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The Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea has a new exhibit featuring the Kentucky agate, a stone rarer than diamonds, in “Agate: Jewel of Kentucky” on display in the Center’s lobby through Nov. 11, 2017.
This exhibit tells about the history, formation and location of these fascinating and rare works of nature. Informational panels and over 30 agate specimens, as well as finished jewelry by numerous Kentucky artists, round out this exciting exhibit.
Kentucky agates come in a wide range of colors. Usually banded in layers or stripes, some varieties have ‘eye’ markings, or specks of color, some have fossilized inclusions, and others are solid. Called the ‘earth rainbow’ the concentric bands that form in agates come in nearly every color the earth can produce, including a colorless form.
Beautiful specimens of red, black, yellow, and gray-banded Kentucky agates are found primarily in the five central Kentucky counties of Estill, Madison, Powell, Jackson and Rockcastle.
This exhibit also explains various lapidary and jewelry techniques for turning this rare stone into elegant jewelry. All agate specimens, polished cabochons and finished jewelry are for sale as well as the book “Kentucky Agate: State Rock and Mineral Treasure of the Commonwealth” by Roland L. McIntosh and Warren H. Anderson.
Agate hunters, collectors and jewelers included in this exhibit are: Jarod Cox, Science Hill; Scott Hardy, Irvine; John Leeds, Richmond; Albert Mooney, Berea; and Rachel Savane, Lexington.
The Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea is located at 200 Artisan Way, just off Interstate 75 at Berea Exit 77. The center’s exhibits, shopping and travel information areas are open daily, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
The Center currently features works by more than 750 artisans from more than 100 counties across the Commonwealth. For more information about events call 859-985-5448, or go to the Center’s website, or Facebook page.
Attorney General Andy Beshear announced a series of statewide child sexual abuse prevention trainings for organizations that serve children, and presented two grants totaling more than $45,000 to support victims of child abuse.
Joined by leaders of partner organizations, Beshear made the announcements at the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass in Lexington.
The 22 trainings, set to begin this fall, aim to aid daycares, summer camps, churches and other youth-serving organizations with program evaluation and implementation of an action plan that will strengthen protocols and policies to safeguard children from sexual abuse.
“Across the country every year, approximately 35 million adults in youth-serving organizations come into contact with more than 70 million children and teens,” Beshear said. “Through these trainings we are providing support to many organizations in the state that are working hard to create and maintain a safe place for children, employees and volunteers.”
As a training partner, the Kentucky Association of Children’s Advocacy Centers will work with Beshear’s team to host trainings at advocacy centers across the state.
“Youth serving organizations are poised to serve as a first line of defense in the battle against child sexual abuse,” said Executive Director Caroline Ruschell. “By implementing the right strategies, these organizations can create an environment that fosters open dialogue and reduces opportunities for an act of abuse to occur.”
The Office of the Attorney General’s Child Victims’ Trust Fund (CVTF), administered by the Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Prevention Board (Board), is providing the funding for the trainings. The Board also approves annual grants from the CVTF to support child abuse prevention programs.
Last year, the Board sponsored statewide trainings for law enforcement, prosecutors, social workers, community advocates, religious affiliates, parents and educators on how to protect children from predators.
Beshear said the new trainings are a critical next step in protecting Kentucky’s children – one that allows his office to provide youth-serving organizations information from the risk reduction handbook that Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky developed with the assistance of a CVTF grant.
Jill Seyfred, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky attended today’s event and said the organization will continue to partner with Beshear to protect children.
“The training will help us move the needle one tick closer to achieving our ultimate goal of ensuring our children are safe; not only in their own homes, but at school, summer camps and everyplace they go,” said Seyfred.
Beshear also presented Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky with a $34,493 CVTF grant. The organization and its 130 partner groups will use the grant funding to create a public awareness campaign aimed at educating Kentuckians on how to recognize and prevent child sexual abuse.
To date, Beshear has announced more than $260,000 in CVTF grants to eight organizations working to prevent child abuse across the state, and more than $160,000 to help the state’s 15 Child Advocacy Centers cover costs associated with 2,200 child sexual abuse forensic exams.
While at the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass, Beshear presented the organization with an $11,250 grant to cover the cost of more than 150 child sexual abuse forensic exams in the Bluegrass Region this fiscal year.
“This funding is critical to our mission of helping reduce the trauma experienced by sexually abused children,” said Winn Stephens the center’s executive director. “Through our partnership we are able to provide comprehensive medical examinations that help children overcome the abuse they have suffered and bring perpetrators to justice.”
Beshear said supporting the CVTF is a direct investment in our children and encouraged others to consider making a donation, which can be made in three ways:
- Through a private donation directly to the CVTF.
