In a courtroom, news reporters ought to be seen but never heard, so I had to resist the urge to stand and clap earlier this month at the Christian County Justice Center when I heard a judge offer his opinion of the internet site called Topix.
When Jim Cherry retired from the Kentucky New Era in 1994, I wrote a column describing how most of his co-workers continued to address him as “Mr. Cherry” even after the formality of titles and surnames had been dropped for everyone else except then-publisher Robert C. Carter.
There’s hardly a square mile in Kentucky that’s not occupied by diehard fans of UK football, men’s and women’s basketball and several other Division I athletic teams. But the intensity of UK’s following is greater in Lexington — especially on game day — than it is anywhere else in state.
Journalists who’ve worked long enough at one newspaper to establish connections in a community typically announce their departure in a column that runs the same day they are headed out the door. By the time readers know they are leaving, they’ve already emptied their desk drawers, erased fin…
A couple of years ago in a column, I imagined how wonderful it would be if a small brewery opened in an old building downtown. I am not brave enough to try such a venture myself, but I sure have wanted to support someone who would take the risk.
Newspaper people still refer to mailbag columns as a way to share a number of seemingly unrelated topics that are inspired by messages from readers.
When James White walked into the New Era’s newsroom Friday morning, it took about 60 seconds for the two of us to start sharing stories about my dad, Dr. Frank Pitzer, and the time he made a trip to see James graduate from Harvard University.
featured
Hopkinsville Brewing Co. is not open just yet, but for the first time there is beer fermenting inside the downtown brewery’s stainless steel tanks.
Occasionally when Tony and Carol Kirves invest in some maintenance of the 1880s building they own at Ninth and Main streets, a piece of history is peeled back to uncover another story of the old place.
A membership drive is underway for the new Friends of the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library, and a formal kick-off is planned Sept. 8 at the library.
Every thing under the sun, it seems, has its own special week — and the people who sell produce, eggs, cheese, meat, flowers and other locally grown and crafted goods are no exception. National Farmers Market week has some important news to justify the declaration of a special week. (It’s no…
We’ve come a long way, and yet we haven’t.
When I heard that the Little River Cycling Club took its moonlight ride Wednesday evening through my childhood neighborhood, I was suddenly nostalgic for the early 1970s when a banana-seat bicycle was standard issue for almost every kid who was past training wheels but still a few years shy …
The sounds of “meow, meow” rose from a bush outside the New Era’s offices last Monday morning. It was around the same time a few readers were sending me messages about the column I’d written for that day’s paper on three black kittens being dumped in the middle of the Ninth Street.
Of all the things I heard or read about Hopkinsville resident Don Smith after his death last weekend, this one stands out: “As he worked in the yard, rabbits and hummingbirds sat or hovered inches from him without fear.”
Early Sunday afternoon, three frantic black kittens started looking for an escape route from the middle of Ninth Street just as I stopped at the red light on Skyline Drive. I might have seen someone dumping the animals near that spot if I’d pulled up to the intersection just a few minutes ea…
A couple of years ago when I joined the governing board for the Kentucky Historical Society, I got a “backstage” tour of the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in downtown Frankfort. That day I learned about an ingenious invention that came out of the Bluegrass region — and which mo…
Later this summer, a monument will be dedicated in Nashville’s Centennial Park to honor five activist women who became American heroes for pushing the Tennessee legislature to pass the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920.
I’ve been thinking about a story I covered for the New Era almost 20 years ago when the old Heart of Hopkinsville, a group that promoted downtown, organized its first Blues and Jazz Festival. It was the last week of June 1997 in Founders Square at Ninth and Main.
It’s hard to beat a good letter to editor — and one of the best I’ve seen in some time came recently to the New Era from Hopkinsville resident Dr. Bob Haile. He wanted to share an old story about South Christian High School and its bold request for a former U.S. vice president to speak at th…
“Where does Cassius Clay, the self-proclaimed heavyweight champion, get his confidence? You need go no farther than 1020 Hayes St. in Hopkinsville, the home of Clay’s grandparents. No one is more confident that Cassius will soon wear the coveted heavyweight crown than John and Eliza Grady.”
Several days ago, a Facebook friend who lives in Hopkinsville posted a message about seeing the first lightning bugs of the season.
