This week on Kentucky Life, world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly has chosen a small Kentucky town for his latest installation, and it is stunning.

We'll take you there and tell you how this ended up in the Commonwealth.

We'll introduce you to Cousin Emmy, a Kentucky musician from a poor upbringing who blazed the trail for other women in country music.

We'll learn more about the setting for this week's show, the Old State Capitol in Frankfort, and we'll look at how professional sports teams in Kentucky impact their local communities.

All that's next on Kentucky Life.

[music playing] Hey, folks, and welcome to Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston.

It's good to see you again.

Now, we're back this week at the Old State Capitol in Frankfort.

This building was the seat of Kentucky's democracy from 1830 to 1910.

Legislators convened here during a seminal time in our nation's history, the Civil War.

The voices of Henry Clay and Isaac Shelby echoed through these hallways.

The facade of the structure is wrapped in polished Kentucky River marble and limestone quarried near Frankfort.

Six massive columns, each four feet in diameter and 33 feet high, mark the entry to the building.

And once inside, the central rotunda that features an amazing self-supporting marble staircase, well, it really is a sight to behold.

We'll learn more about the history of this important building a little later during our show, but first, world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly has chosen a small but well-known Kentucky town for his latest exhibition.

Nestled amongst the rolling hills of the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, the vibrant colors and shapes of his work are truly breathtaking.

The exhibition will be up through December of 2025, and it all started with a simple handwritten letter.

[music playing] [music playing] It was this exhibition in Nashville at Cheekwood Botanical Garden in 2010 that first captured the imagination of Rob Samuels, managing director of the Maker's Mark Distillery and an eighth-generation distiller.

He was so moved by the experience that he began the process of trying to reach Dale Chihuly.

So, I started writing handwritten letters to artist Dale Chihuly, his wife, Leslie, never heard back, started writing letters to his public relations team, the business management team, and eventually, I got a phone call from Seattle.

It was Dale Chihuly himself who said he was going to be in New York and would love to have a conversation around why this could be a really powerful moment.

From that simple beginning, both a partnership and friendship was begun.

Samuels next went to see the Chihuly artisans at work in their Seattle studio, which led to a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

And Dale Chihuly tiptoed into the room where we were, and he said, “Rob,” he said, “I don't want to be rude, but would you like to come out to the hot shop and blow some glass with me?” So, we spent several hours together and actually created several of the pieces together that are placed within the Spirit of the Maker.

The Spirit of the Maker was the first Chihuly installation at the distillery.

The ceiling is often called one of the most Instagrammed places in all of Kentucky.

Dale Chihuly himself was adamant that we have that red weaving thread through the entire 40-foot length of the installation itself.

And it was a moment I'll never forget when Dale Chihuly and I unveiled The Spirit of the Maker, and we were surrounded by the bourbon barrels underneath all of the color coming down and the bourbon aromas wafting through the air.

And he mentioned to me, he said, “Rob,” he said, “I think this might be the most inspired environment that his artwork has ever been on display.” A few other Chihuly pieces were added to the distillery's collection over the years, such as the End of the Day Persian Chandelier, which hangs in the cellar rickhouse among the bourbon barrels.

But Samuels wanted to see more, and that started a multi-year process to land a full Chihuly exhibition at Maker's.

The artist's director of exhibitions, Britt Cornett, said Loretto quickly fit the bill.

He takes on projects of all different scale all around the world, so there's something specific that works for him, that resonates, where he can imagine his work being placed in the environment.

And I think anyone immediately coming to Maker's Mark realizes it's a special place.

Thus began a three-year process to get the exhibition off the ground.

Numerous obstacles had to be overcome.

Always lots and lots of hurdles.

I think with this one, given all of extreme weather we've had in Kentucky, just getting the insurance was not easy.

We had a full-time person basically exploring avenues for insuring millions of dollars of artwork in the elements.

Once insurance was secured, the massive project got underway.

Individually, some of the artworks may take a year from initial concept through the glassblowing process, where individual forms have to be blown, sometimes thousands of them.

And then we have a studio where everything is created full-scale, so we can determine all of the necessary things that are part of mounting large-scale artwork, but most importantly, so that Chihuly is seeing the work come together and he's ultimately comfortable.

Watching the piece Red Reeds on Logs being installed is like watching a choreographed dance.

Artisans move quickly with the giant hollow glass tubes to install them on poles placed strategically around the logs.

The transportation hurdles alone in moving these incredibly fragile pieces from Seattle to Loretto are immense.

Each piece is meticulously loaded into the special boxes, shipped across the country on typically 53-foot container trucks, and then our team unpacks and builds piece by piece here on site.

