♪ >> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to this special edition of Kentucky EDITION.

I'm Renee Shaw.

We thank you so much for spending some time with us this evening.

We took key addition on the road and among the stops, Owensboro and its neighbor.

Henderson, both have rich histories.

We start with a tour around the city of Henderson.

>> I think the river really set the backdrop to everyday life.

Karen Henderson and a really cool way to experience that because I think there's so much tranquility in just walking on the river, watching it move, spotting a trend across the bridge.

Pretty call.

So if you walk along the river walk, he can experience the river up close, which is really, really right on the edge of Indiana.

And so we share a lot of commonalities with southern Indiana and western Kentucky.

>> Well, one thing that separates Henderson from a lot of cities in Kentuckyian beyond is the amount of things that are going on over the last 5 to 10 years for Henderson.

For starters, we have a revitalized downtown.

So back in 2016, our occupancy rate was probably closer to 65%.

In terms of the businesses that we have.

And today we're somewhere in the 90's.

We've had an influx of young people who have come in and invest in a lot of money and restaurants and places to stay and places to live.

And so all of those things coupled with a smattering of new businesses and retail that are coming in have have really grown our city over the last couple of years and will continue to grow it on into the future.

And so we're seeing a lot of interest from young families that we haven't seen in a long time who are who are coming to Henderson and staying here.

We've had a couple of new industries located in Henderson as well that are bringing high paying jobs.

We've got a couple of new housing development center starting.

>> So Anderson is one of those places that is growing.

And but it still remains and has that feeling and how.

Anderson is on the river and had a life many years ago.

River Commerce, one of the highest per capita in net incomes in the whole country at one time because of all the dark Burley, tobacco that made its way to Henderson.

We had a tense.

>> 10's if not 30 of warehouses, tobacco warehouses that lined the river front and stored up tobacco and made its way to England in France.

So we've got a great history of the industry.

>> What we don't always realize as Kentuckyian and I think this happens everywhere.

We have such incredible treasures in our own backyards and just driving a couple hours down.

A really beautiful backroad can take you to a place where the culture is a little different.

Maybe the flavors are a little different.

The landscape so different and you can have a whole different experience than what we what you would have.

You know, just a few hours east or west of here.

So often the folks that come here are so pleasantly surprised that they KET coming back and sometimes even decide to make this their new home.

>> One of Katie's own Kelsey Starks is from the neighboring town of Owensboro.

So is her dad Kirk-patrick.

They got together to discuss what makes the city a special place to live.

>> Well, I am fortunate enough to be here in Owensboro with the man many refer to as the master of ceremonies Winnsboro.

I refer to him as dad and I am really excited to introduce all of you all to him.

And he is excited to introduce you to Owensboro.

So you have lived here your entire life.

Yes, I a and tell me why.

What made you want to stay?

>> Well, right after college, I had a good job here.

And I met my wife.

She had a great job in Washington, D.C., and thought well, we'll move their b***.

She wanted to be closer to family to.

And we said, let's start here.

We had other authors throughout the years and then we had you.

>> And all the sudden priorities change.

We look at education and look at safety of the community and it just fit yen.

>> And a lot of people don't realize Owensboro has of really diverse economy here.

>> We do.

We are very fortunate.

The main business in this region is agriculture.

And it's difficult to overestimate the impact it has had.

But there are huge corporations here in Owensboro.

In fact, I think about 60 national headquarters of businesses located here.

If you've ever had ragu spaghetti sauce or Bertolli, Spaghetti sauce, they came from Owensboro.

They can and ship a million John R us of spaghetti sauce a day.

That's 150 semi trucks.

And let's talk semi trucks.

The Owensboro River Port Association, their here on the river, of course, a transfer products up and down.

If you took all the products that they shipped in one year and put them in semi trucks.

Back to back it.

We go from Owensboro to New Orleans.

>> So you've lived here your entire life.

You've seen a lot of changes and that time, what are some of the biggest changes here in Owensboro?

Well, >> there have been a lot of changes that there's been one dramatic dynamic change.

And that's what I call our Renaissance back in 2006 or 7, part of downtown is boarded up.

It was not going forward and that means you're going backwards and the community, I think as a whole, our corporate citizens, boys and girls, everybody just kind of got together and said we got to do something different right on the coattails of the Riverpark center chain.

110 million dollar riverfront.

That includes one of the number one parks in the world as well as a mile of probably the most beautiful riverfront on the Ohio River.

>> What about other communities who are also struggling?

Small town downtown?

What can they take away or learn from how Owensboro was able to transform?

>> Well, I think the thing that has many of them is the example that we said it can be done.

How do you pay for something like this?

Well, I thought it was very unique that the community decided to tax themselves and what they did.

They put in insurance premium tax and everybody.