Today probably will be relatively quiet and uneventful in downtown Hopkinsville. Most businesses are closed in the heart of Hopkinsville and no special holiday events are planned — which depending on your point of view is a welcome respite or a missed opportunity.
Frank Gary, the former Christian County sheriff and judge-executive who died last weekend at the age of 73, had been retired long enough that his distinction might have been lost on some of this newspaper’s younger readers.
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Among many memorable nights I’ve had covering Hopkinsville City Council meetings for the New Era, there was that time several years ago when the council spent eight hours on a police officer’s disciplinary hearing. It started around 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and concluded at 5 the next morning.
Since it was built around 1904, the South Main Street house that resembles a small castle has been a highly recognizable landmark for Hopkinsville people. This week the house is getting the attention of thousands of people who have never heard of Hopkinsville and will never enter the city limits.
While I’ve been visiting a college classmate for a few days in Rochester, New York, a dead man known as America’s greatest landscape architect has been poking around in my thoughts. Sounds odd, doesn’t it?
The Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library has been in the news a good bit this year — mainly because of a League of Women Voters study.
Saturday at Churchill Downs, a gray factor will probably skew the betting odds in the Kentucky Derby. I’m not talking about the age of the betting crowd, although horse racing fans are generally well north of 40-something. Rather, I’m referring to the rare appearance of several gray horses i…
The sights and sounds of a live radio broadcast will be staged at the Alhambra Theatre this summer in a production that promises to offer a history lesson of 1940s Hopkinsville.
When cities try to create attractive public parks, they sometimes hit the mark beautifully on the first try and the park survives for years as a landmark and a point of pride for the community. But not always. Sometimes getting it right requires admitting huge mistakes in planning and execution.
Special supper plans aren’t typically a Monday thing — at least not in my house — but I already know where I’ll be dining the evening of Monday, May 23.
Over the next several months, expect to see good old Hoptown among many communities vying for attention as the prime spot to view the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. Recent news reports from Paducah and Eddyville have made clear that Hopkinsville is in a bit of a competition.
Last weekend in Kroger, the produce section shared considerable space with large racks of spring flowers. Employees had rolled the flowers indoors because of a cold snap threatening to stun any plant that had started to bloom. The flower racks lined the floor between the broccoli and the potatoes.
Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton had some odd advice last week for college students in Kentucky.
The memory of an excellent hamburger does not fade easily — not even when the kitchen that produced them disappeared from the landscape decades ago. So go the memories of the Airport Cafe in Hopkinsville during the 1940s and ‘50s.
The phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” is often mocked as poor writing because it sounds melodramatic and is usually redundant. If it is nighttime, and it is storming, you can bet it is dark.
A transom is a vertical hinged window above a door, and you typically see them in older buildings. They can be tilted for ventilation.
featured
The cemetery restoration project that many thought would never happen in Hopkinsville is moving along at a steady pace — and the progress being made is two-fold.
Hanging in the Hopkinsville Art Guild Gallery on East Sixth Street is a new painting of three couples on a dance floor. They are facing forward, looking straight out from the canvas, and they are smartly dressed in clothing that suggests the 1940s or ’50s.
One of the best deals for entertainment in Hopkinsville hasn’t gotten the kind of attendance that organizers would like to see.
What kind of person won’t take the time to separate out the recyclables from her household garbage every week so the drink cans and such don’t wind up in the landfill for eternity? I confess. That would be me.
Several months ago I bought tickets for my husband and me to see John Prine at the Ryman in downtown Nashville. The significance of the date, March 12, did not register at all with me until two weeks prior to the concert when I began searching online for a reasonably priced hotel room.
Kentucky Chautauqua is looking for some characters. More specifically, they want people to portray historical figures who tell the Kentucky story.