We have a lot of back-and-forth dialogue between the studio and the distillery team so that we're pretty aware, not only that, this is kind of like coming home to us, you know.

We've been here, we know the distillery quite well, but there were different locations that we were citing works in for their exhibition.

And you might have to take into consideration how the light moves across the day, if there's a tree that we didn't account for that we need to think about.

But again, it's pretty well determined before we ever get to this point, and it's, you know, a year, sometimes year-and-a-half, long process.

That 2010 Chihuly exhibition where Samuels first discovered the artist drew 360,000 visitors.

While the number of fans who come to Loretto remains to be seen, Cornett says all of them should walk away with an experience they won't soon forget.

For those people that are familiar with Chihuly's work, I think they'll, like all of us, like our whole team, be excited about how the work looks against the beautiful setting here.

For people that aren't familiar with Chihuly, there's a sense of their discovery and a little bit awestruck, because it's a, you know, immediate reaction to the artwork and the scale.

I think for all of us, we've all had those moments at points in our lives that resonate, right, that resonate, right, that stick with you into the future.

I think if we can create those moments and have people walk away with a lasting memory, you really can't ask for much better than that.

[music playing] Cynthia May Carver longed for a life beyond her impoverished and often tragic upbringing.

She found her way out through music, adopting the stage name Cousin Emmy, and never looked back.

During the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Cousin Emmy was a pioneer of country music, blazing the trail for future stars like Tanya Tucker, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire.

Let's meet her.

♪ Like a plea ♪ Oh it's my life, let me live it like a plea ♪ That's the way that I feel Cousin Emmy was a Kentucky-born legend, a musical legend.

She was a very prolific musician, known for the banjo, got her face on the cover of Time magazine, and you know, how do you accomplish that as a woman in a business that was run by men in the 1930s, ‘40s, and '50s?

That's a very powerful artist.

This glamorous photo of Cousin Emmy seems a long way from her hardscrabble upbringing near the tiny community of Lamb, Kentucky.

[music playing] Cynthia May Carver was born in 1903 into a sharecropping family with a history of both musical talent and violence.

Though her mother fled with her children when Cynthia was a child, her father's influence seemed to follow Cousin Emmy throughout her career.

Henry Carver was a very talented musician, but not a very nice man.

He was a sharecropper, and he killed the landowner back in the mid-1870s, and so he was always on the run from the law.

From an early age, Cynthia was determined to escape the poverty and trouble that marked her childhood, and on a fateful afternoon in Glasgow, she found her way out.

She would say that she first heard the radio in a general store in Glasgow, Kentucky, and she knew right then that was going to be her escape.

She said, “I knew I could get out then, because she loved to perform.” ♪ I'm goin' down this road feelin' bad, ♪ Lord, I'm goin' down this road feelin' bad.

♪ I'm goin' down this road feelin' bad, Lord, Lord.

♪ And I ain't gonna be treated this a-way.

And Cousin Emmy's ability to perform always started with her incredible and influential musicianship.

Musically, Cousin Emmy was brilliant.

She was an icon.

Like I said, she's played well over 15 instruments, including the saxophone.

She was the first woman to win the National Fiddlers Contest.

The influence that Cousin Emmy has had throughout the course of country music cannot be overstated.

Maybe the most obvious place to think in the beginning is she taught Grandpa Jones to play the clawhammer banjo, which became such a hallmark of his career.

It's where the hand essentially is in the shape of a claw, and you're striking the strings, and what's interesting about it is that you not only play the melody, but you also can accompany yourself with rhythm.

Armed with her banjo and a folksy persona, Cousin Emmy found success playing on the radio and at barn dances across the Midwest, but always in a supporting role.

That's until she took matters into her own hands and landed her first gig as a headliner at WHAS in Louisville.

The manager there, Joe Eaton, he kept saying, “Yeah, I'll call you, I'll call you,” but he never did.

So she talked the janitor into letting her in the building.

She went into his office, and not only into his office, she went into his private restroom.

And as soon as he came in, and I guess he got over the fright, he said, “Well, girl, you got some gumption, so I'm gonna give you a job.” And that's how she got her first radio job.

And with that bold move, she made her childhood dream come true.

Radio was entering its golden age, and it was the perfect vehicle for Cousin Emmy.

It allowed artists to become stars because they had reach that they had never had before.

You could be on the radio in Atlanta, Georgia, and have reach for a hundreds or thousands of miles.

All that exposure through radio and personal appearances brought success, and for Cousin Emmy, the trappings of success were a powerful motivator.

