see how serious they remained about riding over the holidays -- and if they're fit enough when they return to go on to the next step. ABOUT THIS SERIES Since classes opened in September, Herald-Leader racing writer Maryjean Wall has been getting to know the inaugural class of 11 students at Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy. She reports today on their successes and failures during the first trimester and will continue to track their progress as they move toward graduation and potential careers as jockeys over the next year and a half. Kinder College ready for show 4/24/2007 Ashland Daily Independent ASHLAND - Children enrolled in Kinder College at Ashland Community and Technical College will perform a selection of songs at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the ACTC Teleconference Room at the College Drive Campus. Their performance will celebrate "The Week of the Young Child," April 22 to 28, as designated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. In the United States, the majority of mothers with young children work, including 59 percent with infants and 74 percent with school-aged children. The Census Bureau reports about 40 percent of working families rely on child care during their working hours, and many nontraditional students at ACTC rely on child care while they attend classes. Research shows high-quality early childhood programs help children develop the skills they need to succeed in school. ACTC's Foundation is seeking funds for a new Child Development Center to house Kinder College on a site adjacent to the College Drive Campus. The projected cost of the new facility is $1 million. For more information about Kinder College, call Director Jewel Malik at (606) 326-2108. For information about the Child Development Center Initiative, call Frank Salisbury, ACTC director of advancement, at (606) 326-2092. Letter: Make education pay 4/24/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Tuition for Kentucky students at the University of Kentucky is $6,604 a semester, an 83 percent increase since 2001-02. Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart receives a base salary of $3l5,000, plus bonuses of $25,000 to $100,000 every time one of the athletic teams wins in a tournament. Kentucky needs an education commissioner. Our public school system is underfunded by $1.2 billion this year, with many key issues facing our state. More than 1 in 5 high school students do not graduate. Meanwhile, 53 percent of students entering college and technical schools require at least one remedial course. We have a serious education crisis. It doesn't take a brain to figure out that Kentucky has its priorities all wrong. Colleges have to return academics to the top priority and reduce the pay of coaches to levels that are proportionate to the other salaries on campus. If not, our beautiful state will remain at the bottom of the heap in education. Joyce Hubbard, Paint Lick Meet the students Writer: Maryjean Wall 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Here are the 11 students in the inaugural class at Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy: Cassie Buckley - Age: 18 Home: Pittsfield, Mass. Height, weight: 5-2, 115 Buckley has been riding about three years and even brought her two horses with her to Kentucky. Although she's had more experience on horses than most of the students, she wound up with the only serious injury thus far: a broken ankle. She is still enrolled in the school, but was temporarily confined to doing work only on the ground, such as grooming horses and helping other riders saddle up. "I hate not riding," she said. After dropping out of high school, Buckley said, she spent some time working at a racetrack in West Virginia. She got a GED and was going to enroll in a community college, until she learned about the Racing Academy in August. She discovered the school just in time, while looking on the Internet, and took the last available spot. Jackie Davis - Age: 19 Home: Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Height, weight: 4-10, 103 Like classmate Jessica Oldham, Davis comes from a "jockey family." Her father is retired New York jockey Robbie Davis. She had ridden all kinds of horses since she was 3 years old but had never ridden on a racetrack. When Davis began talking about learning to ride racehorses, she remembers her father expressing displeasure. "He tried to discourage me. He said he didn't want his daughter at the racetrack. He said, 'Why don't you become a first-grade teacher since you're good with children.' "Now, he supports me," Davis said, telling how enthusiastic her father is about the academy. "He thought it was better than me going on a farm to learn. It's a more controlled environment," she said. "My dad has been saying for years that racing needed something like this." Davis said her main challenge now is increasing her strength. Although she thinks she was born to ride racehorses, she also has other plans. One of those is to finish college. "I've seen so many young kids get hurt on the track and they don't even have a high school degree," she said. Mikey James - Age: 21 Home: Glendora, Calif. Height, weight: 5-0, 108 James was working in "this little mom-and-pop hardware store" near Santa Anita Park when people from the track kept coming into the store and telling him, "You ought to ride." But at first, James thought, "Are you kidding me? It's nuts." He became a snowboarder instead. James said he found the idea of race-riding nutty because, "you're flying 35 miles an hour on an animal. I do pretty crazy stuff (on the snowboard), but I can control it." At first he wasn't so sure he could control a horse. But he's catching on. "A jockey back home came into my store. He gave me Chris' number," James said. He got brave and phoned McCarron. Now he's a student. "I think I'm learning fast, honestly," he said. The first time he got on one of the mustangs, even before he advanced to riding a thoroughbred, "the horse was kind of doing his own thing. I didn't know what I was doing," he said. "By the fourth day, I thought, 'I can do this.'" Blake Hoefman - Age: 20 Home: Asheville, N.C. Height, weight: 5-1, 105 Hoefman enrolled because he'd dropped out of technical college after 1 1/2 years and "I had to do something." He made up his mind to become a jockey after he saw 18-year-old Fernando Jara win the Belmont Stakes last June on Jazil. "If he can do it, I can do it," Blake decided. He didn't anticipate it would be difficult to learn to ride horses. "I've always been a competitor," he said, "playing soccer, golf, pretty much everything." Hoefman speaks Spanish fluently, which will be a great help to him on the track. His personal challenge in this program is "an attitude problem," he said. "I let things from daily life bother me when I'm riding." And, as he's learned, horses are so sensitive they pick up immediately on their riders' bad moods, reacting negatively. "I'm doing better," Hoefman said. "I try to think about the simplest thing, sometimes the mountains or the beach. I'm always calm. I don't get scared. Things like thinking about girls, things like that bother me." Hoefman, who lives with fellow students Mikey James, Corey Mongan, Jason Truett and Brad Wilson in a house near the Horse Park, said that a small rivalry exists among them. "I look at them as competitors," he said. "They're my friends, and I try to help them. But I don't tell them everything I know." By the way, he added, "This is my first media interview." Corey Mongan - Age: 22 Home: Hagerstown, Md. Height, weight: 5-5, 115 Mongan heard about the academy from a friend. He had attained an associate degree in college and was two years away from becoming a teacher. "But I'd always said, if somebody would teach me how to ride I would consider doing this," he said. His parents, he recalled, were not pleased that he was abandoning a teaching career. He says they're still trying to adjust. Mongan had never been to a racecourse until McCarron took the students to Keeneland this past autumn. He played a lot of soccer and basketball although he was too small to get in much "team time" at school. He's also finding it difficult to make the switch from playing team sports to riding horses. "They've told us we've got to have our heels down, which is a big difference compared to playing soccer and basketball," he said. "Sports like that, you've got to cut, you're moving around, and it's a team sport so you're used to making everybody else better and them making you better as well. Now, it's solely individual." He's had trouble keeping his heels down. But he figured out if he loosened his riding shoes, he was better able to make the adjustment. Mongan said McCarron has advised him to lose weight. "Some of the guys haven't had to worry about it so much and they eat a lot of fast food," he said. "I live with them and they eat it right in front of me. But really, I've done pretty good with it." Driving back from Maryland after Thanksgiving, he stopped at Hardee's, "where they have those big burgers, and I got a chicken sandwich and small fries and made sure I drank water instead of soda." Chris Rebac - Age: 18 Home: Louisville Height, weight: 5-foot-5, 111 pounds Rebac phoned Chris McCarron from Croatia to inquire about the North American Racing Academy. He found out about the school when he stopped at the Kentucky Horse Park on his way to Europe to spend time with relatives. Rebac's father, who likes racing, especially harness racing, was always telling him he should become a jockey because he's built slightly. "I'd ask, 'What's that?' I didn't even know what a jockey was until last year," Rebac said. Rebac finds jockey school difficult at times. He even thought about leaving the program in November. "You've got to have a strong mental game to do this. Sometimes, I don't have that," he said. "I know I've got the physical part of it down, but sometimes the mental part is hard on me. ... Most people do think" that riding is entirely physical, "but if something happens, if a horse is pulling you across the field, you've got to be able to think straight and stay calm at the same time." Rebac considered his long-term goals when he went home for Thanksgiving and decided to remain in the program. "I guess I'll be here till the end," he said. Anna Roberts - Age: 18 Home: Franklinton, La. Height, weight: 5-3, 105 Roberts wanted to be a jockey from the time she was a young girl. When she was 9, she saw Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone at the track and thought, "that was the coolest thing in the world." Before that, she'd thought of racing like major-league baseball: Only men could participate. Seeing Krone wised her up. Roberts said her mother found out about the academy while reading about racing online. Roberts had been riding hunter-jumpers but had also begun going to a racehorse training center near her home, although she never exercised the thoroughbreds on-track. Her difficulty has been in retraining the muscle memory in her legs so that she can ride racehorse style, in the small saddle. The leg and knee position is different than for riding hunters and jumpers. "So, I've had to totally reconstruct my leg," she said. "I'm not very strong with my arms, so it's hard for me to hold the tough horses. But other than that everything seems to be going well." Jason Truett - Age: 20 Home: McKee, Ky. Height, weight: 4-9, 97 Truett came to Keeneland one day, hoping to get a job. He liked to watch the races. While at Keeneland, he picked up a track program and read an article about the academy. Like some of the other students, Truett had never ridden a horse. But he has big plans. "I want to be a jockey," he said. "I've been a fan of racing but I never really thought about it (being a jockey) until my junior year in high school. One of my teachers told me, "You've got a lot of athletic ability. You