- Purchase of an “I Care About Kids” license plate at your county clerk’s office.
- Donations made through the state income tax refund check-off program.
Beshear reminds Kentuckians that everyone has a moral and legal duty to report any instance of child abuse to local law enforcement or to Kentucky’s Child Abuse hotline at 877-597-2331 or 877-KYSAFE1.
For additional information regarding the upcoming youth-serving organization trainings, please visit, http://ag.ky.gov/family/childabuse/Pages/trainings.aspx or http://www.pcaky.org/news/freetraining.html.
Olmsted Parks Conservancy is recruiting volunteers to help enhance Elliott a 109-year-old park located between 28th and 29th street, a block north of Broadway in Louisville’s west end. Its four acres of land sandwiched between residential properties and commercial serves as a gathering to play basketball and horseshoes and play on the playground.
The Conservancy seeks help with weeding, mulching trees and playground, painting and other general cleanup around the whole park. With the goal of enhancing the park for the neighborhood to further enjoy. People interested in helping are asked to register online at the Events page at http://www.olmstedparks.org/ or call contact Sarah Wolff at (502) 456-8125.
Volunteers can help in Elliott Park on these dates:
July 22, 2017 from 10:00am- 12:00pm
July 25, 2017 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm
On July 29, Dreamsetters United, an organization empowering youth, have committed time at Elliott Park with 40-50 teens and young adult volunteers. “We are extremely excited about renovating Elliott Park in hopes that the community can come together in a nice place which in theory will help minimize the amount of crime in the area. We just want to help bring the community back together,” stated Hassan Latifalia, Founder, Dreamsetters United.
As early as 1863 the land now known as Elliott Park, was used as a recreation area. In the late 1870 it was home to the Eclipse Baseball Club, pro and semi-pro teams. The park was destroyed by fire in 1892 and the park stayed vacant until 1906 when parks commission took over the deed from the city. Then in 1908 the Olmsted firm was hired to create a design for the park. The park was named Elliott Park after Theodore Elliott donated the land.
Elliott Park is a popular area for the Russell neighborhood. Olmsted Parks Conservancy is committed to keeping the park as a welcoming greenspace until funds are donated to create a plan for future renovation.
Attorney General Andy Beshear and 20 other state attorneys general have submitted public comments to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, calling a move by the U.S. Department of Education to replace existing student protections a “waste of resources and a betrayal of students.”
The July 12 comments are in response to the department’s June 14 announcement of intentions to delay large portions of the Borrower Defense Rule, which was designed to hold abusive higher education institutions accountable for cheating students and taxpayers out of billions of dollars in federal loans.
According to the attorneys general, the Borrower Defense Rule was created in large part by state and federal investigations into for-profit schools like the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, and was finalized after robust and thorough negotiated rulemaking with input from numerous stakeholders.
Beshear said the department announced it would withdraw the Rule without soliciting, receiving or responding to any comment from the public, and without engaging in the required process.
“It is my hope that the department will not cast aside all the hard work and progress achieved during its previous rulemakings and turn its back on the critical protections it promised to borrowers,” Beshear said. “Attorneys general and all the stakeholders must continue to pressure the department to protect students from abuse at the hands of predatory schools.”
Under the Borrower Defense Rule, a successful enforcement action against a school by a state attorney general entitles borrowers to obtain loan forgiveness, and enables the Department of Education to seek repayment of any amounts forgiven from the school.
The attorneys general also oppose the department’s efforts to replace the Gainful Employment Rule, which empowers students to make informed decisions about their education and protects students from programs that will leave them with burdensome debt and poor job prospects.
For-profit colleges AGs have investigated and taken enforcement actions against include: American Career Institute; Ashford University/Bridgepoint Education Inc.; Corinthian Colleges Inc.; Career Education Corporation; Education Management Corporation; Daymar College; DeVry University; ITT Tech; National College of Kentucky and Westwood Colleges.
Beshear’s office is committed to holding for-profit colleges accountable in Kentucky and is working to help defrauded students.
- In December 2016, Beshear announced nearly 3,500 former students of Daymar College’s Kentucky campuses and online programs will receive restitution checks totaling $1.2 million. The payments are pursuant to a settlement agreement the Office of the Attorney General entered into with Daymar in 2015 resolving a consumer protection lawsuit.
- In August 2016, Beshear announced that the Kentucky Court of Appeals had affirmed a previous order by Franklin Circuit Court requiring National College of Kentucky Inc. and its attorneys to pay the state a combined $157,000 in civil monetary sanctions. The Kentucky Supreme Court declined in April to take up National College’s request to overturn the appeals’ court decision.