She loved the finest of clothes, loved that jewelry, always drove a Cadillac, you know, sometimes had two of them to carry everyone, so that just meant so much for her to have those trappings of material life to show that she had made a success.

Cousin Emmy's desire for immediate financial gains kept her focus on radio and personal appearances.

She found short-term success at stations like KMOX in St.

Louis and WHAS in Louisville but her biggest payday came by selling the rights to a now-famous song called Ruby.

[music playing] She was so happy, she said that, “I didn't like that song at all, but it gave me the most money."

She said she made $7,000 on that in royalties, and that equates to over $50,000 in today's money.

Ruby was a monster hit for the Osborne Brothers, and it stands as an all-time bluegrass classic.

Its timeless appeal is a testament to the talent and moxie of the little girl from Lamb who dared to dream big.

[music playing] [music playing] We're having a great time here today at the Old State Capitol in Frankfort.

This is Megan Sauter.

She's the Museum Programs Administrator with the Kentucky Historical Society.

Megan, thanks so much for letting us be here today.

Thank you for having me.

So, the origin story of the building, tell us how it all came together.

Yes, so it actually begins with the selection of the site for the Capitol.

You see, in 1792, Kentucky had just become a state and a lot of towns wanted to host the Capitol building, but Frankfort came together with its citizens and this plot of land, as well as building materials and cash, to build the building.

And so, they actually chose a proposal by Gideon Shryock, an architect from Lexington, Kentucky, only 24 years old at the time, because of his Greek Revival architectural style.

And how long was this used?

How long was this actually the seat of democracy?

For nearly 80 years.

So, they moved in in 1830, and the last session was in 1908.

So, beyond the columns here in the front, which are beautiful and easy to see, what are some other significant features of the building?

One of the main significant features is going to be our staircase, and it's called a floating staircase, and it was created by inmates as well as a warden who oversaw it, and they cut the stones almost like puzzle pieces, and the keystone forces it into place.

Now, my favorite feature of the building is actually the cupola, which is a dome, and it lets in so much beautiful natural light upstairs as well as around it.

It has beautiful plaster pendants, and it shows you just the significance and the craftsmanship that went into finishing the building.

And beyond being the seat of Kentucky's democracy during the Civil War, there were a lot of important things that happened in this building.

What are some of the highlights there?

Yeah, so the Kentucky General Assembly actually passed to maintain neutrality between the conflict of the Union and the Confederacy.

However, the Confederate Army actually violated that act, and they overtook the Old State Capitol building, and they inaugurated their Confederate governor inside this building until the Union Army ran them out.

Wow.

So, when was it determined this really isn't meeting our needs, we need to build something?

Yeah, so in 1904, legislation was actually passed to erect a new Capitol building, and that same year, we actually received 1.3 million dollars from a settlement with the federal government due to damages during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, and so they moved to the new Capitol building in 1910.

Was this just no longer big enough for them?

Did it not meet their needs?

What was the issue?

It was too small, and also it just had a lot of renovations that needed to happen.

Right.

So, why is it important, do you think, Megan, for us to preserve structures like this?

Why do we need to hang on to parts of our history like this?

Yeah, so this is the People's House, which is vital to our history, and learning about our past is very important today.

And with historic features like this, you're able to learn about the stories of the people that worked there and the events that happened that fueled the decisions that were made here.

So, learning about our past informs us for our future.

It's a remarkable piece of history that we've enjoyed getting to explore today, and we're going to check out more a little bit later.

Megan, thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

[music playing] Sports are a significant economic driver for Kentucky, with the Kentucky Derby alone generating more than $400 million annually for our state.

Our next story explores how local sporting events and teams create a deep sense of Kentucky pride and community identity, uniting people across the state through shared passions that transcend social and economic boundaries.

[umpire whistling] Professional sports are a staple of American culture, from the National Football League to Major League Baseball and all things in between.

But most professionals don't start out playing in the big leagues.

Instead, local professional sports leagues offer players a sort of training ground and allow them to cut their teeth in smaller stadiums.

Kentucky has some teams of its own across a variety of sports, like the Lexington Legends, the Louisville Bats, and the Lexington Sporting Club.

[cheering] So, how do these smaller sports organizations stack up to the big leagues and what impact do they have on their communities?

Sports is such a unifying event.

I mean, you can go, you can come out and watch the soccer match with your friends on a weekend, but by the time you've left, you've expanded that friendship to everybody sitting around you, and it just brings us all together in a commonality that maybe in today's world we don't have.

So pro sports, college sports in Lexington are very complimentary.

Everybody here grows up to be a Big Blue fan, but they also appreciate the other sports that have come, and it's special.

You go to a Legends game one night, and you go to a UK baseball game the next night.