should look into this." He played basketball and baseball in high school. McCarron said Truett's nickname is "Duck," because he's taken to riding "like a duck to water." Jessica Oldham - Age: 28 Home: Lexington Height, weight: 4-11, 105 Oldham has long harbored a dream of becoming a jockey. But her dream was put on hold a few years ago when she wasn't progressing the way she had hoped. She said she soured on exercising horses. Her solution was to enlist for a two-year tour of duty with the Navy in 2002. "I went there pretty much to prove myself to myself," Oldham said. She said she graduated as the only sailor to win two awards, one for being a good shipmate. When she left the Navy, "I felt like I could hold my head high." Oldham entered the Racing Academy with the hope she can still pursue her dream of riding in races. She doesn't think her age will work against her physically, although she is concerned that some people might think she is too old to begin a race-riding career. "I have hope that people know me so well and they know my work ethic, and hopefully they'll see what I can do and that it doesn't make a difference," she said. Both her parents, John and Suzie Oldham, were jockeys. "Luckily for me, having two short parents as riders, I don't have to worry about my weight," she said. Oldham hopes a riding career will add to her experience in the horse industry which already includes working for TVG as a graphics operator, working in the mutuels, in the photo finish department, and in photography. Matt Straight - Age: 21 Home: East Greenbush, N.Y. Height, weight: 5-4, 113 Straight learned about the academy from reading The Blood-Horse, a trade magazine. He sent an application right away, last spring. "My whole life I wanted to be a jockey," he said. Straight grew up about half an hour from Saratoga Race Course. He said he would often go to the races where he would hang around outside the jockeys' locker room, getting to know some riders. "My parents gave me 100 percent support," he said. "It's kind of their dream, too." He remembers his first visit to Saratoga. His parents took him. "It was a terrible, rainy day," Straight recalled. But he loved it. "Next thing you know, I wanted to go back every day. It clicked with me." Brad Wilson - Age: 22 Home: Burlington, Ontario, Canada Height, weight: 5-2, 110 Wilson learned about the academy from a racehorse trainer in Canada. Wilson had been exercising horses at a training center near Woodbine, and the trainer "knew that I was at a standstill with my riding." Actually, Wilson was cleaning stalls more than he was riding. He enrolled because "I need someone to help me get to the next level. I got into this to be a jockey." Wilson, who lives with fellow students Hoefman, James, Mongan and Truett, said a small amount of rivalry exists among the five. "We're always competing, pushing each other, in working out or whatever," he said. "It's always in good fun. We always joke around," such as who's staying on his horse and who's been falling off. "One of the students was saying they should get a reality show out of this." OCTC announces May community classes 4/24/2007 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer Owensboro Community & Technical College will offer the following community education classes in May: -- Turning Digital Pictures into Slide Shows & Videos from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 1 and 3; $79. -- Welcome to the World of Computers from 1 to 4 p.m. May 1 and 2; $87 (includes text). -- PowerPoint II from 9 a.m. to noon May 4 and 11; $87 (includes text). -- Excel II from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 7 and 14; $87 (includes text). -- Access II from 1 to 4 p.m. May 8 and 15; $94 (includes text). -- Word II from 9 a.m. to noon May 9 and 16; $87 (includes text). -- Home Networking from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 10; $39. -- Following the Feathered Fowl from 8 to 11 a.m. May 12; $19. -- Excel III from 1 to 4 p.m. May 16 and 17; $89 (includes text). -- Access III from 9 a.m. to noon May 21 and 22; $94 (includes text). Payment is required at the time of registration. For more information or to register, call 686-4444. Scholarship recipients to be honored 4/22/2007 Paducah Sun A reception will honor the first 13 students to receive educational assistance scholarships from the McCracken County Community Career Endowment Inc. at 2 p.m. April 29 at Paducah's Madison Hall, 919 Madison St. This event is open to the public, and a $5 donation is requested but not required. Anton Reece, minority affairs coordinator for the University of Tennessee, will be the keynote speaker. Reece was the former diversity manager at West Kentucky Community & Technical College. The scholarships are made possible through an endowment established by the late Fred Paxton and his wife, Peggy, in January 2006. The 13 students are: LaMiira Askew, a Paducah Tilghman High School senior, who plans to major in hospitality management at WKCTC. Kristen Coleman, a psychology and divinity major at Clayton State University. Fredrick Fountain, a Tilghman senior, who plans to attend WKCTC and then Murray State University to major in music education and vocal performance. Makinni Holt, an elementary education major at Kentucky State University. De'Chenea Lovett, an elementary education major at WKCTC. Keshia Moore, who will graduate from WKCTC next month and then transfer to MSU to major in art. Whitney Newell, a Tilghman senior who plans to major in early childhood education at the University of Louisville. Stephon McEwen, a business management major at Mid-Continent University. Melinda Roberson, a health care management major at Southern Illinois University. Delbert Shumpert, a sports physical therapy major at Western Kentucky University. Bettina Simmons, a business at WKCTC. Stephanie Tyus, who will enter graduate school at Tennessee State University in the fall. Ayesha Wharton, an office technology major at WKCTC. Students take banner to Va. Tech Writer: Jill Laster 4/23/2007 The Kentucky Kernel, Lexington BLACKSBURG, Va. - Less than 48 hours after they began planning their trip, five UK students stood silently on a hill overlooking the site of the worst mass shooting in American history. The group made the five-hour drive to Virginia Tech Friday with two goals in mind: to make a documentary on the massacre that left 33 people dead and hang a memorial banner signed by UK students. In the documentary, the students hope to create a report different from those they saw in the national media. They want to let subjects tell their stories without interruptions from reporters. "We looked to connect with subjects," said sociology senior Alise Marshall. "There were no harsh boundaries (like), 'I'm the interviewer; you're the interviewee.' " The students walked around campus recording footage and taking pictures of the memorials set up at Virginia Tech's Drillfield and at Norris Hall, the building where 30 of the victims were killed. On Friday, the group hoped to get a few people to speak on camera but were uncomfortable walking up to grieving strangers and asking them for comments. "People are in a reflective state, and you don't want to impose on that," said Naitore Kiogora, an integrated strategic communications junior. The five began their first interviews with a few Virginia Tech students sitting on campus with signs that said, "Have frustration? Have questions? Have doubts? I will listen." The UK students asked them if they wanted to speak on camera, and three of the people with signs agreed to. "We made sure that the person we went up to, we were just talking straight-up like, 'Hey, we're from UK, and we're coming here to support you, and we're shooting it,' " said marketing sophomore Patrick Nally, the trip's organizer. The five said they also wanted to speak to those personally connected to the massacre. On Friday night, the group visited the mosque of one of the victims, Waleed Shaalan, and talked to his friends, including Ahmed Sidky. Sidky met the group again the next day and described his friend's death, sometimes smiling and sometimes near tears. He pieced together his account of Shaalan's final minutes from news sources. As the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, searched the room for anyone still alive, Shaalan laid beside another student who was playing dead, Sidky said. When Cho approached them, Shaalan distracted the shooter to save the other student. "I'm proud of him," Sidky said. "He's a hero, and it takes a lot to do something like that." Because all of Shaalan's family lives in Egypt, members of the mosque were called to identify Shaalan. A police officer brought pictures of two of the three victims that had not been identified, but neither of them was Shaalan, Sidky said. Then, he said, the mosque members gave the officer a picture of Shaalan to see if he was the third victim. "I think that was the hardest moment for me was when he looked at me and nodded," Sidky said. "I think a lot of people just lost it, myself included." As Sidky spoke, the group of five UK students gathered around him taking pictures, recording video and asking questions. Kiogora said she was almost in tears listening to Sidky. "It just gave me a whole new light on their perspective, just knowing those details," Kiogora said. "It's something I'll remember the most," she said. The group returned to the Virginia Tech campus Saturday to record more footage and deliver the poster that had been hanging outside UK's Student Center. They hung the banner, which had about 250 signatures, inside the Virginia Tech student center alongside other signed posters from around the country. "It's been everything from Girl Scouts bringing in cookies to people bringing in flowers," said Justin Hubbard, a junior at Virginia Tech who works at the student center. Working the last week as visitors and grieving students came in was emotionally draining for Hubbard, but the posters, flowers and e-mails from all over the world helped a little, he said. "You can just look at a poster from a place you didn't even know existed and see that people care," Hubbard said. After hanging the poster, the UK students interviewed people in the student center and took a tour of campus before making their way back to the Drillfield. At 5 p.m, as the group prepared to leave, a student-organized picnic on the Drillfield began yards away from the circle of pictures, candles and flowers for the victims. The crowd of students, faculty and community members divided into lines to wait for ice cream, pizza and other food as music by the Beatles and the Dave Matthews Band played over speakers set up in the middle of the field. "It's a celebration of life, you know?" said journalism and agricultural biotechnology junior Whitney Waters, who works for the Kernel as a photographer. "They're going to be OK." The five split up and drifted through the crowd, eating and reflecting on their experience. After a while, they came together and talked about whether they needed to interview more people before leaving. Nally and Yahya Ahmed, a biology and Arabic and Islamic studies junior, began moving through the crowd looking for people to speak with. "At times I felt very connected emotionally, but at times I felt like people are waiting for me back home ... waiting for us to bring this back," Nally said later that night. "At times I was standing there just wanting to look at a candle burn or look at a picture of Ryan Clark (one of the victims) ... but there were times where I knew I had to get out the camera and focus on this." On the way back to UK, the five stopped to eat in West Virginia, where they talked about their trip, including the shape the documentary is taking. "I think there's going to be a lot of themes that start popping up that we didn't even notice when we were filming," Ahmed said. The five will be editing the footage this