Body armor saved my life, and it was because of that I was able to return to my family.

A state trooper who survived a shooting talks about how body armor can be the difference between life and death.

We unveiled a public safety plan to talk about recruitment and retention.

Crime is the issue of the day and the governor's race.

As Daniel Cameron talks of law and order on the campaign trail.

They have to be trained through the Marine Corps in order to take that position.

So finding somebody is very difficult.

A Kentucky high school has to dismiss its JROTC program.

This is their way to bring exhibit bring the Smithsonian to the people where the people are.

Plus, to see the Smithsonian, you don't have to travel to Washington.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition.

On this Wednesday, we're midway through the week.

It's August 9th.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Wednesday with us.

Kentucky state troopers would get another raise and police at every level would receive the funding for improved body armor.

If Governor Andy Beshear is law enforcement budget plan announced today becomes law.

Here's the governor's proposal for higher trooper pay for the Kentucky State Police.

I'm proposing an additional 20 $500 raise.

This builds on the $15,000 pay bump I signed into law on April of 2022.

It also builds on the 6.5% salary bump to all KRS Chapter 16 employees on July 1st that they got this year, which includes all troopers, commercial vehicle officers and several others.

Other state employees received a 6% raise.

That same day.

KSP troopers and officers have now received nearly $18,875 in a pay bump under the steps my administration has taken over the last two years.

And with this race over about a two and a half year period, they would see a raise of over $21,000.

They deserve it.

We need them.

And the raises are working.

The governor's plan also calls for moving all law enforcement pension plans back to what's called defined pension benefits.

That means a pension is where the promise of a specific payment.

The governor says that will help with the recruiting and retention of public safety employees.

And he proposes grants to upgrade body armor for all police.

Trooper Billy Ball was shot in Floyd County in June of 2022 during a mass shooting that left two police officers, a deputy and a police dog dead.

Trooper Ball says his body armor saved his life.

And I encourage all police officers to wear their armor and select the most appropriate to the threat their face.

It can save your life, but most importantly, make you a better police officer, giving you the ability to save others after being struck by gunfire.

My armor saved my life that day and allowed me to help Deputy Larson get the medical care he desperately needed.

It's been one year, one month and nine days since the shooting and the entire region is still devastated and mourning the loss of the four heroes who gave their life that day.

They paid the ultimate sacrifice.

They were loved and pillars of our community.

And like I mentioned, body armor saved my life.

And it was because of that I was able to return to my family.

Right now, Kentucky has 895 state troopers.

That's expected to go up to around 940 after a new cadet class graduates this Friday.

Governor Bashir, his Republican opponent, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, responded to the governor's budget and public safety announcement.

In a statement, Cameron said, quote, I am still the only candidate in this race with a plan to reduce crime, and I am the only candidate in this race who actually has the relationships in the legislature to deliver.

Bashir is the only candidate in this race who has released 1700 criminals back into our streets.

Nearly a third of which went on to commit felonies and, quote, The 1700 criminals, refers to inmates released early during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the inmates were considered medically vulnerable and had less than six months to go before their sentences were over.

Cameron spoke about his own law enforcement policies and his experience at Fancy Farm over the weekend at a campaign stop in Mount Sterling Tuesday.

Folks, I want to tell you one thing.

I know Daniel Cameron.

I believe in Daniel Cameron with Daniel Cameron as our next governor.

Kentucky can and will be the best place in America to live, to worship and to raise your family.

And with that, I give you my good friend and our next governor, Daniel Cameron, who just came off a really hot weekend in Fancy Farm, Kentucky.

We had a good conversation about what Kentucky can look like for not only this decade, but for decades to come.

And I hope you saw a contrast in visions.

And that's frankly why we've seen polling that shows this race in a dead heat.

It has very little to do with me as the nominee, but it has everything to do with you all because you all made a decision that you want to see your values represented in the governor's office.

And you've made that decision because you've seen Andy Beshear over these last three and a half years.

The campaign is going amazing.

We've got a lot of momentum and energy behind us, especially coming out of fancy harm.

I think a lot of folks are energized about this campaign and they're ready to retire Andy Beshear in November.

Here recently, we unveiled a public safety plan to talk about recruitment and retention to make sure that our law enforcement community, that we are in a position to give them bonuses, to stay on board, to continue to protect and serve our communities, to make sure that Kentucky has a standalone carjacking statute.

Believe it or not, we are one of the few states that doesn't have a standalone carjacking statute.

But you know that if you take care of the small things, it prevents the larger societal issues that we see.

It's so important that folks here and Montgomery County get out to the polls on November 7th.

If we want new leadership that respects all 120 counties, we got to get Andy Beshear out of there and put me in as the next governor of the commonwealth.

Kentucky's Today, Governor Bashir is touring the future home of the Blue Oval ESQ Battery Park in Glendale and Hardin County.

