♪ ♪ >> You never forget the first parent that you connect with after being told are top has cancer.

And now those parents are banding together asking legislators to continue funding lifesaving research for Kentucky kids.

You can literally just walk up when you're in need are when you want to share and there's no barriers of access.

>> The simple way, one nonprofit is breaking down food barriers for those in need.

I loved transforming something that was broken into something that could live again.

And I know that is where my passion is today.

>> Turning passion into profit.

Meet the pain queen of Kentucky was putting small community of Taylorsville ongoing map.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KU Team Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Monday, February, the 12th.

Thank you for starting off your week night with us.

I'm Renee Shaw.

>> It's day 29 of Kentucky's 2024 legislative session.

2 bills that could lead to constitutional amendments cleared the full Senate today.

One was Senate bill one.

43.

It asked voters to decide if the state constitution should be amended to prevent non-citizens from voting.

Proponents of the bill say it will close a loophole in the state's current election laws.

Democrats argue, though, the state constitution is clear about who can and cannot vote.

The bill passed.

31 to 4 a similar bill in the House already passed the lower chamber.

The full Senate also passed Senate Bill.

23 this afternoon.

It to proposes amending Kentucky's constitution to add an exemption that would eliminate increases in property taxes for homeowners.

65 years old and older Senate Bill 23 was approved by a vote of 32 to 2 with one pass vote tomorrow.

The full Senate is scheduled to take up Senate Bill 6.

That is the controversial bill that restricts diversity, equity and inclusion or dei at Kentucky's public colleges and universities will recap that day's action.

If that Bill is called up right here on Kentucky EDITION.

Friday is the deadline to apply to be Kentucky's next commissioner of education, the Kentucky Board of Education tells us its received 6 applications.

The board began the search following the departure of Jason Glass who stepped down as education commissioner back in September, Glass became a target of some Republican lawmakers over his guidance on policies involving LGBTQ+ students.

The GOP led General Assembly also passed legislation last year requiring the Kentucky education commissioner to be confirmed by the Senate.

On Friday comment on Kentucky.

Panelists discuss the search for a new education chief and whether the current political climate was the reason there were not more applicants for the job.

>> You know, it's when the Senate passed a law that that made it such that they had to confirm the nominee or rather the it created a kind of need all higher has to thread, right to have to be excepted by the sheer was a Democrat appointed board and also signed off on by a Republican dominated Senate.

So who is the candidate who fits both of those boxes?

I don't know.

And I guess we'll find out soon enough, at least according to the board.

>> Yeah, this a real new uncharted territory for how to run to the the State Department of Education because a Kentucky went through a period of of the commission of education, a statewide level.

And then, you know, kind of came to this point of the the governor appointing people to board of education and of hiring the.

The commissioner, which he was supposed to be insulated.

But now bit having the legislature here that really kind of boxed themselves into a corner and having to come and, you know, maybe maybe happily that they will have to have to come to an agreement on somebody.

But it's also possible that that they won't be able to come to agree to come to agree on somebody.

And that's that's something I think we're all waiting to see.

Who turns out the mic and whether everybody can be happy with.

>> A list of finalists is expected to be announced the first week of March.

The board says it wants a new commissioner in place by July.

1st.

As usual, Kentucky lawmakers are considering bills dealing with how your children learn among them, whether tax dollars should go to private schools.

A panel of educators will discuss school choice and other education issues on Kentucky tonight and will take your questions and comments will hear those education advocates tonight at 8 Eastern 7 central right here on KET.

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children.

This week, families will rally and meet with legislators at the state Capitol asking for millions in funding that supports research and treatment.

Our Laura Rogers spoke with 2 mothers personally affected about why this cause is so important to Kentucky kids.

>> As the sun sets on the Jones family home in Upton.

Heather Jones reflects on the time more than a decade ago when days weren't so sunny.

>> It's an out of body and experience to think that your child would have something that could potentially kill them.

>> Her son Evan was diagnosed with osteosarcoma a at 9 years old.

We caught it early.

