Monday morning, a Whitley County Grand Jury cleared Corbin Police Sgt. Stephen Meadors of any wrongdoing in connection with the Feb. 14 off-duty fatal shooting of Phillip N. Davenport, 20, of Corbin. About 3:30 a.m., a neighbor contacted Meadors about a prowler. Meadors went to...

A few weeks ago, my wonderful wife, Cecelia, (who frequently asks each week if I have written about how wonderful she is my column…LOL), was out of town for the weekend, and I had gotten everything that I had really needed to get done at the office finished that Saturday in the...

Unfortunately, this coming weekend’s River Fog Festival in downtown Williamsburg has been cancelled due to high COVID-19 rates in Whitley County. Fortunately, there is still a few things to do this weekend locally although admittedly each might not appeal to everyone. For our...

While there is a good chance that you may not know that September is suicide prevention month, the sad reality is that chances are you probably know somebody, who has died by suicide. In Kentucky, one person dies every 11 hours from suicide. It is the second leading cause of...

Old Fashioned Trading Days returned last week for the first time since 2019 following a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic. To the credit of organizers, the 38th installment of this festival was every bit as good as previous versions of it. While many area festivals returned...

Peace. If I had to name the biggest difference in life before 9/11 and life after 9/11, then I would have to say that it is peace, or at least the sense we had of peace before the attacks and the lack of a sense of peace we have had after it. Most generations have one or two epic...

One of the most tragic homicides that I have ever covered happened 20 years ago. Please, please learn from the mistakes that lead to it. On Aug. 20, 2001, Lisa Rains was a 28-year-old Oak Grove Elementary School teacher, who had recently found out that she was pregnant. It should...

A couple of friends of mine got COVID-19 recently. One of whom had to go to the hospital not once, but twice on two consecutive days. This was largely because there were no available beds when she went the first day in order for her to be admitted. She had to return the second...

From my perspective, our local fairs and festivals are a lot like grandparents getting visits from their grandchildren. I am happy to see them come. I am happy to see them go…LOL. NIBROC 2021 has now come and gone, and it was great to see its return after a two-year hiatus. It...

Williamsburg City Councilman Loren Connell probably summed it up best when he pointed out during the June city council meeting that Williamsburg residents probably ought to be thanking the current workers at its Firestone plant. “If they weren’t doing a good job, I don’t think...

Needles. I hate needles! I really hate needles! When I was a kid, I never liked getting shots. Never! One thing that my parents never had to worry about was me and especially my sister (whose hatred of needles is on a whole other unmatched level) coming in with a tattoo. Wasn’t...

Local residents apparently really wanted to see a Whitley County Fair this year. While official attendance figures aren’t in yet, it looks like over 600 people turned out for the inaugural demolition derby last Thursday night. This was the largest crowd that I can ever recall on...

They are back and hopefully will be better than ever. We’re talking about festivals, fairs and the like, which were mostly all canceled last year due to the pandemic. For those of you, who were cooped up for the better part of a year, it’s time to get back out and support our...

Wow! I have to say the Williamsburg fireworks display at the Kentucky Splash waterpark Saturday evening was probably the best fireworks show there that I have ever seen in my more than 25 years of covering Williamsburg. Organizers started the show a little earlier than usual...

While well-intentioned, placing a historical marker to commemorate the Corbin 1919 Race Riot, as the Sunup Initiative has proposed, probably isn’t the best idea in the world for multiple reasons. First, some background about the incident for anyone unfamiliar with it, which would...

Sports writers are a different breed. Many of them are die hard sports junkies, who really like sports and you have to be in order to do that job well. Most of our sporting events take place either in the evening or on the weekends. There are long hours spent out at games at...

It’s time to start planning a post COVID-19 party. Hear me out. On June 11, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear lifted pretty much the last of his COVID-19 restrictions. In other words, there are no more mask mandates, nor limited seating capacity requirements at restaurants, or other...

The upcoming 2021 SOAR Summit, which will take place Oct. 13-14, will be a great way for Corbin to showcase itself to leaders and VIPs, who are expected to attend from all over the country, including Washington, D.C. SOAR, which stands for Shaping Our Appalachian Region, was...

Some people really tick me off. A couple of Saturdays ago, I was having a pretty good day. My wife, Cecelia, and I were out for a drive in the country after eating an early dinner. We had just driven across the railroad tracks, and were waiting to make a right turn onto KY 26...

When the Corbin Tourism Commission first brought the 2132 locomotive to Corbin, I think many people, including myself, had some serious doubts about whether it would actually attract visitors to downtown. Without a doubt, the funniest comment about it came from then Corbin Police...