Our Laura Rogers will have that story tomorrow on Kentucky edition.

Coming up later in this newscast, Rylan Barton of Kentucky Public Radio joins us to discuss all of these new political developments.

So stay with us.

U.S.

Senator Mitch McConnell was in Louisville today speaking out on a lot of topics, including his own history at Fancy Farm, that picnic in western Kentucky.

Senator McConnell spoke at Fancy Farm this past Saturday.

Speaking today at the Law of Reform by Greater Louisville, Inc, he remembered his first fancy farm picnic as a US senator back in 1984.

Frankly, I never thought I would get elected to the Senate in the first place, not much less seven times.

And the first election came to mind when I was down in a fancy farm last weekend because it fancy farm in 1984.

The first year I ran for the Senate.

I was 25 points behind that close to the election.

The guy who is working for me is somebody that many of you have heard of, Roger Ailes, who started Fox News.

And I remember sitting around talking to Roger and I said, is this race over?

And he said, well, I've never met anybody this far behind this late who won.

But I still think we have a chance.

Also today, Senator McConnell urged continued U.S. backing of Ukraine.

About a year and a half after the Russian invasion and the past, he has said it would cost the US much more if Russia defeated Ukraine.

Hear more of McConnell's remarks from Fancy Farm, as well as other speeches by the candidates for governor and other offices.

We have that for you online on demand at KCET dot org slash fancy farm.

It was back to school today and several Kentucky school districts, including the largest one in the state, Jefferson County.

And it was a memorable day back for the almost 100,000 students in Jefferson County.

For a lot of reasons, many of them faced new school start times and some are going to different schools.

It's all part of an effort to deal with a continuing bus driver shortage.

Also, the school system is dealing with the implementation of Senate Bill 150.

On Monday, the Jefferson County Board of Education adopted a policy that, quote, reluctantly complies with the new transgender law that restricts classroom discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation and also restricts student preferred pronoun and bathroom use.

The Kentucky School Boards Association says as of Monday, 134 Kentucky school boards had adopted their annual policy updates, including provisions to implement Senate Bill 150.

And most boards have made decisions about how to interpret the word or and one part of the law.

As we've reported.

The wording of the bill bans instruction on human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases in grades K through five or instruction on gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation for all grades.

The Kentucky Department of Education says the use of the word or means schools can ban one or the other, but they don't have to ban both.

The SBA says most school systems have decided to ban both anyway.

Fayette County is one of the exceptions.

Other boards will meet in the coming days to adopt policy updates.

The deadline for that is August the 15th.

You've heard all about the teacher shortage in Kentucky's classrooms.

It's more than math, science, English and history, though.

Michael Guy, principal of Seneca High School in Louisville, had to end the school's junior ROTC program.

That's called the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps after almost 50 years of existence.

But why?

He just couldn't find the instructors the program requires.

This year we were on probation because we only had one instructor and we were looking for another instructor.

And we've kind of been in this situation with only having one instructor for the last two and a half years.

So the requirement for the Marine Corps is with the number of kids we have, we have to keep 100 and we have to have two instructors for the instructors, 100 or more kids.

So basically we had one and we spent two about two and a half years trying to find another instructor.

We've posted a job, like I said, for like three years.

Every time we get a posting, it comes back as there's no suitable candidates.

An older two teacher instructed his level In the Marine Corps, you have to have at least 20 years experience and be retired, and then you have to give your intent to the instructor in a high school or classroom.

So as you can see, you know, you just can't be somebody that comes off of the Marine Corps after serving four or five years.

It's a certain like rigid kind of want to say constraints that they have to go through in order for them to be placed in a school, which not a lot of staff to fill buildings right now as it becomes educators.

And this is kind of a microcosm of like same.

Same goes with ROTC instructors.

I mean, we have a few other programs in district are also closing because of the same the same problem, same issues.

Eric, very much.

And our kids very much because it's a lot of them, you know, they this is like if you look at some of the the imagery around here, this is this is them like they they have worked hard to earn these trophies, you know, compete in competitions, you know, develop the leadership skills that that gives them that confidence and those skills for when they they graduate and they go on to life.

And most of our our scholars, you know, our kids, they don't they don't necessarily go to the military.

But, you know, those and those skills carry through wherever.

So they're devastated.

And like I said it, whether it's a handful of students or thousands of students or whatever, you take something away that kids enjoy, it's devastating.

And you look to find other things to kind of fill that void.

But with a program that's this old it's been around almost 50 years.

It's really hard to fill that void.

I would really love to get this going again.

Right now, we're kind of in a holding pattern.

I need people.

I mean, that's what it comes down to.

And I need people who are going to fit the Marine Corps requirements.

I value this program.

It's very important to our kids, is very important to our community because it's just not about like within the building.