So and it wasn't just for people that were working.

It wasn't for the rich people only or whatever.

>> Everybody had a share of that.

If you had an apartment, your insurance when very much.

But if you have a yacht in a 4 million dollar home, you'll be paying more.

So everybody had a least a little bit in the project.

And I think that's what made it such a benefit and one that drew us together.

>> One of my favorite things is how you and others and so many people here take such pride and really give back and not just in a small way in big ways and make real change in this community.

That's truly what Owensboro is about to me and for its own unique, it's large enough that you can have an impact, but it's not so large that it's >> daunting.

But let me give you a couple of examples.

Here is a and the mayor's assistant.

She's probably 23 years old.

Chief times a grant for a walkway will be about a quarter of a mile long.

If they can come up with matching phones.

We could have like a quarter mile Greene blocking area.

People thought why we need a quarter of a mile green mocking at she didn't see the quarter mile.

She called put it emerald necklace around the entire city walkway, not a quarter of a mile today.

The Green Belt is 17 miles long and is one of the greatest and assets to our community.

And it's all because a suit fouled.

Another example.

Here's a guy who is an art major.

He just wants to do something different, says, I make a big.

We're all on the side of this building.

Well, it sounds great until you realize the amount of work it.

He didn't care this one person.

Gary Bielfeld ends up making a mirror mural the size of a building that becomes an iconic part of Owensboro.

Maybe another good example is the bridge itself.

Good friend of mine.

20 years ago said he had seen the David Letterman show and when the David Letterman show Open, there were lights on the bridge in New York.

Why don't we put lights here in Owensboro?

Well, it was a great idea about it.

$50,000 back then.

It really was a pipe dream except for David.

And he said, no, we're going to do it 3 years later, he actually had a news conference on top of that.

But I don't mean on the bridge he stood on top of there.

And I know he did because I was up there too.

>> Announcing that we're gonna like the bridge, even though we didn't have all the money yet that next day, a lady whose husband had helped build the bridge.

Donated $10,000.

And from there tonight, you'll see the bridge are a lot different than when Dave Live.

It.

But it's going to be beautiful.

And then there's Terry would bird the Bluegrass Museum Hall of Fame.

It was an idea that he's been working on for 25 or 30 years that it's a reality today because of his passion and desire to make this happen.

Those 4 people all had help.

But I can assure you that without those for those 4 elements in Owensboro would not be here.

And that to me is the essence of the Owensboro community.

>> It's all about the people.

Thank you for letting me introduce you to one of my favorites.

Back to you.

Thank you, Kelsey.

And you're one of our favorites.

>> Owensboro is also home to services and support for those with intellectual disabilities like autism.

That includes puzzle pieces, which has a satellite location devoted to early childhood education.

Our Laura Rogers shows us how they're helping kids and youth create healthy, happy independent lives.

>> 11 year-old Skyler comes here every day after school.

This is our home away from home with his mother says he was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 and a half years old.

He could understand what you're saying.

But he couldn't tell you what he needed when he tries to close the sky lure received early intervention at school, but his mother would know to some regression after summer break.

It changed after enrolling in the summer session and puzzle pieces.

When we transition back to school after that summer, it was almost like seamless.

He almost went back ahead of.

>> Other Pearce R Brother does have 4 x lack on his own disability.

He was the 11 person I say, to every board with his type of disability inspired by her and spent 6 years as a special education teacher.

>> Before receiving a grant to realize her other dream of opening the doors here at puzzle pieces.

And I was the janitor out.

Has the bill or Al is the executive director?

I was the direct support professional.

I was all of the things.

HR, everything.

I'm just trying to live out a dream for the purposes of those individuals with disabilities and creating a door that can be open for them and creating opportunities like I wanted for my brother puzzle.

Pieces began with 32 clients and 7 staff members and over a decade later, they've grown to serve 400 people with more than 100 employees.

>> Nothing looks very cookie cutter.

We have a framework of what we want to target as far as life skills, social skills, executive functioning job skills.

It's a place for them.

>> To be comfortable and find other people that they have things in common with Blair neighbors is director of Autism Services.

Whole puzzle pieces serves people with a variety of intellectual disabilities.

It is estimated that 60% of them are on the autism spectrum.

We do things like >> executive functioning skills, life skills.

>> Social skills, money skills, try to pick things that are super important than that are actually going to help them function down society and in life with a 200 person waiting list puzzle pieces recently expanded to a new satellite location right across the street from the main campus focusing on early childhood education for those 18 and under with an autism diagnosis.

>> If they go on outings where they practice their social skills and then their daily.

>> Life skills they do had Jean, he loves the friendships.

I have had friends are a big part of this.

I wanted him to be able >> What people on being part of a community and building relationships.