week. Nally said he hopes the organizations that helped sponsor the trip, including Student Government and Women's Place, will also help present the documentary. Although the five have not yet determined the film's storyline, they said they hope it will be done before this weekend so students can see what the group took from the experience before school ends. "I don't think the documentary has one central theme right now. It's the story of life. The theme, it's life," Marshall said. "One minute you're laughing; the next minute you're sobbing, crying. I mean, that's life." Surgical techs in demand - Assistants play crucial role during operations Writer: David Blackburn 4/23/2007 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer The job description of those who help surgeons is described as challenging but rewarding, fast-paced but thorough and stressful but accurate. The number of those surgical assistants and technologists is adequate but about to fall behind. An aging population has meant more, and more advanced, surgeries that require more certified surgical technologists and assistants. It also means older assistants are dropping out of the work force, said Peggy Howard, program director for surgical technology at Owensboro Community & Technical College. The number of students taking classes in the field "has been pretty steady," said Howard, who also is division chairwoman for allied health. "There's really not fewer people going into it." The demand is exceeding the interest, said Jeff Bidwell, program director for surgery technologist and surgical assistant programs at Madisonville Community College. "We're pretty well where we're kind of even with it," Bidwell said. "But we need to increase the number of students in there." OCTC offers a program for surgical technologists, who can only assist a surgeon. The Madisonville campus also offers more advanced programs for those aiming to be certified first assistants (CFA) or certified surgical assistants (CSA). They can aid a surgeon in working on patients. The demand has been rising for about six years, but the pace has quickened, said Dori Meyer, perioperative educator for surgical services at Owensboro Medical Health System. "We realized the standard of one tech and one nurse per (surgical) case wasn't enough," Meyer said. The situation isn't critical yet, but it could be if several workers are on vacation or otherwise unavailable, she said. "Our numbers can change rapidly," Meyer said. "We'd like to stay ahead of it to avoid being in a crunch. We'd like to stay on top of it." The demand will change when the hospital opens two new operating rooms this fall, Meyer said. Also, the proposed new hospital would increase the number of operating rooms from 16 to about 24, she said. "We would like to get more qualified graduates," Meyer said. "The need is going to grow and grow." But like surgery itself, the pace at which they are taught can't be rushed, Bidwell said. "It takes awhile to get the hang of it," he said. Certified surgical technologists (CST) have to know general human anatomy and the specific patient's case. They must sterilize all instruments and put them in the order the surgeon will need them, Bidwell said. They also have to be familiar with the surgeon's style and routine to be able to anticipate what instrument he or she will need, making for a shorter procedure, he said. A CST can expect to start out earning $11 to $14 an hour in area hospitals and possibly more in a doctor's office, Bidwell said. A CFA or CSA would make $18 to $24 an hour, he said. A technologist "is critically important to the operation," Bidwell said. They have to serve the patient and the surgeon, he said. And while doing that in procedures that can last four hours or more, they have to be aware of remaining sterile. They can't lower their hands below table level or raise them above armpit level and must remember that anything on the arms two inches above the elbows and up is unsterile, Brittany Kirkpatrick said. "It's very hard to keep up with the surgeon and stay sterile," said Kirkpatrick, 22, of Rockport, Ind., a student in OCTC's surgical technologist program set to graduate in May. Despite the difficult nature of the work, "I really enjoy it," Kirkpatrick said. "I like that it is fast-paced. I like never knowing what's going to happen next." Kirkpatrick plans to take the state CST certification and eventually a first assistant or surgical assistant certification exam. She plans to apply for a job at the hospital, where she has been getting on-the-job experience assisting in surgeries about eight hours a week as an extern. Being an extern doesn't guarantee a job in the hospital, Meyer said. Sudents have to demonstrate a work ethic, dexterity and team attitude in a stressful environment, she said. "We need someone who can handle that stress and work well with it," Meyer said. The hospital is offering tuition reimbursement for employees who want to enter the surgical assistant fields. Reimbursement includes up to $2,000 for associate's degree, up to $2,500 for a bachelor's degree and up to $3,500 for a master's degree. Those who enter the field don't worry about a lack of jobs, Bidwell and Howard said. "The employment rate is high and consistently is there," Howard said. About 16 students are accepted into the local program each fall, she said. The Madisonville college's classes "usually fill up to capacity each year, and we don't advertise for it," Bidwell said. THE NEED FOR SPEED Video Producer: David Stephenson 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Since classes opened in September, Herald-Leader racing writer Maryjean Wall and photographer David Stephenson have been tracking the progress of the inaugural class at Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy. NARA Video See and hear about their progress during the second trimester as they move toward graduation and potential careers as jockeys over the next year and a half. Tidbits: AN APPETIZING ASSORTMENT Writer: Sharon Thompson 4/22/2007 Lexington Hearld-Leader Volunteers at Hopewell Museum in Paris are preparing hors d'oeuvres for their Win Place or Show Pre-Derby Party II on Saturday. "We do it all ourselves. Our cooks are wonderful," museum volunteer Kathy Carter said. The menu includes beef tenderloin on croissant with horseradish or Henry Bain sauce, chicken satay, country ham on biscuit, Cheddar crackers, a blue cheese ball and Famous Kentucky Horse Race pie. The Torques, a '60s rock 'n' roll band, will provide entertainment for the event, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at McConnell Realty, 1833 South Main Street. Chris McCarron, a two-time Derby-winning jockey and executive director of the Kentucky Community and Technical College Systems' North American Riding Academy at the Kentucky Horse Park, will be a special guest. Tickets are $50. Call (859) 987-7274. Tracking the students 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader How the inaugural class at Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy is progressing: Jackie Davis - Age: 20 Hometown: Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Progress report: Davis said she had trouble learning the right speed for a routine gallop. Too fast or too slow? She told Chris McCarron she felt she'd hit a wall on this; he told her it would come with practice. And it has. Quote: "He'd put me on some easy ones; I'd ask, 'Is that right?' And he'd say, 'Yes.' " Blake Hoefman - Age: 20 Hometown: Asheville, N.C. Progress report: Last fall, Hoefman cited "an attitude problem" as his personal challenge. "I let things from daily life bother me when I'm riding," he said. But he does look good on a horse. Quote: "I don't have any sound bites for you." Mikey James - Age: 21 Hometown: Glendora, Calif. Progress report: James, who's also been an avid snowboarder, said it took a few days to get used to galloping a horse on the track, a big change from their early lessons at the Kentucky Horse Park. But he has made the adjustment and feels more comfortable now. Quote: "I love riding now. It's just a rush." Corey Mongan - Age: 22 Hometown: Hagerstown, Md. Progress report: Mongan was struggling with confidence after a couple of runaways -- until riding an old equine friend, Luke, helped restore his confidence. Now he's getting on other horses and feels his form is improving. Quote: "I'm hoping I get an opportunity on these really tough ones, the ones that are the biggest and the baddest around here." Jessica Oldham - Age: 28 Hometown: Lexington Progress report: Oldham had previous experience riding racehorses but had to follow her classmates back into a beginner's role last trimester because that's the stage where all the rest of them were. She said she thus forgot how much experience she'd had -- but after riding a few tough horses, her confidence returned. Quote: "The nutrition class was wonderful; the racing industry class was wonderful and great for networking. In our equine reproduction class I've learned amazing amounts of knowledge that I can't wait to use in the industry." Chris Rebac - Age: 20 Hometown: Louisville Progress report: Rebac switched with the winter trimester from the school's jockey track to the trainer track. He also has become interested in standardbred racing and thinks he might want to learn to drive trotters and pacers. He has been spending time at The Red Mile on weekends; McCarron is highly supportive of Rebac's new interest. Quote: "I'm staying in the program because it's education for me and it's great hands-on experience, because all horses are alike. I got out there (at The Red Mile) in that jog cart, and it was great, awesome." Anna Roberts - Age: 18 Hometown: Franklinton, La. Progress report: Roberts feels she's progressed a lot although she still needs to build strength in her arms. She shows as much determination -- maybe more -- as any of her classmates. Quote: McCarron is "putting me on some tough ones so I'll get stronger. And I do a lot of pulling back on the Equicizer (mechanical horse). He makes us stand up and pull as though we are trying to hold one in a race, then we push down on the (Equicizer's) head. That helps (in building arm strength)." Matt Straight - Age: 21 Hometown: East Greenbush, N.Y. Progress report: Straight has been getting on some of the school's tougher horses, despite some earlier runoffs. He is making huge strides in his riding. Quote: "Getting on tougher horses, it's hard to work on your form. But I've even been able to practice on my form on the tougher horses. So I'm really pleased with my progress." Jason Truett - Age: 20 Hometown: McKee Progress report: Jason held the record for the most falls during the first trimester. Now he's caught on and looks good on a horse. Quote: "The most important thing I've learned is, whenever you have a bad ride, or take a fall, as soon as it happens, to put it behind you, to put it in the back of your head and go on." Brad Wilson - Age: 22 Hometown: Burlington, Ontario, Canada Progress report: Wilson might turn out to be the star rider of this inaugural class. He looks like a natural in the saddle and is progressing well. Quote: "I'm getting better at holding the tough horses. I'm getting fitter and stronger. My form's getting better. My stamina is getting better." Churchill chief to ring NASDAQ bell 4/24/2007 Business First, Lousiville Churchill Downs Inc. president and CEO Robert Evans will ring the NASDAQ stock market's opening bell Wednesday morning. The bell rings at 9:30 a.m., and a webcast of the ceremony will be available at www.nasdaq.com/reference/marketsite_about.stm. Louisville-based Churchill Downs (NASDAQ: CHDN) owns and operates horse racing venues throughout the United States, including four racetracks in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana. Festival draws crowds; Berry receives award 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader