If the year 2010 is accorded a theme, the most appropriate moniker could be “Nothing in Moderation.”
A 100-year flood hit the first weekend in May. Nashville television says we recorded more consecutive 90-plus-degree days than ever before in recorded history. Now we’re going through the coldest December on record.
We don’t do anything halfway, weather-wise.
I don’t know how all this affected your family, but it has been tough on the Turners, since our produce business depends on lots of cooperation from Mother Nature. The day before the flood, we sold more strawberries than any other single day in our history. The day of the flood we went out of the strawberry business for the year. The sweltering prolonged drought dried up out watermelons and cantaloupes. In between, we had a killing frost during the Tobacco Festival that wiped out a couple of acres of green beans just before they were ready to be picked.
Then this week our frozen water pipes turned into sprinklers, something we could have used during the drought.
Nothing in Moderation!
The LoJo
During my years as editor of the News-Democrat & Leader, we could count on hearing regularly from two ladies who were special friends of mine. I had known them both since my youth. They were both great citizens who wholeheartedly believed in the political process. They just didn’t believe in the same solutions for political questions. They wrote dozens of letters to the editor expressing their views passionately.
Nancy Atchison is an unabashed yellow dog Democrat. That’s true unless the yellow dog happens to be a Republican. She’s now living in Central Kentucky with her son Paul Atchison Jr. and his family.
Helen Raby was a staunch conservative, a Republican spokeswoman. She ardently believed in the GOP and was opposed to big government. Miss Helen died this year, well into her 90s.
One of her last big outings was attending a rally in Elizabethtown for Dr. Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. Dr. Paul’s campaign was of particular interest to her, since she had taught his wife, the former Kelley Ashby, in the Russellville schools. The Pauls posed for pictures with her and Mrs. Raby’s daughter, Janet Hall of Russellville. Taking the pictures was Chris Gadbois, who served as the official photographer in the Paul campaign. He, too, is a former student of Mrs. Raby.
Miss Helen didn’t get to live quite long enough to see Dr. Paul become Senator Paul. She was an astute enough political observer, however, to have gone peacefully into that great night, knowing her state would continue to be represented in the U.S. Senate by two men from her party and her ideology. Having one of her former students as the wife of one of the most powerful men in America was an added bonus and source of comfort. Her Christian faith was the clincher, though.
Also, another Russellville teaching legend died this week. Nora Edwards was part of a generation of excellent teachers in the Russellville system who grew up together. My mother, Marie Turner, was one of them, along with her childhood friendsKatherine Lyle Russell Stengell, Clara Louise McLean Jones, Laura Shelton Thurmond and Clennie Sue Price Rector Riley. Put them together with Eleanor Piper, Ruth Price Carpenter, Hazel Darver, Lelia Greene McEndree and Helen Carpenter, and that was quite a female nucleus for a successful education for decades.
To the best of my recollection, the last remaining member of this age group is Helen White. Slightly younger than them is Hilda Lynch.
The LoJo
My last competition as coach of the Russellville High School Speaking Panthers after nine seasons in 1977 was at the National Forensic League national tournament in Seattle. Senior Catherine Hancock finished third in the nation in extemporaneous speaking a few days..
Now Catherine’s son, 17-year-old son Evan McCarty, a junior at Mountain Brook High School in Birmingham, was judged best speaker of 300 students at a policy debate tourney this month in Minneapolis. His grandfather, former Russellville newspaper editor/owner Al Smith, says it was “perhaps his best tournament ever,” which is no small thing. After all, he has been in several national tournaments this year, always finishing near the top.
He and his partner were invited to a pre-season round robin for the projected top 16 teams in the country just before Thanksgiving (finished in the top eight), and they placed in the top eight of 170+ teams at a huge tournament in Chicago just before Thanksgiving. In the individual speaker awards in Chicago, he placed second among all the juniors. He has placed first, second, or third among all juniors at every tournament he's been to this year, and he's the only debater on the national circuit who has been that consistently at the top. He and his partner have already received four bids to the Tournament of Champions at UK on Derby weekend.
Evan has attended debate camps at Michigan State and the University of Michigan the last two summers. Now Wake Forest and Northwestern are among the prestigious universities trying to get a commitment from him to attend their camp next summer.
I remember well when my top debaters/extempers, Joe Gran Clark, the late Elizabeth Wilson and Catherine, attended camps at UK. That was the turning point in making our team one of the state powers.
Catherine and her husband Bill McCarty are attorneys. Their older son Connor is a student at the University of Alabama where he is majoring in Asian studies. He and Bill have spent time on that continent as part of Bill’s international practice.
Meanwhile Al is working to regain his strength after undergoing radiation for what appears to be a successful battle against cancer while wife/mom/grandmom Martha Helen Smith is recovering from a knee replacement that was slowed down by complications. The Smiths lived in Russellville for 23 years until 1980. Al notes they have now lived in Lexington a year longer than that.