So very thankful heaven would receive lifesaving treatment at what is now Norton Children's Hospital on his 10th birthday.

He had live and salvaging surgery and that's where they remove the cancerous tumor from his arms.

So they reconstructed his arm on his 10th birthday.

We were very lucky to have caught it when we did.

>> Evan is now 21 and a junior at University of Kentucky has mother remains fully committed to advocacy for childhood cancer research.

And I just know that by the gains that we've seen an adult cancers that funding research and advocacy works.

She's a member of the Kentucky Pediatric Cancer Research Trust Fund founded in 2015 joining forces with other parents like Elizabeth Turner of Louisville, Hu son passed away in 2021.

David Junior was diagnosed at 6 years old in the first grade with a form of brain cancer called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma or the ipg for short.

>> Turner says Kentucky has the 4th highest rate of childhood cancer and the country pediatric brain cancers leading cause of cancer related deaths in children.

When you're reading books, we're expecting a child.

He after cancer.

Is that what to expect when you're expecting?

It's the leading cause of death by disease in children and for so many in the general public.

It's it's not always visible.

Turner is working to change that leading the charge to support taxpayer funded research that could help other children like her son.

David Junior was an advocate.

He had come to many advocacy days in Frankfort and spoken, met with the legislators and Governor Bevin and Governor Beshear over the years chair about his cancer journey.

His legacy in just continuing his advocacy.

>> Through him for him, for the children, other children impacted by cancers.

Really important.

The group is asking the General Assembly to allocate 15 million dollars to fund innovative research and safer treatments for pediatric cancer.

We're working to make sure that our children in Kentucky have access to the best care for cancer treatment and diagnosis.

She says while her son did receive the best care available, the treatment Protocol, 4 D I P G was last updated in 1962 for him and his diagnosis.

The best care he could receive.

>> I was going to be the same everywhere because of the lack of funding and research for touted cancer previously.

David Junior passed away in 2021. just a few weeks shy of his 10th birthday.

We had a catch phrase that he came up with, which was make every day the best day ever.

So that is another part of his legacy that we hope to share with everybody else.

Is that positive outlook that he had as well as fighting for their children?

>> What an inspiration.

Kentucky childhood cancer advocacy day is this Wednesday at the Kentucky State Capitol.

>> Including a proclamation signing at noon in the Rotunda.

Elizabeth Turner says the funding they've asked for was included in the budget bill that passed the House earlier this month.

Turning now to national politics, the division between Kentucky's 2 Republican U.S. senators continues to widen Senator Rand Paul took to the Senate floor today to lead a filibuster over a 90 billion-dollar foreign aid package that cleared a key procedural vote yesterday.

He said the deal is not what his constituents back home want.

>> If you are to take this position in my state and ask everybody in Kentucky, how many of you think that we should send 100 billion dollars overseas for the southern border?

Not a betting, not one policy change.

Nothing for the southern border.

How many people believe that in my state, it's close to 0.

>> A bipartisan bill that pairs enforcement policies on the southern border with more aid for Ukraine and Israel failed to gain traction last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell back to both the deals urging that it's better to, quote, equip our friends to have our shared adversaries so are less likely to have to spend American lives to defeat them.

A final vote on the latest foreign aid package is expected on Wednesday.

♪ ♪ >> You've probably heard that every moment counts when someone has a stroke at the University of Kentucky, doctors are using artificial intelligence to make sure valuable time isn't being wasted.

See how in today's medical news.

>> The reason that this became a crucial a tool for us is in my role in my colleagues will we take care of acute ischemic, stroke or basically acute blocked blood vessels in people's brains and it's estimated that if you have a blocked blood vessel in your brain, you're losing somewhere up upwards of close to 2 million neurons or nerve cells every minute that ticks by.

Then over the last decade, we started doing a procedure called mechanical thrombectomy.

That is essentially think of it like, you know, the plumber in your house, clean in the pipes.

We can run little tubes up into the blood vessels, the brain and reopen that blood vessel in just a matter of minutes.