More than 3,000 people flocked to the Bluegrass Festival of Books to chat it up with 85 authors -- most of them local -- and purchase some the newest homegrown fiction and non-fiction books. The festival, sponsored by the Herald-Leader and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, was punctuated by an appearance by Food Network celebrity chef Paula Deen, who attracted a sold-out crowd to the event's luncheon. Other key events included four American Girl teas that attracted a total of 400 fans of the books and dolls and a Dora the Explorer breakfast that drew 350. At a reception before the festival on Friday evening, celebrated writer Wendell Berry received the 2007 Dr. Thomas D. Clark Award for Literary Excellence, which Joseph-Beth has given out since 2002. Berry, whose works include seven novels set in the fictional Kentucky town of Port William, said he was honored to receive the award because he had been a student of the University of Kentucky historian. He also said that while Kentuckians have been generous in honoring Clark over the years, they haven't listened enough to what he said. Clark, who died in 2005 just short of his 102nd birthday, was an outspoken advocate for education and environmental protection in Kentucky, as Berry has been. Kentucky born and read - State's new poet laureate influenced by family, rural upbringing Writer: Candace Chaney 4/22/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader VERSAILLES -- Jane Gentry Vance didn't always want to be a writer. As a girl living on a farm in Athens, in rural Fayette County, she wanted to be a detective, like Nancy Drew. By the time she entered her freshman year at Hollins College in Roanoke, Va., she had set her sights on a career in the U.S. Foreign Service. But her adviser, Louis D. Rubin, who chaired the English department and guided such noted authors as Lee Smith and Annie Dillard, steered her in a different direction. "He said, 'That's absurd. You're an English major,'" Vance said. "And since I'd just gotten a D in French, I thought deeply about what he said, and it came around that he was right." Forty-seven years later, his former pupil is the author of three poetry collections and has been appointed the 2007-08 Kentucky Poet Laureate by Gov. Ernie Fletcher. The poet laureate, the highest state honor bestowed upon a writer, promotes literary arts and leads literary events for two years. Vance's work, published under her family name, Jane Gentry, has appeared in Sewanee Review, Harvard Magazine, Southern Poetry Review, the American Voice, and Humanities in the South. She has been awarded a prestigious Yaddo Fellowship and a Voices and Visions grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association. She also received the Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council in 1992 and 2003. Vance, 66, also has been an educator for more than 40 years. She began her teaching career at Georgetown College in 1964 and joined the University of Kentucky faculty in 1972, where she is a full professor in the honors program and on the English graduate faculty. Vance is a true daughter of Kentucky. Her family has lived in Central Kentucky, particularly in the Athens area, for generations. In fact, her ancestors' names (surnames Bush and Gentry) appear alongside that of Daniel Boone at a monument at Fort Boonesborough. As a result, an intimate relationship to the characters and landscape of rural Kentucky features heavily in Vance's work. She counts her upbringing -- on one of eight adjoining farms owned by a large family fond of reading and storytelling -- as a blessing and a key influence in her development as a poet. "I think it is Dostoevsky who said, 'If you carry one rich memory from your childhood, it's enough to carry you through the rest of your life,'" Vance said, paraphrasing a quotation from The Brothers Karamazov. "I feel like I was unspeakably lucky to grow up in a landscape that I loved, and that the people around me were attentive and cared for their children and in houses that were not fine, but were so harmonious in their relation to the outdoors and the rooms to each other. It gave me space to feel and perceive, and I think that was a real privilege." Reading and storytelling played big roles in her family. "My mother was a great reader, and the women in my family were journal keepers," Vance said, "and my father read to me The Child's Garden of Verses over and over." These two early influences, along with, she said, "the sounds of storytelling from relatives, the sounds of those childhood poems and nursery rhymes and the sense of pleasure in the characters of the people" in her family helped shape her earliest relationship to poetry. Vance has lived in Kentucky most of her life, the last 20 in a downtown Versailles home featured in the film Elizabethtown. (It was the front of the house where the aunt played by Paula Deen lived.) But Vance did spend seven years away from Kentucky to pursue her formal education, first in Virginia, then Massachusetts and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned a doctorate in English and American literature. "I always knew that I wanted to live at home, and that was one of the reasons that I really wanted to go to school out of the state. I think it's really important for everybody to live in different parts of the world, different parts of the country and to choose to come back home." she said. "It may not be necessary, but it is helpful and important at some point to live away from Kentucky, at some stretch, so that one has a sense of its particularity, that every place is not like this." It is the particularity of Kentucky, including its rich oral history, that Vance counts as a boon for writers. "I think that Kentucky is fecund with writers partly because we are so used to the oral culture that was such an important pleasure in the lives of even my parents' generation, but definitely in the generation of my grandparents," Vance said. "Kentucky is just a place with a deep soul. ... Somehow this sense of character and the need for connection among family, among members of a community, has just been particularly strong since the days when Kentucky was the first frontier." Poetry as a way of knowing As part of her duties as poet laureate, Vance will promote literature at events throughout the state. She hopes to emphasize the usefulness of literature, and poetry in particular, as a way of knowing our feelings, purpose and identity. "I would like to promote the sense that poetry in particular and literature in general, that they are not frills of culture, that they're a form of storytelling," Vance said. "Stories are absolutely essential to our knowing, our having any kind of sense of who we are, what we're for, where we're going, and I would like to promote that sense of the usefulness and indispensability of poetry and literature generally. I think lots of people think of it as fluff or, you know, 'Why don't you do something useful, like, be an engineer?' and engineers are useful, but poetry is useful in a comparable way." Vance concedes that a lot of people find it daunting to read or write poetry, but part of her job as poet laureate is to educate about poetry's potent rewards. "Poems are stories so condensed that you have really to enter them with deep attention, and I think that often we're afraid of poems because we've been sort of conditioned to think of them as impenetrable and that, of modern poems, that they're not good unless we can't understand them," she said. "But as Kafka said, 'A book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside us,' and poems are the ax with the sharpest edge." Asked why she or anyone should write poetry, Vance said, "To me, it is a natural way of making my life and my experiences mine -- by paradoxically putting it in a form that somebody else can enter. It's a way of breaking down the isolation of being a human self and at bottom, it's a way of connecting to other hearts, other minds, other people." Vance, who teaches upper-division creative-writing courses at UK in addition to honors courses, is eager to encourage those who might not consider themselves "writers" to explore poetry. "Seldom do people take piano lessons because they want to be a professional pianist," she said. "I feel deeply that the practice of poetry -- reading it and especially writing -- it is a way of knowing, a way of knowing yourself, a way of knowing the world, and a way of knowing language and its power. I think it's one of the richest efforts that any person can undertake." IF YOU GO Kentucky Writers' Day What: The event, held each year to honor the birth date of Kentucky-born author Robert Penn Warren, will include the induction of Jane Gentry Vance as the state poet laureate; readings by past poets laureates Richard Taylor, James Baker Hall, Joe Survant and Sena Jeter Naslund; poetry recitations and more. A reception on the mezzanine level of the Capitol will follow. When: 10 a.m. April 24. Kentucky leaps to defense as Arkansas woos tourists - Lake Cumberland reports distorted Writer: Bill Wolfe 4/21/2007 Louisville Courier-Journal An Arkansas tourism official stepped outside the bounds of friendly competition with claims about Lake Cumberland that were "just simply, blatantly not true," Kentucky Tourism Commissioner Randy Fiveash said yesterday. The Ozark Mountain Region tourism association, based in Flippin, Ark., issued a statement April 11 claiming that lower water levels needed for dam-repair work at Lake Cumberland would leave boaters and anglers "high and dry" for seven years, with up to 90 percent of the launching ramps unusable and fish kills expected because of a rise in water temperature. "Unlike Lake Cumberland, we have an abundance of water at our Ozark Twin Lakes, and it's crystal clear," Kelly Linck, executive director of the association, said in the statement, which announced that the Arkansas lakes, Bull Shoals and Norfork, were "ready to absorb" an estimated 2 million vacationers who might be displaced because of work at Wolf Creek Dam. Fiveash wrote the association urging it to "correct the information." "I'm always amazed at agencies or organizations that try to make themselves look better or increase business ... at someone else's expense," he said. "That's kind of a Marketing 101 thing that you just don't do." According to Kentucky Tourism Commission spokesman Chris Gilligan, 10 boat ramps are available at Lake Cumberland now and at least 21 will be in service by Memorial Day. That's about half of the lake's total ramps, he said. The lake is smaller after the drawdown, but still covers 38,000 acres, Fiveash said. "That's still a pretty significant-size lake." Fishing should not be affected, and boaters will be able to launch, Fiveash said. "People that want to boat, want to fish, want to enjoy the lake, they are going to be able to." Telephone messages left for the Ozark tourism group seeking a response were not returned yesterday. Fiveash said the group was not affiliated with the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Relations between competing tourism departments are normally cordial, and even helpful, he said. "It's a great brethren, so to speak. ... We all kind of help one another" in situations such as the Hurricane Katrina devastation along the Gulf Coast. "You don't try to make hay over someone's misfortune," Fiveash said. In a marketing outreach unrelated to the Arkansas statement, the commission has placed advertisements in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois saying that "there's plenty of water, there's plenty of fish" in Lake Cumberland. The commission has directed an extra $110,000 toward marketing the lake this year in an effort to counteract negative publicity generated by the lower water levels. It has also put links to live Web camera feeds from Lake Cumberland at www.KentuckyTourism.com showing water levels. "A