My fellow Whitley County residents, I am quite proud of the way you have handled things so far during COVID-19 on so many levels. For starters, let’s talk about our local churches. I have to applaud our local churches and religious leaders. Even though early on most didn’t like...

What does it mean when a jail sentence is conditionally discharged or that somebody received a pretrial diversion? We occasionally get questions about what certain court terms in stories mean. I had a lady call me a few weeks ago asking about court terminology. She suggested that...

In the era of COVID-19, some of our government agencies are getting creative when it comes to members maintaining social distancing while still meeting. One of the more creative approaches I have seen was the Whitley County Water District earlier this month, when the three board...

In case the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t real enough for everyone, it really hit home for residents of Whitley and Knox counties Monday, as each county had its first confirmed case of COVID-19. Sadly, we all know that these probably won’t be the last cases of the coronavirus that we...

As you might have guessed, how to cover a worldwide pandemic is not a topic they cover in journalism school, although I suspect it might be added to the curriculum this fall…LOL. Truth be told, I don’t think this is a topic that gets covered by trainers for almost any profession...

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, let’s face it things have gotten to be just a little bit, well, nuts for lack of a better description. One person at the health department Friday compared a recent trip to Walmart to a scene from the television show, “The Walking Dead” where...

Imagine for a moment that you have an ethically-challenged local judge-executive, who is stealing money from their office, not that this kind of thing would ever happen in real life in the Commonwealth of Kentucky…LOL. Now imagine that the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts –...

Best wishes to my pal, Trent Knuckles, on his future endeavors now that he has left the News Journal. As many of you know, Friday was Trent’s last day as publisher. He is leaving after 24 years to pursue other interests. A part of me will miss him, while another part of me is...

So what would downtown Williamsburg have looked like in recent days if the floodwall hadn’t been in place? “I think we would have been riding a boat down Third Street taking pictures,” said Whitley County Emergency Management Director Danny Moses to this reporter’s question early...

It’s important not only to avoid impropriety, but also to avoid the appearance of it. These were the words that a couple of wise-old judges, the late Jerry Winchester and the late Paul Braden, used to tell me when they were asked to recuse themselves as the judge in a case. Read...

Over the last 12 years that Kay Schwartz has served as Whitley County Clerk, if you went into her office to pay your car taxes or any number of other things, you were just as likely to get waited on by Kay as you were one of her deputy clerks most days. I know. I speak from...

Some people have criticized Gov. Matt Bevin for asking for a recanvass following his nearly 5,200-vote loss to Andy Beshear in last week’s election, but I think this is entirely appropriate given that the race was decided by less than 1 percent of the vote. Had Beshear lost by...

Something about former Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble, who died Saturday, that many people probably do not realize is that he used to be a journalist. When he was a student working on his undergraduate degree, Allen was the News Editor of the Eastern Progress, which is the...

Recently, I got up at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday so I could catch a flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. I got there about 7 p.m. our time the next day. Mark White is Editor of The News Journal. When it comes to air travel, it seems like nothing is ever easy, and this was one of “those”...

Nobody goes to the grocery store expecting to be given free food. No one goes to the doctor for an infection, and isn’t expecting to be charged. Nobody runs their air-conditioner and charges their cell phone without expecting to get an electric bill. No one goes to the movie...

When I think about Ted Forcht, I can’t help but smile. The guy was just funny and made you laugh. If you spent any time at all around him, then you probably had a smile on your face before you left Ted’s company. Given the health problems he had during his life, which included...

You just can’t fit all the news from a year into a top 12 list, like the one running on our front page in this week’s edition of the News Journal. Mark White is Editor of The News Journal. Sure, we get the big news events in there, but that doesn’t mean there still weren’t quite...

The Christmas spirit seems to be plentiful this year in Williamsburg. Let’s look at a few examples. Williamsburg Main Street Manager Nannie Hays informed me after the parade Saturday night that judges were going back to look at homes and businesses again in an attempt to break a...

The Whitley County Fair returned last week after a one-year absence with a new fair board and some new events. Considering that this was pretty much a rebuilding year for the fair, I thought it went really well. Friday night’s mud bog probably drew hundreds of people for some...

Suicide. The recent deaths of famous chef Anthony Bourdain and famed fashion designer Kate Spade certainly has people talking about issue. Netflix recently came out with season two of its hit series “13 Reasons Why,” which revolves around the death of a teenage girl, her reasons...