Retired district judge and U.S. Army Colonel Ronald Blaine Stewart was both an officer and a gentleman. He had this classy quality about him, but was also down to earth at the same time. Judge Stewart passed away Saturday at the age of 87. He was born and raised in Williamsburg,...

Change. Sure, many words can, have and will be used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic, such as awful, terrible, horrible, deadly, etc., but in terms of its impact on society, change may be the one word that sums it up best. In-person meetings changed to Zoom meetings, and many...

They say there are two things that you never want to see being made. Hot dogs are one and laws are the other. I can’t speak for the hot dog part of this analogy. After watching the Kentucky Senate and Kentucky House of Representatives debate many things before they finally got...

Last Friday night, I went to The Arena box office to pick-up my photographer’s pass for the Winger concert. What the lady at the box office came back with was a bit unique to say the least. I received a 3”x5” index card with “Photo Pass Winger” written on it with a blue Sharpie....

Attention members of the Kentucky House of Representatives, let me tell you a little bit about the area around Exit 29 in southern Laurel County that is the subject of Senate Bill 274, or as us locals refer to it, north Corbin. First off, let introduce myself. I am Mark White,...

While I have definitely gotten a lot more jaded and cynical after decades of writing about crime and destruction, I still like to believe that there are a lot more good people than there are bad people in the world. Disasters and emergencies, like our recent ice and snow storms,...

The time has come for the Kentucky General Assembly to let the people decide the fate of slot machines and “historical wagering” in the commonwealth as the state’s founding fathers intended. As many of you know, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled late last year that mo...

During my college days at Eastern Kentucky University, I remember an interesting project that our staff at The Eastern Progress did one Saturday afternoon for a lifestyle page feature. Several of the staff members and a few significant others, set out on a quest to determine...

Most school children in Kentucky are learning via virtual instruction this school year. Teachers and educators are doing their best, but virtual instruction isn’t the same as in-person instruction where the teacher can just walk over to a student’s desk and help them with a...

One of my fondest memories of former Williamsburg Mayor Bill Nighbert was the time we sat out around the pool at the old Williamsburg Motel for about five hours smoking cigars and waiting on a Williamsburg Police Department sting operation to go down. Two drug dealers from...

I have a real love, hate relationship with eggs these days. When it comes to eating eggs, my preference would generally be scrambled eggs although I do like fried eggs too. Periodically, I enjoy a good ham and cheese omelet. I have never been a big fan of the boiled egg except...

Anyone that has ever been around toddlers is familiar with the dreaded temper tantrum. Young children will get upset over something and will lay on the floor kicking and screaming until they get their way. Sadly, we are living in what I would affectionately refer to as the temper...

Let’s face it. 2020 was quite the year from a worldwide pandemic to the third highest flood in Whitley County and Williamsburg history. Just in Whitley County alone, we were pretty much a war and a famine short of having our own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…LOL. Maybe 2020...

There’s a line from the song, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,” which pretty well sums up the year that was 2020. “You stink, stank, stunk!” Unless you, a close relative or a close friend had a new baby in 2020 or you hit the Powerball big time, then chances are you HATED 2020....

We all know that our firefighters deal with a lot, particularly our volunteer firefighters, who don’t get paid for what they do. There are structure fires, brush fires, and auto accidents in addition to a host of other calls. There was one call that came across the radio scanner...

Corbin’s reverse Christmas parade Saturday night was definitely an interesting twist on a Christmas parade. For those that don’t know, during a reverse parade the participants are parked along the parade route, which in this case was on the right side of Main Street in downtown...

Often after someone gives their two or three-week notice at a place of employment, they, shall we say, put it on cruise control. Frequently, they don’t put in an extraordinary amount of effort from the point where they give their notice until they walk out the door. As I said,...

A few months ago, I was proofreading over a grant application that someone had written, and I remember commenting “Don’t tell me. Show me. Give me some local facts and figures that support this.” In regards to Gov. Andy Beshear’s latest executive orders regarding COVID-19...

So how popular was in-person early voting in Whitley County for this year’s presidential election? Let’s look at the numbers. Out of the 15,000 or so votes cast for president in Whitley County, 10,017 were done by people doing early, in-person voting. To put it another way,...

Barbara Neubert was a fire cracker. While she may have been small in stature, that little lady packed quite a bit of energy in a small package. Barbara was a fixture in the Williamsburg community for what seemed like forever. She was a smart, classy lady, who you often saw...