What good is one little lot with a dozen or so parking places? More than you might think — especially in a downtown business district. Just ask the people making their living on Sixth Street between Main and Virginia. When the city bought and razed an empty building at Sixth and Main a few y…
Sometimes I think it would suit me very well to live in the heart of downtown Hopkinsville, where I’d probably while away a rainy weeknight listening to tires splash down Ninth Street and mark time by the train horns. Let me romanticize over this thought without any complication from the rea…
This being a leap year with 29 days in February, Black History Month gets a little extra space on the calendar. That carries some weight locally. One of the more interesting projects related to black history in Hopkinsville occurs today with a meeting to gather information about the Union Be…
Almost every day, I hear or see something in passing that makes me think I ought to pass it along to the readers of this newspaper. Many of these come from encounters I have with people around town or from tidbits tossed my way by readers who call to comment on something I’ve written for a c…
featured
The first few pages include a map of Christian County and recipes for ice box rolls and beaten biscuits. It continues with several versions of a jam cake, three types of jelly rolls, four varieties of the frozen fruit salad and many other Southern dishes.
featured
It was the spring or summer of 1954, and 4-year-old Margie Woosley had convinced her parents to buy a pet turtle from a store on Main Street in downtown Hopkinsville. The turtle was slighter bigger around than a silver dollar, and it came with a plastic tray that had a tiny tropical tree in …
In a courtroom, news reporters ought to be seen but never heard, so I had to resist the urge to stand and clap earlier this month at the Christian County Justice Center when I heard a judge offer his opinion of the internet site called Topix.
When Jim Cherry retired from the Kentucky New Era in 1994, I wrote a column describing how most of his co-workers continued to address him as “Mr. Cherry” even after the formality of titles and surnames had been dropped for everyone else except then-publisher Robert C. Carter.
There’s hardly a square mile in Kentucky that’s not occupied by diehard fans of UK football, men’s and women’s basketball and several other Division I athletic teams. But the intensity of UK’s following is greater in Lexington — especially on game day — than it is anywhere else in state.
Journalists who’ve worked long enough at one newspaper to establish connections in a community typically announce their departure in a column that runs the same day they are headed out the door. By the time readers know they are leaving, they’ve already emptied their desk drawers, erased fin…
A couple of years ago in a column, I imagined how wonderful it would be if a small brewery opened in an old building downtown. I am not brave enough to try such a venture myself, but I sure have wanted to support someone who would take the risk.
Newspaper people still refer to mailbag columns as a way to share a number of seemingly unrelated topics that are inspired by messages from readers.
When James White walked into the New Era’s newsroom Friday morning, it took about 60 seconds for the two of us to start sharing stories about my dad, Dr. Frank Pitzer, and the time he made a trip to see James graduate from Harvard University.
featured
Hopkinsville Brewing Co. is not open just yet, but for the first time there is beer fermenting inside the downtown brewery’s stainless steel tanks.
Occasionally when Tony and Carol Kirves invest in some maintenance of the 1880s building they own at Ninth and Main streets, a piece of history is peeled back to uncover another story of the old place.
A membership drive is underway for the new Friends of the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library, and a formal kick-off is planned Sept. 8 at the library.
Every thing under the sun, it seems, has its own special week — and the people who sell produce, eggs, cheese, meat, flowers and other locally grown and crafted goods are no exception. National Farmers Market week has some important news to justify the declaration of a special week. (It’s no…
We’ve come a long way, and yet we haven’t.
When I heard that the Little River Cycling Club took its moonlight ride Wednesday evening through my childhood neighborhood, I was suddenly nostalgic for the early 1970s when a banana-seat bicycle was standard issue for almost every kid who was past training wheels but still a few years shy …
The sounds of “meow, meow” rose from a bush outside the New Era’s offices last Monday morning. It was around the same time a few readers were sending me messages about the column I’d written for that day’s paper on three black kittens being dumped in the middle of the Ninth Street.
Of all the things I heard or read about Hopkinsville resident Don Smith after his death last weekend, this one stands out: “As he worked in the yard, rabbits and hummingbirds sat or hovered inches from him without fear.”
Early Sunday afternoon, three frantic black kittens started looking for an escape route from the middle of Ninth Street just as I stopped at the red light on Skyline Drive. I might have seen someone dumping the animals near that spot if I’d pulled up to the intersection just a few minutes ea…
A couple of years ago when I joined the governing board for the Kentucky Historical Society, I got a “backstage” tour of the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in downtown Frankfort. That day I learned about an ingenious invention that came out of the Bluegrass region — and which mo…
Later this summer, a monument will be dedicated in Nashville’s Centennial Park to honor five activist women who became American heroes for pushing the Tennessee legislature to pass the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920.
I’ve been thinking about a story I covered for the New Era almost 20 years ago when the old Heart of Hopkinsville, a group that promoted downtown, organized its first Blues and Jazz Festival. It was the last week of June 1997 in Founders Square at Ninth and Main.
