The title of Al Smith’s latest book is Kentucky Cured: Fifty Years of Kentucky Journalism. In the preface, he explains that ‘cured’ can refer to tobacco, country ham, health concerns, and even an addiction. Rarely does Smith speak or write a personal narrative that he doesn’t refer to his personal battles with alcohol, and this literary work is no exception.
He explains the book’s title and theme this way: “Kentucky Cured is not a book of sermons about drinking, but it was written by a journalist who found ‘recovery’ and life away from the big city and among farm people, who value the term ‘cured,’ as in seasoned, ripe and ready. Yes, and sober--although one cynical reader told me the editorials I wrote were ‘hell of a lot more interesting when you were a drunk.’”
The book, which has been published by The History Press of Charleston, S.C., could just as easily be entitled Kentucky Treasures, in honor of the remarkable reworking of his own columns that Smith has written the past half century, of the legendary figures from the Commonwealth he chronicles in those columns, or of Smith himself, since he most certainly is a Kentucky Treasure.
Smith, who began The Logan Leader and built a publishing empire in Western Kentucky centered in his hometown of Russellville, may have been known by more Kentuckians than any other resident of the state in the early 90s, maybe even more than the governor. He came into their homes daily as anchor of the syndicated radio program AOK Primeline and weekly as host of Kentucky Educational Television’s Comment on Kentucky for over three decades. He also had been chairman of three statewide commissions and written op-ed columns for both the Louisville and Lexington newspapers. He also had led revitalization efforts for Kentucky mountain folks as federal co-chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission under both President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan.
“The essence of Al Smith is that he was born to be a public figure, in print and in person. And in one way or another, he always has been,” observes Leonard Press, founder of Comment on Kentucky and the man who hired Smith to produce and moderate KET’s signature program.
Throughout the 220-plus pages of Kentucky Cured, Smith tells stories about a myriad of Kentucky politicians that only an insider could know. He delves into the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of notables, from John Sherman Cooper to Happy Chandler, Ned Breathitt to Louie Nunn, Ed Pritchard to Thruston Morton, John Ed Pearce to Robert Penn Warren, Harry Caudill to James Still, Marlow Cook to Walter ‘Dee’ Huddleston, Lyndon Baines Johnson to Henry Clay, Dr. Thomas Clark to Alben Barkley, Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, Mitch McConnell to Muhammad Ali, and Bert Combs to Gatewood Galbraith.
As is always the case, though, Smith’s comments go back to his 22 years as a resident of Logan County. In his 2011 autobiography Wordsmith: My Life in Journalism, he wrote extensively about how the people of Logan County rescued him from a life of self-destruction. (See The Logan Journal review of Wordsmith at http://www.theloganjournal.com/Stories.aspx?Article=news120.
Early columns in Kentucky Cured chronicle the lives and actions of Russellville industrial recruiter Marvin Stuart, Adairville duelers Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson, and Democratic kingpin/kingmaker Emerson ‘Doc’ Beauchamp, Later he talks about his friendship with the Rhea family, focusing on Lillian Rhea Noe, daughter of Beauchamp’s predecessor, Thomas S. Rhea, and one of Al’s partners in starting a newspaper in competition with the News-Democrat, an historic newspaper which the Rhea family had once owned and Smith had edited.
Two recurring themes involve veterans and racial relations. With the importance of military service drilled into his conscience by his grandmother and by the examples of his grandfather, Rutledge Smith, and his father, Albert Smith Sr., young Al Smith became a soldier as a young man. Kentucky Cured columns tell about veterans Cpl. Josh Moore, Robley Henry Rex, Chancey Wheeler, George B. Duncan, Robert H. Hall, Phillip Ardery, Perry Lee Jr., Lois Gray and Russellvillian Moses Gaines, who was reunited with his fellow vet, Dr. Otis Singletary, who was by then president of the University of Kentucky. Gaines was African American and Singletary caucasian.
Smith’s new book includes several columns about integration, a volatile issue in the South as he began his career in journalism, although not in Russellville and Logan County, where the merger of African American students from Knob City School into city and county schools had come about remarkably peacefully and smoothly. On a wider scale, he wrote about the University of Kentucky’s first minority student, Lyman Johnson, along with blues legend Ethel Waters, and Georgia Powers, a pioneer in the Kentucky legislature. He even talks about Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, accompanied by a picture of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.
One chapter combines Russellville, the Blues and minorities. It tells the story of how Russellville Blues—led by Joe Gran Clark, Michael Morrow and Michael Gough—has brought entertainment to the grounds of the West Kentucky African American Museums in Russellville while paying homage to late Russellvillian Mary Ann Fisher, who was part of the great Ray Charles’ performance troupe. Also included in this chapter is the story of Russellville’s Charles Neblett, a member of the Freedom Singers quartet who played an integral role in the integration of the South and was on hand for Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. In 2010, Neblett was guest of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.
Other past and present Logan Countians named in the book include Granville Clark, Rev. Ed Coffman Jr., Joe Copple, Al Cross, Earl Davis, Aileen Evans, Larry Forgy, Gordon Foster, JoAnn Foster, Mark Griffin, Carter Hancock, Joe Hicks, Jesse James, Ginny Smith Major, Catherine Hancock McCarty, Joan McGloshin, Rev. Tom McGloshin, Gertrude ‘City; Merritt, John Merritt, Billy Joe Miles, Marvinia Benton Neblett, Judge Thomas Noe, Tom Noe, Ben Page, Leslie Page III. Virginia Page, Albert Rhea, John Rhea, Lee Robey, Elmer Shelton, Martha Helen Smith, Rayburn Smith, Jim Turner, Harry Whipple, and Col. Terry Wilcutt.
Author Don McKay wrote in his review of Kentucky Cured: “The book is not really about other Kentuckians, it's about Al. A man who seems to know everyone. A man who has overcome adversity and passionately devoted his life to helping people that society often ‘throws away.’ A man who, like Forrest Gump, always seems to show up just as history is happening.”
Impressively, Al Smith has written two full-length books within a year at the same time he was turning 85 years old.
How can I personally not endorse Kentucky Cured? In a book filled with the greatest names in Kentucky history, Al mentions me in the fourth paragraph of the first chapter. Then on Page 61, he writes, “In the Russellville weekly paper, my successor as editor, Jim Turner…” That’s a title to be cherished for a lifetime.
Al Smith will be in Russellville Sunday, Nov. 18 for a public reception and book signing at the Logan County Public Library from 2:30-4:30 p.m. That will provide friends, fans and lovers of Kentucky history an opportunity to purchase an autographed copy of Kentucky Cured: Fifty Years of Kentucky Journalism and to talk with a real-life Kentucky Treasure.