They're very complimentary.

Or what many visitors to the community have enjoyed over the years, you go to Keeneland on a Saturday afternoon, and you go to a UK football game on a Saturday night.

The two work well together, and they benefit this community greatly.

Lexington Legends, 25 years, it's a testament to what baseball really does mean to Lexington, Central Kentucky.

But even more, the jobs, they've got over a 100 jobs associated with that when the season is on.

They've got about 25 permanent jobs year-round.

Lower your face.

But the Legends aren't Kentucky's only baseball team.

Just up I-75 in Florence are the Florence Y'alls, originally coming to Kentucky as the Freedom in 2004 before starting from scratch once again in 2019.

[cheering] I think the rebrand, especially because we're named after the water tower, so people can rally around that.

And then we put a super heavy promotion on our community.

So, you know, our guys go out and they help bag food for, like, our local food shelters or, you know, even like the Memorial Day parade that we just had.

It was, everyone was so excited just to see Y'alls Star and to see the Y'alls because it is something that they can rally behind that's not across the river.

If you want to get involved in sports, I think the best thing to do would, like, try out those seasonal staff positions.

Most minor league teams are always looking for people to help us run the gate, help us run concessions.

Like, there are so many niche jobs within sports that everyone can find something, even if you're not a huge sports fan.

[cheering] The thing that I enjoy the most about our fan engagement inside is just, like, mostly the kids.

I love seeing all the kids get so excited when we throw t-shirts or stress balls or, you know, they get so excited when, you know, they catch a foul ball, or they get to, you know, get an autograph from a player because, obviously, with some bigger teams, you don't really get that kind of, like, intimate atmosphere.

The tourism aspect is great because, one, we have teams from all the way up to Canada.

So, I mean, we have Canadian fans that get to come here and experience northern Kentucky for the first time and just how cool Kentucky is.

So, I think that's cool that people get to learn about Kentucky's history.

They have a place that they can stop by, and I just think that's great.

And it's not just central Kentucky getting in on the action.

Out west, Bowling Green has their own team, the Hot Rods.

So, last year, we had over 12 teams from different cities visit Bowling Green Ballpark to take on the Bowling Green Hot Rods.

You know, when you think about a a tourism aspect, that's booking over 3,000 hotel rooms from April to September, as well as bringing in, you know, over 140,000 fans to the ballpark.

That number continues to increase year over year from an attendance perspective.

But with that, you know, we see people from all over the country.

We had ticket buyers from 42 different states, over 500 cities, and over 650 different zip codes throughout the entire United States.

Not to mention, we also had three countries in there as well.

Sports are important for communities because it brings, you know, families together.

You know, the great thing about coming to a Hot Rods game is its affordable family fun for all to enjoy.

You know, you can come to a ballgame with four or five family members and pay less than $50 to get into the ballpark.

Baseball isn't the only semi-pro sport in Kentucky.

Soccer has seen a sharp rise in popularity in the Bluegrass State, with recent investments from cities like Lexington and Louisville providing family-friendly environments to watch this global phenomenon on a local scale.

[crowd cheering] The city of Louisville decided to bring pro soccer to the city because of a passionate group of people that was led by an individual, Wayne Estopinal, and he knew that there was a growing passion for the sport of soccer here in this community.

And he had a vision, and a dream, and the motivation to really push forward and try to make something special for our entire community.

Last year, the Sports Commission, we were involved in helping host over 95 different events in the community that brought in over about $300 million in economic impact for this community and 800,000 people, fans, spectators from all over, to participate and watch, and to enjoy what is special about Louisville.

In the world of economic development, when you're bringing and you're recruiting companies to your community, one of the things they look at is what is here, what is the quality of life.

And having these pro sports teams, especially when you're sitting here at the soccer stadium today, most popular sport in the world, it means so much when you're in these companies around, and they have many times global locations.

It's just another amenity to help market your community and show them that this is a great place.

Kentucky is a great place to come, work, live, and play.

[crowd cheering] And it really helps us to continue to add jobs in Lexington.

This is one of the reasons we had record employment last year.

And we continue to work with these [crowd cheering] clubs to make sure that they thrive.

[music playing] We've had a great time exploring the Old State Capitol here in Frankfort.

This facility is managed by the folks at the Kentucky Historical Society, with their amazing Center for Kentucky History just down the street here.

If you've never made it to Frankfort to check out all this remarkable history in just a few-block area, I encourage you to do so.

Now, if you've enjoyed our show, be sure to like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more of what we like to call Kentucky Life Extras, where you'll have access to lots of other great videos.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky life.

[music playing] [music playing]