lot of the pictures that have been put in some of the papers have made it look like it's just the death of the place. And it's not," Fiveash said. The state has spent more than $1 million to extend boat ramps, and several communities and private groups have made ramp improvements on their own, Gilligan said. Lake Cumberland draws about 4.5 million visitors a year, and it's not known how tourism will be affected this summer. So far this spring, visits are up from the same period last year, according to Army Corps of Engineers figures, Fiveash said. "Everybody is just in a wait-and-see mode," he said. "We're ... realizing that there may be some impact." Lights, camera, education - Crofton students anchor interest in news on TV Writer: Joe Parrino, 4/24/2007 Kentucky New Era, Hopkinsville The small room between the school library and the computer lab is crowded but quiet. It's so quiet that every ear can hear the whine of the camcorder's zoom and a few whispered instructions. One last cue, and the Friday newscast from Crofton Elementary School goes live. "Hello Crofton, my name is Kirsten Dulin, and I will be your anchor for this edition of the WCES broadcast," says a confident fifth grader. Dulin's co-anchor, fourth grader Autumn Reece, introduces herself. The two chat about spring break adventures trying to make their scripted lines sound natural, and then launch into a loaded newscast. The news team has 20 minutes to accommodate 12 segments. The WCES broadcast requires collaboration and commitment. Each week about a dozen 4th and 5th graders meet twice per week -- sometimes sacrificing recess -- to prepare for their Friday reports. One meeting is a news conference to assign stories and allow for research. Another meeting is a rehearsal of the broadcast. The demands have not deterred interest in the slightest, says Amanda Wagoner, who runs the school's computer lab and coaches WCES reporters. There are so many applicants that Wagoner holds tryouts at the beginning of the school year. For the auditions, students prepare their own reports and read them on camera. Wagoner says those who make the cut tend to get attached to the team, at times too attached. "Some of them, we have to tell, 'Go to recess. You do not have to be in here today,'" Wagoner said. Sportscaster Tate Baker loves sports, on television and on the playground, so he didn't take the loss of recess lightly. But in the fourth grade, Baker decided to give a WCES a try because his older brother had done it. The news bug bit Baker quickly. Wagoner taught him to glean the most interesting facts from endless online information. He learned how to condense his sports stats and commentary into a crisp two-minute report. Baker liked the company of other reporters like weatherman Logan Hurd. Perhaps the biggest thrill is Fridays when his face and report -- this week about new University of Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillespie -- gets beamed to all Crofton classroom televisions. "Sometimes the kindergarteners see me and say, "Hey, that's Tate Baker.' It's cool," Baker says. But the visibility comes with a lot of pressure. Kirsten Dulin says she is normally comfortable speaking in front of a group. But the camera and the task of moderating between 10 other reporters, make it easy to get lost. Her remedy for stage fright is to pause for a few seconds, calm herself and find her place in the script again. Brittany Fiese, who read off the 16 names of students and staff with April birthdays, said she joined WCES to rid herself of shyness. Fiese often turned red when she started. But a year on the broadcast, public speaking has become much easier. Principal Neil Hight called the broadcast "a wonderful confidence builder." "Being on television is intimidating," Hight said. Hight appears on the broadcast and -- to put the students more at ease -- allows them to ambush him with questions. "They'll ask me things like, 'So Mr. Hight how would you have answered that test question," Hight said. He and Wagoner credited former computer teacher Donna Kirby with starting WCES three years ago as a way to let the students more ownership of the school. They try their hand at reporting, editing, producing and anchoring as well as handling the technical side of the broadcast. Joyce Sholar, the school's library media specialist, oversees the students who set up the broadcast room and who get behind the camera. Camera and set-up is a way for students who aren't as comfortable in the spotlight to be involved with the broadcast, Sholar said. They practice different camera angles, zooming in and out at the right speed, and framing the shot. "We don't want any floating heads," Sholar tells her crew. Louisville auto event starting up - Global conference to hear Fletcher Writer: David Goetz 4/22/2007 Louisville Courier-Journal Executives from Kentucky's three major automakers will join other top managers and Gov. Ernie Fletcher as featured speakers at the eighth annual Global Automotive Conference, which starts today at the Seelbach Hilton. It's the first time in Louisville for the conference, which began at the Gordon Ford College of Business at Western Kentucky University and spun off in 2005 into the not-for-profit Global Advance Leadership Center in Bowling Green. Organizers say about 300 people have signed up for the conference, which runs through Wednesday. Registration starts at noon today at the hotel. "Walk-ups are welcome," said Raja Bhattacharya, program director for the leadership center. The cost is $549, or $175 a day. Workshops and speeches are free to college students and faculty, but they must pay for lunches and dinners. Activities tee off this morning with an outing at Quail Chase Golf Club. It's down to business in the afternoon, though, at workshops with titles such as "Entering Emerging Asian Markets" and "Extending Supply Chain Technologies via the Web." The agenda also includes plant tours, presentations and panel discussions. The content is geared toward the conference's target audience -- middle managers who struggle with day-to-day issues of globalization, downsizing and productivity, said William Parsons, who co-founded the conference when he was a business professor at WKU and now is chairman of the learning center. "We're the only conference that focuses on strategic leadership development within middle management," Parsons said. Floor managers, plant managers and supply chain managers are "the guts of the organization," Parsons said. "For them, a conference like this is like a breath of fresh air. They're the ones that are just pounded on each and every day, and they're the ones operating with fewer people, so they're wearing several hats." Papa John's founder has a new idea Writer: Alex Davis 4/24/2007 Louisville Courier-Journal Two years after he stepped down as CEO of Papa John's International, Louisville businessman John Schnatter has a new restaurant concept. Schnatter, founder of the nation's third largest pizza delivery company, is now an investor and consultant for Florida-based Calistoga Bakery Café. The company has only one location, but there are plans to add three more stores in Florida and one in Lexington, Ky., by the end of the year. In an interview, Schnatter compared the concept to the Panera Bread chain, but he said it will have "much higher" sales volume and better food and service. "We have to get the next four open to see if we've got something," he said of Calistoga. "If the first 10 do what the first one has done, we're off to the races." Calistoga is owned by Mark Bates, a Florida real estate developer. Schnatter has a second home in Naples, where the only existing Calistoga is located. He said he owns "a big chunk" of the start-up restaurant company, but not a majority. Schnatter still serves on the board at Louisville-based Papa John's, which has more than 3,000 stores and $1 billion in annual revenue. He yielded his spot as CEO to Nigel Travis in April 2005. Lance Tucker, who represents Schnatter's business interests, said Calistoga and Papa John's are separate entities and there have been no formal discussions about using the Papa John's restaurant network to expand Calistoga Bakery Café. The company's Web site, www.calistogacafe.com, offers a menu with items ranging from cappuccino and fruit smoothies to an array of soups, salads and sandwiches made with artisan breads. A Turkey Artichoke Pressata sandwich sells for $6.99. The Bangkok Chicken Salad is $6.79. Parent brings gun into school board meeting - Woman arrested, jailed Writer: CARRIE KIRSCHNER 4/24/2007 Ashland Daily Independent WESTWOOD -- A Fairview Independent School District parent was arrested Monday night for allegedly pulling a gun from her purse at a board meeting. Tina Thompson, 51, was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm on school property, which is a Class D felony. She is currently lodged in the Boyd County Detention Center. Sgt. Debbie Smallridge said no bond had been set for Thompson as of presstime Monday night, but a bond would be set this morning. Thompson will not be arraigned until Wednesday, Smallridge said. According Rex Cooksey, Fairview safe schools coordinator, Thompson asked in advance to be placed on the board's agenda. Cooksey said, Thompson indicated she wanted to speak about school safety. He said there were approximately 18 individuals at the meeting including the district's five board members when the event took place. Cooksey declined to comment further about what happened at the meeting, saying only "the action took place and the proper authorities were called." He added "no altercation" took place between Thompson and attendees, although he said Thompson "was restrained" until police arrived. Both the Kentucky State Police and Boyd County Sheriff's Department responded, according to Cooksey. The Boyd County Sheriff's Department could not immediately be reached for comment and a Kentucky State Police dispatcher deferred to the sheriff's office for comment. Software detects plagiarism - NKU teachers keep students on toes Writer: HOWARD MCEWEN 4/23/2007 Kentucky Enquirer, Covington NKU is reporting few problems a few months into using a plagiarism-detection software program. Speech teacher Vicki Ragsdale began using the software last semester for one section but has expanded it to all three of her speech classes. The software, called Turnitin, is designed to help catch "cut-and-paste" plagiarism that is easy to do using the massive amounts of information on the Internet. "I really like it as a teaching tool for students," Ragsdale said. She uses the software "to help them see in a concrete manner what constitutes plagiarism. I have Turnitin set so that they can see what percent is plagiarized and what sections of their speech show up as plagiarized." With Turnitin, students don't turn their papers in during class. Students upload the reports as a computer file to the Turnitin Web site. Turnitin then reviews the document against a large database. Suspicious passages are red flagged. The software will report how much the student's work matches another and will oftentimes display the original work. Students are able to change anything that has been red flagged. Furthermore, every student paper that is submitted to Turnitin is added to the database for comparison to the works of others. Ragsdale said it's hard to say if students were plagiarizing others' work before Turnitin because of the large number of speech classes. "I really like how Turnitin allows you to see what sentences and sections are plagiarized and the source that they plagiarized from," Ragsdale said. "I also like the fact that the basis of comparison, previous speeches and papers, is a large bank of input from other universities." Tyler Rumpke, a freshman business management major from Cincinnati, is one of Ragsdale's students. He described the software as "benign." "It benefits students because we can