The first weekend in May is one of my favorites. The Kentucky Derby is special whether you attend or watch it on television. Preceding the Derby will be the May Day Festival Friday night at the Corbin Arena. Last year I was honored to be the Master of Ceremonies for the 75th...

I’m convinced there is a certain percentage of people who do things simply because other people would prefer they didn’t. Call it an oppositional-defiant streak. I remember a case, when I was on the city of Corbin’s Code Enforcement Board, where someone we had cited for property...

No matter what time of the day or night, or the day of the week, when you travel on Interstate 75 it is clogged with traffic. Recently I have made trips to Georgia and traffic was extremely heavy. Each time I’ve driven to Lexington latlely it has been the same way. In addition to...

Last week, the News Journal reported the Whitley County Health Department has given out 90,481 “clean” (unused) needles since its needle exchange program began in January 2017. That’s 2.4 needles per man, woman and child living in Whitley County, or 9.9 per person over the age of...

When I was a kid, I loved jukeboxes. They were regular fixtures, particularly in pizza places. I remember going to Pizza Hut and begging my mom and dad to give me a little money for the jukebox so I could play a song I liked. “Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band was always one of my...

Don Estep is Publisher Emeritus of The News Journal. A Railroad Museum at the Depot would be part of an attraction that could attract visitors to downtown Corbin. However, spending upwards of $500,000 is a lot of money to gamble on it happening in a railroad museum. You need to...

Gotta brag just a little this week. For the third straight year, the News Journal was named best newspaper, among large weekly publications in Kentucky, at the Kentucky Press Association annual convention last month. This is a big deal to those in our profession. Our category is...

Don Estep is Publisher Emeritus of The News Journal. This morning I picked up some litter that had been thrown from passing motorists. While doing it a question passed through my mind. What priority does litter have on the list of government responsibilities? You need to login to...

I know I’m probably in the minority when I say I prefer my coverage of local sports to be as free from bias as possible. Give it to me straight, no chaser. I like reading/hearing interviews with opposing players and coaches. I like honest analysis of in-game strategy rather than...

While watching America’s Got Talent Monday night three men called the “Texas Tenors” brought the house down with their performance. They had the longest ovation of the night. I told my wife, “They are going to win one of the two spots to move forward in the show.” When the votes...

Trent Knuckles is publisher of The News Journal. From time to time, I get complaints from readers about the content of the News Journal’s editorial page. A few surfaced regarding last week’s editorial cartoon commenting on the whole “build the wall” controversy. You need to login...

Gary West is an author and News Journal columnist. Walter Tevis, in spite of an Ichabod Crane look and often wearing ill-fitting clothes, was popular in the Carlisle community. Shortly after coming to the school he met another new teacher, Jamie Griggs, a Home Economic...

I get a lot of interesting email. Over two decades in media with the same email address the entire time gets you put on a lot of people’s distribution lists. You need to login to view the rest of the content. Please Login. Not a Member? Join Us

Goodbye 2018. Hello 2019! As I write this, we are on the cusp of a new year. To me, that’s always a very exciting time. I don’t know what it is about the changing of the calendar. For some reason, it always feels like a fresh beginning for me. Time to reset, reevaluate and set...

A new year and hopefully a better one. However, this past year was a good one for me. My daughter and her three children moved to Corbin and that made it exceptionally good. There were some not so good things happening too. Nationally, climate change brought fire, floods, and...

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...

OK, this is a little weird. They say in the magazine industry, it is pretty common to be working on things that will be printed three to six months in the future. Normally, I write this column the day before it is published. But because of the necessities of the holiday printing...

A few years ago, I stood in the Capitol rotunda and urged policymakers to rid Kentucky of its Certificate of Need plague since the policy amounts to nothing more than a government “permission slip” for new health-care providers to create and compete. Now, after more than a decade...

I think the Whitley County Health Department is doing the citizens of our county a disservice by not being more forthcoming regarding food service workers diagnosed with Hepatitis A. Kentucky has the nation’s worst outbreak of the disease. Among Kentucky counties, Whitley ranks...

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...