It’s hard to beat a good letter to editor — and one of the best I’ve seen in some time came recently to the New Era from Hopkinsville resident Dr. Bob Haile. He wanted to share an old story about South Christian High School and its bold request for a former U.S. vice president to speak at th…
“Where does Cassius Clay, the self-proclaimed heavyweight champion, get his confidence? You need go no farther than 1020 Hayes St. in Hopkinsville, the home of Clay’s grandparents. No one is more confident that Cassius will soon wear the coveted heavyweight crown than John and Eliza Grady.”
Several days ago, a Facebook friend who lives in Hopkinsville posted a message about seeing the first lightning bugs of the season.
Today probably will be relatively quiet and uneventful in downtown Hopkinsville. Most businesses are closed in the heart of Hopkinsville and no special holiday events are planned — which depending on your point of view is a welcome respite or a missed opportunity.
Frank Gary, the former Christian County sheriff and judge-executive who died last weekend at the age of 73, had been retired long enough that his distinction might have been lost on some of this newspaper’s younger readers.
featured
Among many memorable nights I’ve had covering Hopkinsville City Council meetings for the New Era, there was that time several years ago when the council spent eight hours on a police officer’s disciplinary hearing. It started around 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and concluded at 5 the next morning.
Since it was built around 1904, the South Main Street house that resembles a small castle has been a highly recognizable landmark for Hopkinsville people. This week the house is getting the attention of thousands of people who have never heard of Hopkinsville and will never enter the city limits.
While I’ve been visiting a college classmate for a few days in Rochester, New York, a dead man known as America’s greatest landscape architect has been poking around in my thoughts. Sounds odd, doesn’t it?
The Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library has been in the news a good bit this year — mainly because of a League of Women Voters study.
Saturday at Churchill Downs, a gray factor will probably skew the betting odds in the Kentucky Derby. I’m not talking about the age of the betting crowd, although horse racing fans are generally well north of 40-something. Rather, I’m referring to the rare appearance of several gray horses i…
The sights and sounds of a live radio broadcast will be staged at the Alhambra Theatre this summer in a production that promises to offer a history lesson of 1940s Hopkinsville.
When cities try to create attractive public parks, they sometimes hit the mark beautifully on the first try and the park survives for years as a landmark and a point of pride for the community. But not always. Sometimes getting it right requires admitting huge mistakes in planning and execution.
Special supper plans aren’t typically a Monday thing — at least not in my house — but I already know where I’ll be dining the evening of Monday, May 23.
Over the next several months, expect to see good old Hoptown among many communities vying for attention as the prime spot to view the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. Recent news reports from Paducah and Eddyville have made clear that Hopkinsville is in a bit of a competition.
Last weekend in Kroger, the produce section shared considerable space with large racks of spring flowers. Employees had rolled the flowers indoors because of a cold snap threatening to stun any plant that had started to bloom. The flower racks lined the floor between the broccoli and the potatoes.
Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton had some odd advice last week for college students in Kentucky.
The memory of an excellent hamburger does not fade easily — not even when the kitchen that produced them disappeared from the landscape decades ago. So go the memories of the Airport Cafe in Hopkinsville during the 1940s and ‘50s.
The phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” is often mocked as poor writing because it sounds melodramatic and is usually redundant. If it is nighttime, and it is storming, you can bet it is dark.
A transom is a vertical hinged window above a door, and you typically see them in older buildings. They can be tilted for ventilation.
featured
The cemetery restoration project that many thought would never happen in Hopkinsville is moving along at a steady pace — and the progress being made is two-fold.
Hanging in the Hopkinsville Art Guild Gallery on East Sixth Street is a new painting of three couples on a dance floor. They are facing forward, looking straight out from the canvas, and they are smartly dressed in clothing that suggests the 1940s or ’50s.
One of the best deals for entertainment in Hopkinsville hasn’t gotten the kind of attendance that organizers would like to see.
What kind of person won’t take the time to separate out the recyclables from her household garbage every week so the drink cans and such don’t wind up in the landfill for eternity? I confess. That would be me.
Several months ago I bought tickets for my husband and me to see John Prine at the Ryman in downtown Nashville. The significance of the date, March 12, did not register at all with me until two weeks prior to the concert when I began searching online for a reasonably priced hotel room.