see how much plagiarism there is in our papers," he said. "There is no harm." He believes students were plagiarizing in the past but that the new software has made that harder. "There might be some way around it though, I think," he said. Ragsdale believes the software was a good investment for the school. "The software is easy to use and the instruction for usage from Sara Mann (NKU's online education development coordinator) has been excellent," she said. Teachers try to offset CATS stress - Student testing gets under way today Writer: Antoinette Konz 4/23/2007 Louisville Courier-Journal Dressed in a black trench coat, sunglasses and a plaid snap-brim hat, 11-year-old Jerry Corder sat on the floor of his classroom, trying to solve the next big crime. Only instead of cracking the case, Jerry and about 60 of his fifth-grade classmates at John F. Kennedy Montessori Elementary School were tackling multiple-choice and open-ended practice questions similar to those they will encounter on state tests, which will begin today for more than 60,000 students in Jefferson County and 400,000 more across Kentucky. The "mission" began about two weeks ago, as teachers Francine Chandler and Connie Mattingly searched for a way to get their students excited about Kentucky's annual tests, which are part of the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. "I was looking for a fun way to get them comfortable with taking the test so that they don't freeze up," Chandler said. "The ultimate goal is for them to realize that they know much more than they think they know." Dozens of Jefferson County schools have spent the past few weeks engaging in innovative activities to get children excited and ready for what many educators and parents agree is the most stressful time of the year. Games, pep rallies, even yoga -- they're all being employed to get students ready for the following two weeks, when students in third through eighth grade and 10th and 11th grade will be tested in as many as five subjects -- from reading and writing to math and social studies. At stake is their school's academic reputation, as well as more serious repercussions, such as allowing students to transfer to better-performing schools. The tests, each 50 to 70 minutes long, will also be used to judge schools' performance on reading and math standards that are mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Schools that don't meet those standards several years in a row can be taken over by the district or state and reorganized -- which is what's happening with Iroquois Middle School and Southern Leadership Academy in Jefferson County. Add to that pressure the mounting time taken for test preparation and testing itself, and the result is a growing number of educators who complain that testing has gone too far. "When you think about it, a fifth-grader over the next two weeks will go through 12 to 15 hours of testing. I don't even think I had that much testing when I was getting my doctoral degree," said Bob Rodosky, director of research, planning and assessment with Jefferson County Public Schools. "I think we have moved into some pretty regulated areas where you wonder about the value of what we are doing, versus the burden we are putting on our teachers and students." But Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, said that actual testing -- where students sit down in a room with the test form and work on either multiple-choice or open-response questions -- takes only about two hours per subject. "Those lengths are generous -- as much as twice as long as the actual test should take -- and were designed that way in response to concerns from school district officials," Gross said. Educators say they are spending more time now preparing their students for these tests than they did five years ago, partially because there are more tests -- and more objectives to go over. "An average teacher will do at least four hours of testing per grade period, as dictated by the district," Rodosky said. "That doesn't include the time they spend quizzing or reviewing the material." It all explains why tensions and anxiety rise during CATS testing each spring -- and why so many schools are looking for novel ways to bring out their students' peak performance. Joseph Bargione, lead school psychologist with JCPS, said testing can bring out all sorts of anxiety among children. "I think the key to addressing that anxiety is through test preparation," he said. "The more preparation teachers do with the students, the less stressful the students will be." Researchers say 20 percent to 30 percent of American students suffer from test anxiety -- first appearing in elementary grades and increasing through middle school. State education officials have even exempted students in rare cases because their anxiety was affecting their health. Jennifer Mitchell recalls the time two years ago when her son, then an eighth-grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, was so stressed out that he made himself sick. "He kept thinking about how if he had a bad day that it would hurt his school," she said. Teachers say they recognize the pressures testing brings, which raises the importance of preparation that goes beyond study periods and review sessions. "We are always thinking about different activities we can do to help them feel more at ease," said Shervita West-Jordan, principal at Brandeis Elementary School. For instance, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders at Okolona Elementary School have been learning yoga, including breathing techniques that will help keep them relaxed and focused during the tests. Their practical living teacher, Beth Glass, introduced them to the concepts, and in March, the school brought in a yoga instructor, who worked with the students for two weeks. Third-grader Jazzman Jefferson, 8, said the technique has helped. "Whenever I get a little stressed and feel that I don't know the answer, I just stop and do some of the yoga skills, and it helps me feel relaxed," Jazzman said. "I think it will help me stay focused during testing." Blake Elementary School had a CATS camp, where students participated in a game-show-style activity. At Brandeis, the teachers played the students in a basketball game and a motivational speaker talked with students. Parents say they appreciate the schools' efforts. "I think these fun activities are really great," said Stephanie Lockhart, whose daughter is in Chandler's class at Kennedy. "The students are involved in problem-solving, critical-thinking and application and those are the types of skills they will need on the tests." And the fifth-grade detectives at Kennedy are so busy trying to advance to becoming a super sleuth that they don't realize how much material they have covered in such a short period of time, Chandler said. "We would have never gotten through so much material in a regular two-week period," she said. Threatening note sent at school - 2 FRANKLIN COUNTY HIGH GIRLS CHARGED Writer: Shawntaye Hopkins 4/24/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Two Franklin County High School students face criminal charges after writing a threatening note and signing another student's name to it, school officials said yesterday. The writers, two freshman girls, mentioned the Virginia Tech shootings and named school resource officer Capt. Gregg Muravchick as a target. The writers signed the name of a third freshman girl but included their own names in the note as people who would be asked to help with the violent act. The note discovered Thursday said the act would occur "Tuesday" during fourth period, said Wayne Dominick, communications coordinator for Franklin County Public Schools. School officials decided no one at the school was in danger after an investigation that began early Friday. A letter and e-mail was sent to parents yesterday. "There were a lot of things that didn't make sense," Dominick said of the incident. One of the writers brought the note to a teacher, saying she'd found it in a restroom. The girl whose name was signed to the note said she'd never seen it before, and it wasn't her handwriting, Dominick said. The two girls who wrote the letter later confessed. Dominick said the girls were feuding and two of them wanted to retaliate. But the prank has turned into felony charges for the two juveniles. The students also have been suspended from school and could face further disciplinary action. The girls were charged with second-degree terroristic threatening yesterday. They were at the sheriff's office yesterday afternoon, awaiting a court-decision on whether they'd be detained, said Muravchick, who also works at the sheriff's office. Deputy Chuck Geveden, another school resource officer, led the investigation. Muravchick said he takes these situations seriously. "I think there were some mistakes made by some young people," he said. Those mistakes, he added, will likely have "severe consequences." Toyota overtakes GM in sales 4/24/2007 Business First, Lousiville Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday laid claim to the title of largest automaker in the world, saying its sales topped General Motors' during the first quarter. According to a report from TheStreet.com, Toyota (NYSE: TM) sold 2.35 million vehicles during the quarter, up 9 percent over first-quarter 2006. GM (NYSE: GM) sold 2.26 million vehicles, up 3 percent over the same 2006 period. Japan-based Toyota bases its North American manufacturing operations in Erlanger, Ky., and operates its largest manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Ky. UK board to consider domestic-partner benefits - Administration is urging passage Writer: Nancy C. Rodriguez 4/21/2007 Louisville Courier-Journal The University of Kentucky would offer employee benefits to unmarried domestic partners as part of a larger benefits package that the board of trustees will consider Tuesday. If approved, UK would be the second public university in Kentucky to offer domestic-partner benefits. The University of Louisville's benefits took effect Jan. 1. UK spokesman Jay Blanton said the university administration is recommending the adoption of the benefits package as a way to recruit and retain a top-notch faculty. "An important part of becoming a Top 20 public research institution is becoming more competitive in the recruitment and retention of the best faculty and staff, and that means having a competitive compensation package," Blanton said. Adding domestic-partner benefits is expected to cost UK about $633,000 annually, according to a report by the work-life committee on domestic-partner benefits. Of that amount, $253,000 would be paid from the university's general funds, and $380,000 would be paid from other funds like grants, contracts and athletic and hospital revenues, the report said. The amount is less than 1 percent of the university's overall health-care budget of $68.2 million. Word of the proposal riled opponents. "The University of Kentucky's plan is to actually subsidize the benefits with money that in part comes from taxpayers and student tuitions," said Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst with The Family Foundation of Kentucky. "And we think that to do that would amount to the university thumbing its nose at voters given how strongly voters approved the Marriage Amendment of 2004." The amendment effectively bans gay marriage by defining marriage as between a man and a woman. UK's domestic-partners proposal is part of a larger package of benefit proposals that grew out of almost a year of study by five committees. The committees were charged with developing the proposals based on the findings of a work-life survey of UK employees during the 2005-06 academic year. UK Trustee Russ Williams said he supports all the benefits, including the one dealing with domestic partners. "There is a lot more in the package than just domestic-partner benefits, and