And the key, though, is getting the patients onto the table the way that this tool this app is AI generating is that it can automatically detect certain types of that sound just like to like about walked on this and the brain where a brain hemorrhage or bring the lead we look at the scans to but it's a nice trigger, if you will, to alert us that there's something going on.

The app doesn't just attacked ischemic, stroke, and that can detect brain bleeds.

It can help us coordinate how patient referrals for non-emergent blood vessel problems in the brain like a someone is diagnosed with an and yours and, you know, and needs to see us in the clinic to discuss that and figure out if the treatment before it was a phone call where a doctor from the hospital say, I think this patients having a bad stroke and we weren't looking at the pictures.

We're just kind of talking to each other and say send them all to UK.

And so a lot of patients would get here and they didn't need the thrombectomy or 2 later.

For some reason they couldn't get the procedure.

What this does is it kind of virtually brings us to the bedside throughout Kentucky to have that discussion with the emergency doctors figure out, hey, this patient really going to benefit to the not need to come to UK, you know, can they be treated very well where they are and that hospital, you know, somewhere else in the grass that we work with and coordinate with.

And so it helps cut down on unnecessary transfers to it helps KET patients in their communities.

>> The company behind Viz Ai said it is signed with more than 900 hospitals and has been approved by Medicare.

♪ For People and Madison County dealing with food insecurity, getting a free meal has gotten easier.

That's because one nonprofit is putting up many food pantries in the community.

All in an effort to break down barriers and feed those in need.

That led up to mail-in mutual aid project is an effort to help folks reorient with the concept of community through the lens of mutual aid.

>> We got started a colleague in the field I reached out to Manila Society, the parent organization, which also co-founded and said, hey, we want to help.

Where is the help needed?

How can we help you all to me, you know, some meat.

So, you know, I'm basing Appalachians right now here in brief Kentucky, food insecurity here in Brea seems to be pretty ramp, it's disappointing to it is a beautiful and thriving community in some respects.

But just underneath the surface, there are people struggling to survive day to day and their struggles bowl down to housing and food scarcity.

And so today, what we do is we try to me that food scarcity need by serving free meals and also bring other resources to the table, metaphorically and literally what I encounter on a daily basis, a daily basis is people reaching out to me saying we need help with dinner.

That's the only Milwaukee today.

If we can just get back, my kid doesn't have enough food to I don't have a CD.

Elderly couples are on fixed incomes.

They're they're rationing their food.

These are all things I've seen with my own eyes and it just continues to worsen with the rising cost of living the importance of the dry food pantry stems from the fact that a lot of the reason people deal with food, scarcity and other types of resource scarcity are barriers to access.

Yeah.

The free dry food pantries are installed here on the street.

So you can literally just walk up when you're in need are when you want to share and there's no barriers of access.

So it's a free access point.

So with that does essentially is it more readily needs meets the need of food scarcity versus having to go through processees bureaucracy.

The first pantry was installed and before the holidays and that kind of kicked and installation campaign.

So we got I want to say 5 right before Christmas and New Year's hit.

And we do have plans to install more once the weather warms up in spring rolls back around the locations for the pantries were picked to be of people who showed interest in hosting a pantry.

It all boiled down to being able to avoid barriers of access.

And by that, I mean, essentially not having asked for permission from the city or the state and whatnot.

So landowners, home owners who had a piece of property that they wanted to host a pantry on became are prime candidates.

And so through that we were able to expedite these installations by simply getting the permission.

Some of the people who own the property that they would be installed on.

the food pantries are way for us to exercise our power to be there for each other and help each other and in exemplify what it is to women, abundant life mission.

Smith says other counties are considering dry food pantries, the Appalachian Community Meal Project is working to create a Templet.

>> For others to follow.

New discoveries are taking place at Mammoth Cave National Park and South Central Kentucky.

We spoke with the parks public information officer about never before seen fossils recently uncovered from the K. >> We have discovered 2 new species of ancient sharks from fossils that were found inside Mammoth Cave of the 2 sharks were discovered is a part that paleontological resources inventory that we've been conducting in the park since 2019.