Kentucky Chautauqua is looking for some characters. More specifically, they want people to portray historical figures who tell the Kentucky story.
What good is one little lot with a dozen or so parking places? More than you might think — especially in a downtown business district. Just ask the people making their living on Sixth Street between Main and Virginia. When the city bought and razed an empty building at Sixth and Main a few y…
Sometimes I think it would suit me very well to live in the heart of downtown Hopkinsville, where I’d probably while away a rainy weeknight listening to tires splash down Ninth Street and mark time by the train horns. Let me romanticize over this thought without any complication from the rea…
This being a leap year with 29 days in February, Black History Month gets a little extra space on the calendar. That carries some weight locally. One of the more interesting projects related to black history in Hopkinsville occurs today with a meeting to gather information about the Union Be…
Almost every day, I hear or see something in passing that makes me think I ought to pass it along to the readers of this newspaper. Many of these come from encounters I have with people around town or from tidbits tossed my way by readers who call to comment on something I’ve written for a c…
featured
The first few pages include a map of Christian County and recipes for ice box rolls and beaten biscuits. It continues with several versions of a jam cake, three types of jelly rolls, four varieties of the frozen fruit salad and many other Southern dishes.
featured
It was the spring or summer of 1954, and 4-year-old Margie Woosley had convinced her parents to buy a pet turtle from a store on Main Street in downtown Hopkinsville. The turtle was slighter bigger around than a silver dollar, and it came with a plastic tray that had a tiny tropical tree in …
Opinion stories from our sister publications
Acts 10: 34-35 NKJV, “Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.”
The University of Kentucky Public Relations & Strategic Communications Office provides a weekly health column available for use and reprint by news media. This week’s column is by R. Kip Guy, Ph.D., Dean of the University of Kentucky College of…
Proverbs 15: 1 and 4, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”
I love books and I love sharing the love of reading. Through this weekly column, I hope to share with you my thoughts about the books I am reading, or feature new and upcoming books. This week’s review focuses on…
Genesis 6: 15 KJV, “And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” (A cubit…
Genesis 6: 15 KJV, “And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” (A cubit…
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” — Leviticus 19: 34
And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-4, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which…
Exodus 18: 20, “And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.”
The University of Kentucky Public Relations & Strategic Communications Office provides a weekly health column available for use and reprint by news media. This week’s column is by Meghan Marsac, PhD, pediatric psychologist at Kentucky Children’s Hospital.
Isaiah 9: 6-7, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince…
Ecclesiastes 1: 2-4, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation cometh: but the…
Proverbs 18:15, “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”
While much of the media’s attention during elections is focused on national campaigns along with a sprinkling of some state concerns usually involving inflammatory culture-war issues, the most important choices voters make are in local races.
Joel 2: 11, “And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executes his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who…
Deuteronomy 32:32, “For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of poison, bitter are their clusters.”
Kentucky is home to 295,000 veterans, and it is our mission in the legislature to ensure each and every one of them, along with their families, receive the services and care they are owed as a result of the sacrifices…
It’s great news that Ford Motor Co. is investing $700 million and creating 500 full-time jobs to build a new Super Duty pickup at its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, where the company has manufactured vehicles since 1969.
CA# 2: Clarifying there is no constitutional right to an abortion or taxpayer funding of abortion
Revelation 20: 10, “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
Like a lot of Kentuckians, I’m proud of our state’s association with bourbon.
If, as Assistant Principal Kevin Crosby claimed when the new $84.5 million Tates Creek High School opened in Lexington on the first day of school, “students deserve a building like this,” then didn’t Fayette County taxpayers also deserve a better…
Genesis 16: 1, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I…
In 2017, the Kentucky General Assembly passed House Bill 1 to protect workers in the private sector from being fired for not paying union dues.
The Bible is full of reminders — instructing God’s people to remember and memorialize His faithfulness.
Romans 11:33, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
Have you read Roe v. Wade? Don’t feel bad. No one else has read it either. Yet people have marched in the streets over it; ranted and cussed and shook their fists and even injured property and people over it.…
It’s unacceptable if not downright disrespectful, even embarrassing.
Americans are suffering due to the Biden administration’s disastrous economic policies. While Congressional Democrats continue to dodge responsibility for their reckless spending, nationwide inflation has reached 8.6%, a 40-year high.
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