- In March 2016, Beshear joined seven other state attorneys general in asking the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to restore educational and vocational benefits to thousands of veterans victimized by Corinthian Colleges Inc. for predatory practices. Kentucky veterans are among the 2,000 students who received letters from Beshear regarding their federal loans.
Beshear said students who have been a victim of a for-profit college may contact his office by phone, 502-696-5300, or by completing a complaint form.
Health care workers, law enforcement officials, first responders and civic leaders in Western Kentucky have requested Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office train them in human trafficking awareness.
“Human trafficking represents the worst form of abuse, often to children, and it is increasing all over Kentucky,” Beshear said. “It occurs in every county, city and community in this state. We have an opportunity and obligation to prevent, identify and prosecute human trafficking cases, and by working with these groups in Western Kentucky, we can better work toward that goal.”
The training begins July 24 at 9 a.m. at Lourdes Hospital in Paducah for law enforcement and first responders. Nikki Coursey with Lourdes is a member of Beshear’s statewide Human Trafficking Taskforce.
At noon on July 24, a training will be held in Benton at the Majestic Steak House during the Marshall County Rotary Club’s monthly meeting. At 2 p.m., a training for law enforcement and first responders will be held at the Joe Creason Community Center in Benton.
Lourdes Hospital will hold three trainings July 25 for its clinical staff: 7:15 a.m., noon and 2:30 p.m. At 9 a.m. Beshear’s office will speak to law enforcement officials at the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police Conference at the Paducah Convention Center.
Beshear’s office will hold upcoming trainings across the state including ones for Keeneland staff July 17 and 18; Fayette County Public School staff July 28; Jefferson County Public School psychologists Aug. 1; and the Juvenile Justice Advisory Board Conference Aug. 8 in Lexington.
Over the last year, Beshear has established the Kentucky Attorney General’s office as the leading agency fighting human trafficking, a modern-day form of slavery in which adults and children are forced into sex or labor services.
Beshear’s office is currently working 14 human trafficking cases and has assisted local law enforcement with resources in an effort to resolve 96 other human trafficking complaints. His office has trained over 1,500 individuals statewide and forged partnerships with the trucking and hospitality industries, and the Baptist Convention.
The AG’s office, along with Catholic Charities of Louisville, received a federal grant in 2016, the first Department of Justice grant ever awarded to a Kentucky agency for human trafficking. The federal grant provides support to the statewide human trafficking taskforce in its efforts to develop a process for collecting and interpreting data on human trafficking and model protocols for victim-centered response, investigation and prosecution of these cases.
The funding allowed a specially trained human trafficking investigator to be hired.
Human trafficking victims are often the most marginalized in society – victims of abuse and violence, runaways, refugees, immigrants or those who are homeless, Beshear said.
In 2016, Beshear’s office arrested more online child predators than any year in the history of the office. The number of arrests, indictments and convictions totaled nearly 80. His cyber crime investigators also assist with the forensic review of technology on local human trafficking cases.
To learn more about human trafficking and efforts to fight it, contact the Attorney General’s Office of Child Abuse and Human Trafficking Prevention and Prosecution at 502-696-5300 or visit Catholic Charities of Louisville Rescue and Restore program website at http://www.rescueandrestoreky.org. The national human trafficking hotline number is 888-373-7888.
Photo: Kentucky Department Fish and Wildlife
Two employees of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources recently used the department’s website at www.fw.ky.gov to glean information on catching saugeye.
They used the 5-foot contour maps on the “Find a Place to Fish” to study the bottom of Guist Creek Lake in Shelby County and determine a place to fish. They later fished those areas and caught their first saugeye.
“We trying to provide information on our website to make it easier for anglers to find places to fish and be successful,” said Mike Hardin, assistant director of fisheries for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. “The “Find a Place to Fish” page allows anglers to sort by county, city, waterbody, access type or even species of fish.”
Many of the waterbodies detailed in the “Find a Place to Fish” page contain important fishing information, such as the 5-foot contour maps. “When you pull these waterbodies up, many of them have the location of fish attractors, species assessments as well as the contour maps. We have the contour maps for most of our smaller state-owned lakes as well as the Fishing in Neighborhoods (FINs) lakes.”
Hardin said the large reservoirs operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have commercially available maps at tackle shops near the lakes or for sale online. Many of the large outfitters also sell these maps.
“Each entry contains driving directions to all of the ramps on that waterbody,” Hardin said. “They also contain a link to the Fishing Forecast, detailing the fishing for many species in waterbodies across the state.”
Planning a float trip on a stream can be daunting. The “Canoeing and Kayaking” page contains loads of information to help select a place to paddle. You may click on the “Stream Fisheries” tab for detailed information on access sites, lengths of floats and recommended floating levels for streams across Kentucky.