Their son, Carter Hancock, lives in Louisville. His daughter Lauren is a sophomore at Barnard College in New York. Their younger daughter, Ginny Smith Major, who was born in Russellville, is an executive coach, and her husband Bill a professor at the University of Hartford. They have two young daughters, Susannah and Ava.
Al reports that former Russellville journalist Al Cross and his brother David Cross of Clinton County are writing a chapter for a book about southcentral Kentucky politics for a book on politics of that region of the Cumberland being edited by two Cookeville colleagues at Tennessee Tech.
A UK journalism professor and Courier-Journal political columnist, Al Cross is publisher of a student-produced electronic paper. He plans to be in Russellville next week to see his nephew, Martin Cross, playing for Coach Willie Feldhaus’ Russell County team that will be playing in the FSNB Christmas Classic.
My theory that almost everything has a Logan County Connection is directly traceable to my long association with Al Smith. As proof, he notes that the race for mayor of Lexington featured men who had Logan ties: “On Jan. 2, our friend Jim Gray, whom we first met in Glasgow in the early 1970s, will be inaugurated as Lexington's new mayor. He defeated another Glasgow native, Jim Newberry, who is nephew of two deceased Russellville men, Les Newberry, the realtor, and Tom Newberry, an elementary school principal. (We met the Gray family when their construction company was building the Auburn Nursing Home.)”

The LoJo
A graduate of Logan County High School was recently featured on a big screen being honored in front of thousands and getting money as an added bonus.
Sophomore Jenna Wilson of Auburn was nominated by the Western Kentucky University Engineering faculty for an award given by the US Air Force-the Engineering Student of the Game. This honor is announced at each home WKU Football game and the student’s picture goes up on the big screen. A $500 stipend also goes with it,
At the game, this was the announcement: “Jenna is a sophomore in Electrical Engineering. She is involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and Habitat for Humanity, where she is co- chair of Education and Advocacy Events. Habitat colleagues say that she is reliable and enthusiastic-someone who puts her heart into the work. And if she can't do something, she's up front about telling you that. She also enjoys playing volleyball and basketball for fun, and spending time with her family and friends. Her faculty members describe her as a dream student, ready with her work, and energetic with her questions. Her latest engineering project is the creation of a low-cost submersible robot to be used in cave exploration and bridge inspection, as well as in search and rescue operations.”
The LoJo
Southcentral Kentucky high school students were special guests at Western Kentucky University recently, for their academic achievements The annual recognition ceremony honored students who qualify for an academic scholarship to WKU. This year’s group has an average ACT composite score of 28.6 and grade-point average of 3.93 and included 18 Kentucky Governor’s Scholars and one National Achievement Semifinalist.
Students from Allen County-Scottsville, Butler County, Edmonson County, Franklin-Simpson, Logan County and Russellville high schools were honored at a luncheon Dec. 7 at the Kentucky Library & Museum.
From LCHS were Bailey Scott, Caitlyn Toon, Caitlynn Oberhausen, Maegan Williams, Jacob Hopkins, Zachary Turner and Savannah Larson. They were accompanied by Superintendent Marshall Kemp, Principal Casey Jaynes, and counselors David Brooks and Alicia Rogers.
From RHS were Sarah Fox, Matthew Oakley, John Corum, Kimberly Baugh, D.J. Quarles, Rontory Todd and Naomi Sells along with Counselor Kathy Von Lehman and Principal John Myers.
The LoJo
When the Kentucky Library and Museum hosted “Harry Potter Night” recently, a distinct Logan County Connection could be found. Danielle Thurman, a WKU junior from Auburn, played Hermione Granger; coordinating the night was former LCHS teacher Christy Spurlock, who is education curator for the museum; and the event was held at the Felts Log House, which came from Logan County.
Thurman is a history major who started reading the Harry Potter series when she was 11. She found a tie and wore her father’s graduation gown and a schoolgirl outfit underneath. “I have curly hair, how can I not be Hermione?” she said. “As a kid, I always connected with her ... being the nerdy girl.”
The LoJo
Ashley George and Brenna Brown of Logan County were recently featured in the Bowling Green Daily News for being part of the Kentucky Cancer Program’s “Faces of Cancer” exhibit The photographic collection is being shown in five counties.
George was found to be suffering from thyroid cancer when she was 16 years old. The disease runs in her family. Brown was found to have neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops in the nerve tissue, when she was 13 months old.
Now Brown is 16 and a high school athlete. George and her husband Adam have a daughter, Madelyn.
The LoJo
Bowling Green radio morning man Tony Rose, who is one of that city’s most popular and energetic personalities, recently made his acting debut in the Fountian Square Players’ performance of Breaker Morant at the Phoenix Theater.
He is a 1995 graduate of Logan County High School and the son of Bessie Rose of Auburn.