Also important for young adults like Carter.

I cried.

>> After we got them to to Iran, I KET it was where we had to be Donna and her son Carter.

Now in his 20's relocated from Michigan to Owensboro after finding puzzle pieces.

>> I was looking all over the United States.

Donna has noticed improved communication skills and her son and a willingness to try new things.

It is families like hers that originally encouraged him and his vision.

And I realized.

>> Not everybody was like my brother.

The families were like my family and they were looking for what was life after high school.

And now that life isn't rich for the hundreds of people coming through their doors once they graduate.

We have other programs here.

>> That they can filter into.

So we have a great supported employment program that helps our clients find careers.

They're also developing young adult programming for those with autism.

At the collegiate level, offering a future with opportunity and possibility for kids like Skyler puzzle pieces will always be a part of our village.

>> Thank you, Laura Rogers, now to a comeback story dating back to the 18.

100's Green River Distilling company once made one of the world's most popular bourbons before sitting dormant for many years.

Kentucky Edition visited the historic property where whiskey now flows once again.

>> Owns were used to be a mecca for distilleries.

The city was home to about.

22 of them pre prohibition, including Green River Distilling Company was started in 18.

85 by JW McCulloch.

It is the 10 oldest distillery licensed in Kentucky.

Still to this day, the most expensive urban ever sold was Green River be traded 20 barrels of Green River whiskey for a share of a Colorado gold mine called the Force Queen that mine panned out, making Green River.

I would go make very good whiskey.

It was once among the most popular and widely advertised bourbons in the world before politicians.

They went with whiskey without a headache, which of course they had to change because you can't say that.

>> Their slogan would become the whiskey without regret.

What misfortune would strike the distillery burning to the ground in 1918, prohibition happens.

Bourbon falls out of favor in a kind of went away there for a while.

And then in 2020 Green River was brought back home after over 130 years of being upset.

>> Today they produce more than 100,000 barrels a year on the original property where it was made more than a century ago.

>> Some people like to say we're on hallowed ground.

It's a true American history.

It's true Kentucky history.

There are 5 brick houses on the grounds.

27 in total storing close to half a million barrels of bourbon.

>> The one that we're currently standing in, his is called the clay tile Rick House.

It's 4 stories tall and holds 20,000 barrels of full proof.

Its latest release of 5 varieties.

We consider ourselves the Western gateway to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

>> They launched their first product of the revival and February of 2022, we were a big splash and it went over very well lashed the operative word, Kentucky's water and soil make it ideal for distilling along with the climate.

We need all 4 seasons.

We get the harsh cold.

We get the warm summer's green reverse revitalization has been a big boost to Owensboro terrorism along with barbecue and bluegrass called the big little city.

It's just a fun place to come sitting right on the Ohio River.

Everything that we have here is authentic with a storied past being here in Owensboro.

We just make some really, really good Whiskey, Green River Distilling company is in good spirits about its future.

We're Kentucky edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

>> Thanks again, Laura.

For a city its size, Owensboro has a thriving arts community.

That includes a world-renowned artist who famously paints portraits upside down in front of massive crowds.

Our current Kelsey Starks is back to introduce us to Aaron Kaiser.

>> I just do the things that I like to do and don't put a title in any of it.

>> Aaron Kaiser doesn't call himself an artist.

In fact, he says he never had any formal art education or interest in school.

He picked up a paintbrush to create his first portrait out of necessity.

>> I got started in art and based my dad, he got cancer.

He didn't have health insurance life insurance.

So I was trying to figure out a way to help him pay for his chemo treatment.

And I googled.

Quick ways to make money and one of them was if you could paint and then you can sell paintings and so the next day I started painting.

>> Born in raised in Owensboro, Aaron Kaiser has since traveled around the world, not only creating art but unique kind of performance art.

>> What I do is really weird.

And because it's set up like like a bands playing.

going to pain.

The amount of people to show up to watch bands play coming.

Watching pain.

>> Its speed painting in less than 10 minutes he creates with looks like abstract art at the end, flipping it over to reveal a portrait to an audience in awe.

♪ >> I started to learn to paint upside down.

And because I didn't have to remember faces.

I can remember shapes.

I can't remember what someone looks like.

Well, enough to pay no.

But I can tell you the shapes of their face well enough to pay them.

So that's I kinda.

Compartmentalize each part of the face as a different shape.

And scale.

It is a unique talent that has taken Aaron Kaiser to perform all over the country.

>> Including Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas.

But it is in his hometown of Owensboro where he feels most comfortable creating art.

>> I don't think I would ever became a painter if you would have put me in a city.

Larger.

I tell people all the time I travel all over and always tell them.

To come to one's parole and create for a little bit.

You don't have the hustle and bustle of everywhere else.