It's also what they do outside within the community, like Toys for Tots, you know, volunteering ing, you know, doing color guard at different, different establishments.

So it's a big deal and a big piece to Seneca High School that will no longer have, for the time being.

So like I said, if I have two instructors that fit that criteria, we'd love to bring it back because because we evaluate them as Principal Michael Guy just mentioned, the Junior ROTC program is required to have two instructors.

The school just lost its one remaining instructor.

He transferred to another school.

As it became apparent Seneca's Junior ROTC program would be shutting down.

In other news, Kentucky is a step closer to a four lane mountain parkway.

The state announced yesterday it has picked the busy construction company as the contractor for the final section of the road.

The company will work on widening a 13 mile stretch from Sawyer's Ville to Preston's burg.

Once that's done, it'll be possible to drive from Pikeville to Paducah, all on four lanes.

The state is looking to get federal grant money to help fund the work in Magoffin and Floyd counties.

It's not clear yet when the work will be completed.

Time now for a midweek review of the major political developments so far this week in Kentucky with Raylan Barton, who's managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you, Roland.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So let's talk a little bit not so much about Fancy Farm, because we have had a lot of conversations about that on Saturday and even after Saturday.

But some big news it's gotten a lot of national attention.

Was Mitch McConnell right and him being there?

So talk to us about some of the scuttlebutt over McConnell.

Yeah, I was actually I was I find it remarkable this week that there's so much attention given to the fact that Mitch McConnell was booed at Fancy Farm during the picnic.

You know, everybody really kind of descending on this moment because, you know, in recent weeks, Mitch McConnell's health has really been on the national radar and everybody's on everybody's minds.

You know, he does show up to Fancy Farm and everybody, you know, taking the fact that he got booed there as being a big takeaway, you know, really, everybody gets booed at Fancy Farm and it's not the biggest of takeaways there.

Granted, you know, it's always interesting to just to remark on what people are booing and yelling at the folks at Fancy Farm and everybody's yelling at him to retire.

Yeah, people have been yelling at him to retire for several years past.

But, you know, it was surprising and remarkable that he did show up to Fancy Farm after that, that health scare where he froze for 20 seconds during a press conference a couple of weeks ago.

And it came as a surprise to, you know, he and his team had hadn't said whether or not they were going to go in the first place.

Yeah, he was still pending up until the day of and we had gotten some word on the picnic eve on Friday that he would be in attendance.

And he made his first appearance at that Graves County Republican breakfast and seem to appear strong.

And so seeing him on that stage, many were reassured.

So let's move on and talk about the governor's race.

And certainly there was some red meat thrown on that fancy farm stage.

But even since then, there have been some ads.

Whoever is each candidate is kind of Biden over who has got the law enforcement on their side.

And even Andy Beshear is in this fray now.

Right.

Yeah.

Today, Andy Beshear had a press conference announcing announcing his budget initiatives for law enforcement.

It included a pay raises for Kentucky State Police.

Also kind of sweetening pensions for some law enforcement officials, more money for training.

This also comes in the relief of Daniel Cameron having a similar announcement about a month ago with some other policies that included raises and greater attempts to kind of attract and retain police officers and state police troopers.

His also included some policy initiatives like the death penalty for people who are convicted of killing cops and and also a ban on any civilian review boards in the state, which are kind of civilian courts to review police misconduct.

Louisville's created one of those.

Granted, the legislature always refuses to enable it with subpoena power, so it's a little bit toothless.

Anyway, both of these candidates are they're both gunning for that that law enforcement vote or that law enforcement, you know, being the most pro-law enforcement candidate.

And, you know, Andy Beshear, just as Daniel Cameron did last month, showed up with a bunch of law enforcement officers who are endorsing him.

And they're going to they're going to keep on doing this until the election in November.

Yeah, I just wonder if that if he's taking any kind of risk there, riling with law enforcement, maybe some of his base who have some concerns about community and police relations.

I just wonder how that resonates.

Yeah, that's always one of the complicated things when you're going into the general election and you're after the primary and you're having to cast as big a tent as possible.

And I mean, I think that's something that some folks have criticized Beshear for since the beginning, even during the 2020 protests, sending the National Guard early on in the 2020 protests during the in Louisville.

The National Guard bullet was what ultimately killed David McCarty of the barbecue shop owner in in Louisville.

So, you know, those criticisms have always been there and it's always kind of up to voters to decide, you know, how does this end up balancing out which which candidate they feel represents their values the best?

Yeah, and educators, I mean, that's another constituency that they're both are really gunning for.

Right.

I mean, of course, the governor has a lieutenant governor, Jacqueline Coleman, who is an educator on the ticket.

And Daniel Cameron has come out and said, you know, I'm for teachers, too, and his wife is an educator.