I really fear that is going to get lost," he said. "These are investments the university is making in its employees." The package includes proposals to expand child care on campus, as well as employee education and assistance benefits. The domestic-partner benefits proposal, however, is likely to garner the most attention. Those types of benefits have already stirred controversy in Kentucky, raising the hackles of lawmakers. During the last legislative session, bills were introduced by state Sen. Vernie McGaha, R-Russell Springs, and state Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, to prohibit domestic benefits on campuses. Lee's bill never moved out of committee; McGaha's passed the Senate, but failed in a House committee by a tie vote. Schools weigh text alerts for crises Writer: Thomas Frank 4/24/2007 USA Today After last week's Virginia Tech massacre, hundreds of colleges are considering a text-message emergency-alert system, and thousands of students have signed up for the cellphone service on campuses where it's already in use. "The standard changes after Virginia Tech," said Mark Rosenberg, chancellor of Florida's state university system. He is asking the state Legislature for $1.5 million for new emergency-alert systems that include text-message notices for the 11 state-run campuses. Virginia Tech school officials did not alert students until more than two hours after the first 911 call reported a shooting at West Ambler Johnston Hall. Most schools including Virginia Tech warn students with e-mail, but that may not be read for hours. "Parents expect us to be far more responsive to the safety of their sons and daughters," Rosenberg said. At Penn State, which in August became one of the first universities to send text-message alerts, more than 6,200 people signed up in the last week, said Annemarie Mountz, who administers the system. That's one new enrollee every 97 seconds. Since the shootings, more than 500 colleges have contacted Omnilert to ask about setting up text-message alerts, said Nick Gustavsson, company chief technology officer. At the 34 campuses where Omnilert already operates, tens of thousands of students have signed up in recent days, he said. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Florida | Virginia Tech | Penn State Douglas Tuttle, former president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, praised cellphone alerts because students often ignore e-mails or dorm-phone messages. "Cellphones are how they communicate," Tuttle said. Roughly 16.6 million college students have cellphones, according to M:Metrics researchers. That's 95% of the 17.5 million full- and part-time college students counted by the Census. The text-messaging system does have critics. Cellphone alerts that tell students where to hide "might direct a killer to the facility where everybody is a sitting duck," said Brett Sokolow, a lawyer who advises colleges on reducing risk. "We really have to be measured in the rush to adopt these things." At Syracuse University, which may start text-message alerts, spokesman Kevin Morrow acknowledged the potential to tip off a killer but said in emergencies "you have to communicate swiftly about what has happened and the potential risks." Upgrades wanted Universities across the USA are working to improve their emergency-alert system by using cellphone text messaging: *Penn State University expanded its text-message alert system to 21 satellite campuses. *Florida is considering text alerts at its 11 state-run campuses. *Texas Lutheran University's text-alert system is likely to be operational by June 1. TIAA-CREF Corrects Thousands of Incorrect Statements Writer: Scott Jaschik 4/23/2007 Inside Higher Education About 48,000 people with TIAA-CREF accounts received statements with some errors during the first quarter of 2007. The errors have now been fixed, and TIAA-CREF says that no pension holder lost a penny as a result of the mistakes. But some people who manage academic employees who were affected report that there has been confusion and frustration about the process. Chad Peterson, director of corporate media relations for TIAA-CREF, said that the mistakes were part of a "processing error related to the production of quarter end statements." Those affected by the mistake had some transactions missing from their monthly statements during the quarter, although the quarterly totals were correct, Peterson said. He added that the customers' Web records and TIAA-CREF's internal records were never wrong -- just the written statements sent to some customers. Peterson said that about 1.5 percent of all TIAA-CREF statements had the error, but he declined to say how many people that represented. Pressed on the issue, he said that the company had decided to release only the percentage and not the number. TIAA-CREF's corporate fact sheet states that the company has 3.2 million participants in its retirement system -- suggesting that about 48,000 individuals were affected. One manager at a TIAA-CREF institution, who asked not to be identified, said that "as an academic who supervises dozens of people affected, I am dismayed at the errors TIAA-CREF has committed as well as their apparent inability to correct those errors in a timely and transparent way." This manager said that while "professors have been used to trusting TIAA-CREF," that trust has been "compromised" in recent years. Peterson noted that TIAA-CREF discovered the error, recently sent letters to all of those affected, checked to make sure no account holder was hurt, and has fixed the problem. "The plan sponsors and clients were communicated with in a timely way," he said. "No clients were harmed." Updates on the Loan Scandal Writer: Doug Lederman 4/23/2007 Inside Higher Education Another few days, another set of wide-ranging developments regarding student loans: An attorney general in another state got into the act in regulating a lender, fallout continued from the announcement Thursday by New York's attorney general that he planned to sue Drexel University, and a committee negotiating possible changes in federal regulations governing the student loan programs collapsed in discord. Charges dribbled out about questionable decisions about another university's choice of lender. And a major newspaper reported on a top Education Department official's stock holdings in student loan companies -- but omitted some fairly crucial information that minimizes the significance of the report. On Friday, Nebraska's attorney general, Jon Bruning, announced that he had reached an agreement in which a lender in his own backyard, the National Education Loan Network, "self-reported" that it had made what Bruning called "very minor" mistakes in its student loan practices -- paying $4,800 to one university (identified elsewhere as Western Illinois University) in a revenue sharing agreement, and to giving a plane ticket for a financial aid officer to attend a conference in New York. As part of the accord, the company, known as Nelnet, agreed to pay $1 million to a national fund aimed at educating students and families about their financial aid options. It also used the opportunity to promulgate its own "code of conduct" to guide lender practices regarding students and colleges, largely mimicking the one that Bruning's New York counterpart, Andrew M. Cuomo, has been pushing as part of his larger campaign to rein in the student loan industry. Nelnet is among the lenders that Cuomo has been investigating, and despite Friday's settlement in Nebraska, the New York attorney general said his review of the company would continue. The Nelnet code is marginally less restrictive than Cuomo's in a few ways -- where the New York attorney general's proposed code would prohibit a lender's employees from working in a college financial aid office under any circumstances, for instance, the Nelnet code says that the company "will not provide, without proper disclosure and transparency, staff for an institution of higher education's financial aid offices at any time where that employee has contact with students other than general debt counseling." Nelnet's president, Jeffrey R. Noordhoek, said the lender would continue to provide outsourced calling centers for colleges under those restrictions. Bruning, a Republican, credited Nelnet for its "leadership in promoting integrity, choice and competition in this industry," adding that "as we looked at the scale of mistakes that have been made, Nelnet has been at the very bottom of the scale." Bruning and Noordhoek both said that they believed Nelnet's controversial arrangement with the University of Nebraska -- in which the lender committed to giving the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds to use for need-based financial aid in exchange for the right to buy the loans the university awards to its graduate and professional students -- was fully legal and was not under investigation. The arrangement was done through the federal government's "school as lender" program, which Congress has put on hold. Nelnet has also been entangled in controversy over its excessive use of (and profits from) a now-banned loophole in federal law. Bruning said he believed the settlement "closes the book" on Nelnet's problems, but an official in Cuomo's office said that would not necessarily be the case. News From the Cuomo Investigation In the wake of Attorney General Cuomo's announcement that he planned to sue Drexel University for its student loan practices, officials of the university and the attorney general's office engaged in a bit of a war of words over each other's tactics. Drexel's response to the New York official's announcement said that the university had cooperated with the attorney general's investigation, and that after responding to his initial inquiry seeking information from the university in February, Drexel did not hear another word from Cuomo's office until learning from its student newspaper Thursday that it was facing a possible lawsuit. Representatives of Cuomo's office challenged the university's account, saying that Drexel's initial response failed to contain some of the requested documents; that at least two phone calls to the university in recent weeks went unreturned; and that a copy of the letter announcing the lawsuit was faxed to Drexel's general counsel's office before the it was sent to the student newspaper. Drexel officials declined further comment on the situation. Drexel's decision to fight New York's attorney general won plaudits from many financial aid directors and other college officials who have felt beleaguered by what they have portrayed as a seemingly endless (and in their minds unfair) barrage of charges of wrongdoing, and from others who have hoped that someone would challenge the legitimacy of the attorney general's legal grounds. On a listserv of financial aid directors, one wrote: "Way to go Drexel, way to go (clap clap)! Way to go Drexel, way to go (clap clap)! Way to go Drexel, way to go (clap clap)!" Drexel is the first of the dozens of colleges that Cuomo has asked (or demanded) to change their policies to say publicly it will not do so, but others have sent a similar message to New York, too. Clemson University last week released a letter sent to Cuomo's office by the attorney general's office in its own state, South Carolina, saying that Clemson would not be signing the settlement agreement the New York attorney general had sent. C. Havird Jones Jr., senior assistant attorney general in South Carolina, said in his letter to a Cuomo aide that "Clemson will not be entering into the agreement," based on "our determination that as to student financial aid, generally, and preferred loans with revenue sharing agreements, specifically, no conflicts of interest existed and no untoward relationships are present." The attorney general's office did say that Clemson had added additional language to its Web site further