You don't have.

2 or 3 hour traffic jams like.

>> You can get to a studio and work and be quiet mean all these things.

So like I think it was both a great place.

So to birth creativity.

>> For Kentucky edition, I'm Kelsey Starks.

Thanks again.

Cal say now decades after his passing, a man from Owensboro was remembered for his contributions to the civil rights movement.

>> Monet to sleet, captured that time with photographs that tell the story of its impact.

Here's a story from our archives first brought to you by our Laura Rogers.

>> The city of Owensboro known for Barbecue Bourbon and Bluegrass.

Now paying tribute to one of its natives, a figure credited with some of the most influential photographs of the civil rights movement.

>> Very important man.

Very important to ones and I believe everyone should know about and should be taught in schools.

>> He means that on Sproul can produce some beautiful things.

And people that can contribute not just to our community, but 2, the history of our country.

>> Monet to sleet, junior worked for Ebony magazine capturing key moments in history reflected upon today.

It just gives a greater context to what our history books have tried to convey.

>> In 1969, sleet won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Coretta Scott King at the funeral for her husband, Doctor Martin Luther King junior.

It humanized the that didn't make it so far removed that because he was just this big.

I kind that show that he was somebodys husband.

He was someone's father.

>> When we were in leadership, Owensboro, we were charged with.

How do you make Owensboro better?

One of the ways that I thought we could make Owens were better was to lift up positive stories from our community that led to organizing a festival celebrating a man born in Owensboro that rose to professional acclaim, becoming a friend to Doctor King.

He took pictures of those intimate moments.

>> Drew Hardesty and any was Lee traveled the country interviewing people most familiar with sleet, work, producing a documentary, has photographers and videographers.

You know, you're kind of the unsung hero.

You stay behind the camera.

>> You don't get all the recognition.

So and that's fine.

But it was his turn is his time to get his recognition.

>> With ow photojournalists in specifically journalist like sleet, we would lose some of that history.

That's just so profound and ingrained in our society.

It's important that we learned there's a person behind that photograph.

>> Several 100 people attended the festival which also included exhibits monologues and conversations.

I think it was something very important for our community to see.

>> That we can honor African Americans that have contributed to our community and also to the country or Kentucky edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

>> Now to our final story this evening.

Rick Ferris has been plying bluegrass music professionally since he was 14 years old is also studied the art of building and repairing guitars for almost just as long.

Now he runs Kentucky guitar works in Owensboro, which aims to support both of these passions.

♪ >> Let me know that so Kentucky guitar work came because of the need of.

>> Leury to be passed down from.

It's not usually from father to son, but from from Apprentice to apprentice.

You know, like over the years, it's it's lineage of knowledge that goes back for centuries.

If COVID taught us anything, we lost quite a few very prominent repair those years.

And the they weren't training people.

>> Like they could have been.

>> So a lot of that knowledge that they possessed was gone.

We want to KET that from happening.

We want to bring new people in a sleuth years and train them up and send him out in the world so they can repair instruments so they can build guitars were in a boom right now is get our building.

Since COVID happened.

Guitar sales are up 200%.

So it's there's there's a need and the Owensboro has been doing a Bluegrass Music initiative, which is to cultivate bluegrass culture right here in Owensboro.

So they need to Duluth here and they they reached out.

And and so this is kind of been a part of their pillar.

One of the pillars of the Bluegrass Music initiative.

So we're here to educate and the bill guitars.

>> This is how how you're next com.

And you can cut to out of this one.

>> If you get creative.

So this facility here, Kentucky guitar works.

We have 1700 square feet.

Plus and what we can handle 5 students at a time.

>> For building classes and the first small classes like repair, you know, action sets maintenance and things like that.

>> We can handle the whole crowd full of folks.

But the this space makes it possible to bring people in and let them have a wonderful environment to assemble a guitar or to learn to repair their own or to start their budding with your career in a shoe you I will settle down for a OSHA and not just enhanced bluegrass music in general and >> it's shining.

A light on bluegrass is kind of what I've always wanted to do because it's done so much for me.

As an artist or as of the fear.

Yeah.

Take your pick of its progress has been there for me.

So I'm very happy to to try to be there for it as it goes forward.

>> So I hope it peaks people's curiosity and gets them thinking about things and building things, making things that are going out with them.

I give you a broader perspective on the world and what you can do to it.

>> Well, we hope we've given you a broader perspective about Owensboro and Henderson and Western Kentuckyian we hope to see you again release and for Kentucky edition at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central each week night.

But we inform connect and inspire.

Connect with us all the ways you see on your screen, Facebook, X and Instagram to stay in the loop and send us a story idea to public affairs at KET and T Dot Org.

Thanks so much for watching.

Take really good care until I see you again.

So long.

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