So they're really using these two different constituency groups to appeal to, I guess, a larger swath of voters for sure.

And they're you know, these are big groups that are politically active groups of groups that also, you know, employ a lot of people across the state.

And when you're a candidate who's running a statewide campaign and trying to tap into some of these already established political networks, those are two of the big ones to go after in Kentucky.

And I think it's interesting, too, that some of those policies that they're doing, you know, they kind of overlap.

They're pretty similar for what they're promoting, just really trying to make it a better job to attract and retain those sorts of workers, at least on the teacher front.

You know, there's a couple of different ideas of how to go about these policies, namely recently with all the anti LGBTQ legislation that's passed out of legislature, Cameron has kind of, you know, been getting behind some of those, whereas Beshear has been, you know, either voicing opposition or, you know, not trying to stick his neck out too much on some of those issues.

And then so, yeah, there there's definitely part of those that argument where they're really they're kind of arguing the same thing.

Yeah.

Real quickly, we know that Governor Bashir is trying to tie Cameron to former Republican Governor Matt Bevin.

Yeah.

And this is there's an ad by the Democratic Governors Association, or at least a group affiliated with that national group tying Cameron to the former governor.

You're pointing out that he had hired a couple of lawyers that were on the former governor's team initially when he was attorney general also.

And I've been interested.

This has come up more since he tapped Robby Mills as lieutenant governor candidate, you know, tying that ticket to some of the, you know, the pension tweaks that that Bevin was pushing for during his administration, which was a huge rallying point for for governor Beshear during the his 2019 campaign.

So I think we can really expect a lot of those ads to keep on coming out candidates.

That's something that Cameron really fought against this same group publishing another at least a month ago, you know, kind of tying to tie Cameron to those pardons, those controversial pardons that Bevin made on his way out of office.

The Cameron folks will say that he did ask the FBI to look into it.

But it's this is a point that they're really not going to let go of and they're going to keep on trying to, you know, paint Cameron with that same brush as that, you know, former unpopular governor.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, Raelyn, as always, for breaking it down for us.

It's good to see you.

Good to have you back this week.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

The Smithsonian is the largest complex of museums in the world.

But did you know it even reaches here to the commonwealth?

There are Museum on Main Street program.

Bring Smithsonian exhibits all around the country.

We were there to see an exhibit began to take shape as it was unpacked and put up right here in Kentucky at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum.

No admission required for this week's Arts and Culture segment we called Tapestry is on very high and great at some museum on Main Street is an affiliation of the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition service.

So the reason the Smithsonian reaches out and sends these exhibits to rural communities is because there's a lot of people in rural America that can never make it to Washington, D.C., and see the exhibits that are there.

So this is their way to bring exhibits, bring this Amazonian to the people where the people are.

And so this exhibit is coming to Winchester.

The exhibit is called Spark Places of Innovation.

And it is a look at the difference between innovation and invention.

So this exhibit will take a and give you a definition of innovation, a definition of invention.

Show you what the difference is.

And then most of the sections will give examples of innovative communities throughout America.

But I think it's important because we have a in our community, we have several examples of innovation and innovation that we're going to highlight at at our exhibit.

We have a light.

It is a Kentucky State soft drink.

It is an innovation that was in 1926 that was invented and is it showcases innovation because over the years they have been very innovative in new products, new soft drinks, and it's only made here in Winchester.

I come from eastern Kentucky, south eastern Kentucky.

And, you know, I think it would be important, you know, of one of the exhibits through Spark is about a coal mine community.

And when coal runs out, what happens to that community?

Same thing happened in my community when the coal runs out, what happens?

So you have to be innovative and you have to think of ways.

And I think that that applies to to any community to show whether, you know, it's in this state or any other state, especially when you have a rural community.

So the view or when they see this exhibit will see themselves as the impetus for change.

And a lot of times people can always think of the way other people should fix or change their community.

And they see themselves as not part of the solution.

This exhibit is to show every community that they have their own issues and their people are the ones that are going to solve those issues.

So we're hoping to, as people go through and look at the exhibit, that they will see themselves as part of the problem solving and making their community better.

A idea the exhibit runs at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum in Winchester until August the 31st.

Hey, music lovers, do you ever wonder what it's like to lead a symphony?

Symphony orchestra?

I could teach this to fourth and fifth graders, and they can actually conduct the same straightforward forward than a fifth grader.

Ha!

We're going to put Kelsey Stark's to the test tomorrow.

You'll catch up with the Louisville Symphony.

Teddy Abrams as he shows us the right way to will the baton.

We'll see if Kelsey Starks catches on.

That's Thursday on Kentucky Edition, which we hope you'll join us for again tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

Subscribe to our weekly email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips of KET dot org Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen there.

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A kitten towards you.

Thank you so much for watching.

I'm Renee Shore.

Take good care and I'll see you tomorrow night.