clarifying the existence of the revenue sharing agreement, and a spokesman for Cuomo, while not commenting on the South Carolina situation specifically, did say that he did not expect the New York attorney general to spend a lot of time and energy picking fights with his peers in other states. Officials at several other colleges that received the Cuomo settlement offers, including Texas Christian University, said Friday that they had agreed to change their practices in response to the inquiries from New York. Others, including Washington University in St. Louis, said they were still examining the situation. Federal Rule Making Collapses Friday also marked the third and final day of the fourth and final session of a federal rule making process chartered by the Education Department and aimed at developing new rules to govern the federal loan programs. The department had proposed tougher rules to govern the relationships between colleges and lenders, and while those rules may have seemed tough several months ago -- and are much tougher than current federal rules -- they process appeared to have been overtaken to some extent by "events outside the room," as one department official put it Friday. So despite what several members of the negotiating panel (which included lenders, financial aid administrators, consumer advocates and federal officials) described as "good faith efforts" and a "cooperative spirit," the Education Department shut down the process Friday after concluding that it would be impossible for the committee to reach consensus on the entire package of proposals. Several members of the panel expressed disappointment, believing that they were close to agreement on a proposal that would have required colleges' lists of preferred lenders to contain at least three lenders, among other possible recommendations. Some of them said they believed the negotiators had (and missed) an opportunity to show that they were willing to impose restrictions on themselves. Said one: "I'm really disappointed that we couldn't come to agreement, particularly on [preferred lender lists] and illegal inducements [for college officials and institutions from lenders]. I think it does not speak well of the [higher education] community's ability to police itself." Under federal guidelines, because the negotiating panel failed to reach consensus on the proposals, the Education Department is free to propose whatever changes in rules it wishes in the coming weeks and months. Decisions Questioned at U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday that the University of Wisconsin's campus there had chosen the controversial lender Student Loan Xpress as its sole preferred provider in 2004 even though other lenders offered better deals to students and over the recommendation of an internal panel. University officials defended the selection, saying that the company's rates were the best based on the repayment patterns of Milwaukee's students, and that its services for the institution were better. University officials said that they had not received any of the stock or cash payments that Student Loan XPress is alleged to have made to some other financial aid officials, but acknowledged that a financial aid director had sat on the company's advisory board and traveled out of state to company events. Another Federal Official Accused Saturday's Washington Post contained an article with the potent headline: "Federal Overseer of Student Loans Invested in Lenders." In it, the Post said that Sara Martinez Tucker, the under secretary of education who has spearheaded the department's higher education efforts since being confirmed late last year, owned stock in five of the six largest providers of student loans. The article stated that the revelations, which came to light in financial disclosure forms that Tucker had filed and that the department had released to the Post and other publications, followed allegations that another department official, Matteo Fontana, had either received or held (and then sold) at least $100,000 in stock in another lender while directly overseeing the student loan programs. The Post article noted, too, that department officials said Tucker had not violated any of its ethics rules, "which prohibit employees from working on matters involving a company in which they hold more than $15,000 in stock." But the article omitted other information that may further cast the seemingly sexy news in a different light. Tucker's holdings of slightly more than $10,000 total in the five lenders had been part of an IRA rollover account in her husband's name from a 401(k) plan from his previous job, according to a department spokeswoman, and the funds were not jointly held by Tucker. In addition, Tucker had sold all of the shares in the lenders in November before she was confirmed as under secretary, and officially took on her federal role, in December. Looking Ahead Just in case anyone was hoping for a quiet week on the student loan scandal front, don't hold your breath. Whatever else might be in store, on Wednesday Cuomo is scheduled to testify at a hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, whose chairman, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), has been ramping up his rhetoric and his own inquiry into the student loan mess in recent days. So expect the sparks, and the charges, to fly. Opinion: Pension reform must include education Writer: Susan Smith 4/23/2007 Lexington Herald-Leader Because of the legislature's failure to adequately fund government employee retirement systems over the last two decades, and executive branch officials' failure to properly prioritize and insist on that funding, those systems must change or go bankrupt. People go into government service for many reasons, but the one most cited is a true desire to help the public. Overall public salaries are below market levels, so the promise of retirement security has historically been worth a family's financial sacrifices in earlier years. That balance has now tipped against public workers because they can no longer look forward to that security. In revising the public pension systems, however, there are fundamental issues that must be addressed in order to succeed. Accountants are great number crunchers, but it's the personnel manager who will have to deal with the plan roll out and eventual fallout of inadequate planning driven by a bandwagon mentality. Interestingly, there don't appear to be many, if any, long-term and experienced personnel managers -- appointees of less than four years don't count -- on the governor's pension task force. Have any of these folks supervised or dealt with employees who have limited education or insufficient comprehension skills that would inhibit their ability to decipher mutual fund statements for 401k and 457 plans? Do they know that there are public employees who do not even have checking accounts? Personnel managers, particularly at the agency level, are the ones with day-to-day knowledge of work force education and skill levels. Only they can accurately assess workers' ability to take on individual financial management. If Kentucky Retirement Systems must hire highly educated and experienced financial analysts to run the system through investment and money management, shouldn't workers who are expected to manage their own finances also have financial knowledge and training? Nothing has been said about requiring a minimum level of education for all future hires or training public employees to take on this new responsibility. IBM budgeted $50 million to train its work force to handle the conversion to a new hybrid system of retirement benefits and contributions. Other corporations also have planned for extensive financial training for their employees. Governments, however, are usually behind the curve on work force management and, sadly, are again in this case. Public workers' retirement contribution rates were not decreased when the economy went south or when the legislature did not follow its obligations under the law's actuary recommendations. Thus, workers' buying power actually decreased over the last several years, limiting workers' ability to save or invest. Compounding the problem is the actual loss of public workers, particularly professionals. Bragging about reducing public payroll has become routine in election campaigns, but the reduction of more than 2,000 workers in state government has had a negative impact on retirement systems because that's more than 2,000 workers who are no longer paying into the system from their paychecks. Much of that work has gone to paid private contractors instead. The loss of hundreds of higher paid, long-term professionals has a double negative impact when they are encouraged to take early retirement during a change of administrations, and they then begin drawing retirement instead of contributing to it. The public sector is no different from the private sector when it comes to competing for expertise and talent in its work force. Unfortunately as an employer, the public sector has little to offer beyond the satisfaction of public service -- and perhaps its retirement benefits. The New York Times recently criticized Circuit City for using an incorrect management model in its intention to dismiss longer term employees in favor of new, cheaper hires. The same criticism can be levied against shortsighted governments unappreciative of experienced workers who have serious responsibilities for public care. Reducing retirement security could have serious consequences for the general public's protectors and service providers. Does John Q. Public want a newly hired worker addressing his serious health problem, evaluating the safety of his nearby bridge or responding to his life-threatening emergency? Or does he want the worker with 20 years of experience and professional credentials? If the general public does not take care of its public workers by protecting their careers and retirement benefits, then it must not expect workers to stick it out in public service. The coming labor shortage is real, and government work will become one big revolving door with little or no real service. If workers will be asked to manage their own financial investments, the legislature must have the political backbone to require at least a high school diploma for all new hires coming in under the revised plan so that the new workers can understand the new requirements and their complex repercussions. The legislature must also provide them with sufficient preparation and training for individualized investment assessment and money management. If the legislature does not take these fundamental steps, it is abdicating its responsibility in policy-making by setting up public employees to fail in their future retirement. Susan G. Smith of Frankfort is a retired teacher and state government worker and a certified public manager and a senior professional in human resources. Addington spends day saying her goodbyes - Tenure as OCTC president ends after 10 years 4/24/2007 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer Outgoing Owensboro Community & Technical College President Jacqueline Addington, left, listens to a whispered message from Stacy Edds-Ellis, the director of Discovery College, on Monday during a reception for Addington on her last day at the college. Addington announced her retirement in April 2006. Henderson native Paula Gastenveld takes over as president of the college today. Photo by Robert Bruck, M-I.  Outgoing Owensboro Community & Technical College President Jacqueline Addington, left, listens to a whispered message from Stacy Edds-Ellis, the director of Discovery College, on Monday during a reception for Addington on her last day at the college. Addington announced her retirement in April 2006. Henderson native Paula Gastenveld takes over as president of the college today. Photo by Robert Bruck, M-I. Photo of the Day Gallery |