They're just the latest discovery in a whole long list of shark fossils that we have found.

We've known there are sharp fall says here for some time.

But it took a specific expert in ancient sharks to look at those fossils and really let us know what you have, something very special year.

He was able to see them realize they were something he had never been across the floor.

Part of this inventory that we've been doing, he's really revealed the significance of the shark fossils.

Yeah.

Inside Mammoth Cave.

Whenever Mammoth Cave formed, you know, 350 million years ago.

That's when the the still informed that the rock that makes at Mammoth Cave.

It was a very shallow, warm sea with a lot of sea life in it and as that C like died, it came to the bottom of the ocean, built up over time to create the line so that the bones and even some cartilage from some of the sharks was contained within that rock being that Mammoth Cave is okay.

You it is very protective environment.

We don't have wind.

We don't have water coming in.

We don't have the sun that would normally breakdown kraken in damage.

Those fossils over time.

So it's kind of a protected place to find these fossils.

You know, we started this in 2019, we thought this would be a great, simple report that we can get to discover a little bit more about Mammoth cave, even the fossils here.

But it is just gone on and on and on the cause of the abundance of sharp fossils they found here.

It's just another piece of the manatee puzzle.

We always are discovering new things in the cave.

It's a new world down there all the time.

It's a great place of discovery and we're just excited to be a part of it.

A great place of Discovery.

Indeed, Mammoth Cave was invited to be part of the inventory research by the National Park Service.

>> So far more than 70 different species of sharks have been identified.

♪ >> I Kentucky entrepreneur is putting Taylorsville Kentucky on the map.

Forbes magazine calls Paula Blankenship, the Queen of paint.

And so to her 7 million followers on social media.

Our Kelsey Starks brings us the story of her success.

>> People use this product to repair their boat seats in paint them.

So this so you don't have to buy new ones.

>> Paula Blankenship has always had a passion for making all things new again.

>> I'd rather remodel home then build a brand new one with unlimited amount of money get more fun and more pleasure out of seeing something old.

Resuscitate back to another life.

You know that to me is a rewarding thing.

Some of the site is going to totally take care of this.

>> Money can fix anything, but it takes a little ingenuity and little craftiness to fix something that might not be perfect into something that looks fantastic.

So that's where my passion lives.

>> That passion took a little time to uncover after dropping out of high school.

She worked full-time in her own business or retail store.

She opened with her sister.

Parents were entrepreneur role and they always owned their own businesses.

And I just grew up around that.

My grandparents were also entrepreneurs.

That is exactly who I am.

I'm cut from that cloth.

>> But paint wasn't the clock.

Is she envisioned, although she was a natural entrepreneur, the single mom and her teenage son moved from Tennessee to Kentucky where she started selling paint as a natural complement to her design and floor covering business, a side gig to KET her son busy and involved.

>> And my goal is to sell $100 a day and paint.

So that put it on e-bay and all of a sudden it was selling $250 a day.

And I was like, wow, this stuff must be good.

But Paulo was just getting started.

She found selling 2 retailers wasn't working as planned.

There was a learning curve and her customers were getting stuck.

So she changed her canvas.

We decided then if we can fix this product and not make this something that had to be talked the to make it super easy more easy.

Then what these guys are selling and help them solve some of the mystery here.

We did that with all my pain.

We're going to show you how to use those bundle pieces right here during this live heirloom traditions.

Paint was born with the help of a chemist.

She crafted a page that could do well everything.

So we had several formulas back and forth that we're not the winner.

And when we finally got there, it had to be flexible.

It had to be extremely durable.

It had to take you to the other words ahead to the exterior rated.

It had just had to shut off water.

It had to be a lot of things.

So we got there with this.

A beautiful formula that we have today and have this paint the paint literally everything from leather.

As a showed you leather front door, it will paint.

Is convertible top on your car to the car seats to your cabinets.

All those things together.

Create a brand as they are today, creating the brand was one thing.

Getting it to customers who was another.