This page also contains photos of each access point and a description of the access. This is invaluable information to paddlers floating a stream for the first time. This page also shows the abundance and size structure of the population of the desirable fish in the stream such as rock bass or smallmouth bass.
The “Canoeing and Kayaking” page also contains a link to the award winning Blue Water Trails series of articles detailing more than 30 different floats across Kentucky. These articles also contain fishing tips for the species in the waterbody as well as a printable map.
“If you are trying to figure out a place for the coming weekend, our website has many resources to help guide you,” Hardin said. “We want people to enjoy our water resources and catch some fish.”
Photo: Kentucky Cabinet For Economic Development
Gov. Matt Bevin announced Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC will invest $13.7 million to increase the output of its Calloway County facility, which produces additive compounds for numerous industries.
“This growth by Vanderbilt Chemicals is evidence that a key Kentucky industry continues to flourish,” said Gov. Matt Bevin. “In today’s world, the chemicals industry fundamentally supports our daily lives, and Kentucky is proud that companies like Vanderbilt – a member of our corporate community since 1969 – choose to locate and prosper here. I wish the company well going forward and hope to see even more growth in the future.”
Vanderbilt’s expansion in West Kentucky includes the addition of a new spray drying system and a new building to house this equipment. The facility provides dried, purified and finished smectite and bentonite clay used in pharmaceutical, personal care, agri-science, ceramics, household items and other products. Company executives expect to complete the project in early 2019. Currently, the company employs 97 people at the Murray facility.
“Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC has long enjoyed being a part of this great and growing community,” said Richard Davis, vice president at the Murray operation. “The support from local officials, neighbors and the commonwealth has been an important part of the decision to further expand our operations in this area and provide additional employment opportunities for people in our area.”
Vanderbilt Chemicals, founded in 1916 and headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., manufactures and resells chemicals for the rubber, plastics, paint, paper, petroleum, personal care and other minerals industries. Vanderbilt has an additional manufacturing facility in Connecticut and mining operations in Arizona, Nevada, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The chemicals industry in Kentucky employs 15,000 people full-time at nearly 200 production sites across the state. This year through June, the industry announced more than $100 million in new investments.
Sen. Stan Humphries, of Cadiz, noted the company’s relationship with the local area.
“I would like to congratulate Vanderbilt Chemicals, which has been a community partner in Murray for a number of years, on this new multimillion dollar expansion. I look forward to the company’s continued success in Murray and wish its leaders the best in future endeavors.”
Rep. Kenny Imes, of Murray, said growth of companies like Vanderbilt contributes to the community’s overall quality of life.
“Any time a company invests a large sum of money, like nearly $14 million, it is indicative of the positive business environment in the area. I’m proud to continue working to attract this exact type of investment to Murray and our surrounding communities, and to bring more jobs to support families and to make our region the best place to live and raise a family.”
Murray Mayor Jack Rose praised the company’s professional practices.
“Long before I became mayor of Murray, I have known that Vanderbilt is one of those companies that quietly goes about the business of being the best they can be,” Mayor Rose said. “This investment in new equipment is a testament to their confidence in the labor force we have here in Murray and the surrounding area. We need more and better companies like Vanderbilt in West Kentucky.”
Calloway County Judge-Executive Larry Elkins said Vanderbilt has been a great match for the community’s workforce.
“Vanderbilt Chemicals has always been a really great company to work for and we are proud to see them continue to invest in Calloway County,” Judge-Executive Elkins said. “Like many family owned companies, they treat their people well and are a responsible corporate citizen that also works very hard to carefully manage their environmental footprint. Companies like these understand the great workforce that we have in West Kentucky.”
The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) in May approved Vanderbilt for up to $100,000 in tax incentives through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA). KEIA allows approved companies to recoup Kentucky sales and use tax on construction costs, building fixtures, equipment used in research and development and electronic processing.
In addition, Vanderbilt can receive resources from the Kentucky Skills Network. Through the Kentucky Skills Network, companies can receive no-cost recruitment and job placement services, reduced-cost customized training and job training incentives. In fiscal year 2016, the Kentucky Skills Network provided training for nearly 95,000 Kentuckians and 5,000 companies from a variety of industry sectors.
For more information on Vanderbilt Chemicals, visit www.VanderbiltChemicals.com.
A detailed community profile for Calloway County can be viewed at http://bit.ly/CallowayCo.
Information on Kentucky’s economic development efforts and programs is available at ThinkKentucky.com. Fans of the Cabinet for Economic Development can also join the discussion on Facebook or follow on Twitter. Watch the Cabinet’s “This is My Kentucky” video on YouTube.