>> Just as sales started to pick up the pandemic, forced another color change amid supply chain issues and shutdowns Paula and her team turned to social media.

Thank you for joining us here on our video about her think cabinets and using don't think products.

We're going to show you some quick tips on how to get started.

Rejuvenating and renewing your kitchen.

>> Let's let's use Facebook live as our QB see to the world.

If we're going to teach how to use the products that sell it to the people that matters.

>> If I'm going to show you how to use it, I'm going to be the conduit to sell it to you.

>> And we're going to show you how easy this thing works and how quickly that you can get great coverage and sure enough our lives changed overnight and then about a three-month time period.

We went from barely Robin nickels together to moving to this location.

>> Now with 7 million followers on social media.

Paula is a bona fide celebrity and the DIY world.

She has a loyal Facebook group of half a million people.

Many of them traveled to visit her facility in Taylorsville.

>> And Taylorsville had a will for people who wanted to work in their hometown.

So we came here.

We turn this into an esop store.

Employees are owners and that is the sweetest thing we've ever done.

>> Heirloom traditions now employs more than 30 people and that's doubled over this past year when they bought Louisville based Kelly Industrial coatings.

The manufacturer that used to mix her pains.

We've always said at this location we will make our own paint.

>> Always been my personal goal is to make our own products control our own destiny.

And you can't do that when you're in the backseat.

You've got to be the driver.

We're working through, doubling the size of our business, doubling or headaches, >> Stress, load and lots of things.

But it's been fun and thank God we are live to solve problems.

>> Going back to her roots, making something old new again.

And it's fun to take on this old business.

And this business was destined to close and to see all of the folks there who have devoted their life there who are really getting ready to be on the street.

>> To us, to breathe new life into this business.

That's who I am.

In a nutshell.

Some old them something new.

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

Thank you, Kelsey.

What a great story.

So what's next for the paint queen of Kentucky, Paula will be featured in a new television show helping country music stars redo their homes.

Look out for DIY country coming soon.

Today, February 12th, we celebrate the birthday of Kentucky's most famous citizen are Toby Gibbs has that and more in tonight's look at this week in Kentucky history.

♪ >> The most famous, Kentuckyian of all Abraham Lincoln was born in LaRue County on February 12, 18?

0, 9, He's the only president born in Kentucky.

100 years later on February 12, 19, 0, 9, President Theodore Roosevelt, this Butler County and spoke as the cornerstone was laid at the New Lincoln Memorial Hall.

Senator Robert Kennedy arrived at Lexington's Blue Grass Field.

Now Bluegrass Airport on February 13, 1968 to begin a tour of Appalachia.

That included stops in Perry and breath.

That counties.

Happy birthday to photographer money that sleet junior born February 14, 1926.

In Owensboro.

Slate won a Pulitzer Prize for his picture of the Scott King in morning at the funeral of her husband, Martin Luther King, junior slate died in 1996.

The Louisville Times the afternoon companion newspaper to the Louisville Courier Journal was published for the last time on February 14, 1987.

The Kentucky coffee tree became the state's official tree on February 16, 1976.

To celebrate.

Governor Julian Carroll planted one on the Capitol grounds in 1994.

The tulip Poplar became this Kentucky state tree.

>> And that's a look back at this week in Kentucky history to begin this.

>> Thank Youto Bay, some sad news to report on the passing.

A broadcasting legend and Louisville native Bob Edwards.

>> And we have to make our way to the starting line to match up with the bell.

And while we're doing that, we take a look through this boat.

Just a piece of architecture inside.

Now, really a sight to see >> One that said, words featured in an episode of Kentucky Life.

Back in 1998. and were served as host of NPR's Morning Edition for almost 25 years.

Reaching more than 13 million listeners each.

What week?

He are numerous awards for his work and was inducted in the Radio Hall of Fame.

And the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.

Mister Edwards was 76 an inspiration to all of us who've worked in public radio.

God bless him.

Thank you for watching tonight.

We hope to see you right back here again tomorrow night for Kentucky.

Addition until I see you again.

Take really good care tonight.

♪