very surprising for all of us.

You know, it's unexpected.

A mother in crisis finds life saving help from a central Kentucky Fire Department.

It's the public's work being done and paid for by the public.

By God, it needs to be to remain a public document.

We look at the state of the news media and efforts to change Kentucky Open records laws that some veteran journalists say is an issue that isn't going away.

Her works go beyond the borders of any mat and how the town of Hopkinsville is honoring the late bell hooks.

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

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky edition for this Tuesday, June the 18th.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for joining us as we are on the road.

This week, we're bringing Kentucky edition to you from Hopkinsville in Christian County.

That's in southwestern Kentucky.

Coming up, we're going to honor the town's native daughter, Bell Hooks.

But it's not just hop town, as they call it, that's in the spotlight.

We're also bringing you stories about important issues and people all around southwestern Kentucky this week.

So stick around.

In the news today, a baby is safe this evening after being surrendered at a new baby box in Kentucky.

The Montgomery County fire captain says the baby was dropped off at its fire station in Mt.

Sterling yesterday afternoon.

He said the baby boy appeared to be healthy and that he was taken to a local hospital to be evaluated.

This is a real test of the baby box because we were not in the station when the baby was dropped off here.

We were at another station doing training.

We got the notification, the tones dropped and we responded here and there was an actual baby in the box, which was very surprising for all of us.

You know, it's unexpected.

The Safe Haven baby box was installed in Montgomery County just this past April.

There are nearly 40 such baby boxes across Kentucky, where the new one unveiled in Winchester earlier today.

Since 2017, Safe Haven Baby Box says 50 infants have been saved using the program, which allows for anonymous surrender.

Lexington and Louisville say they're always looking for more police officers today.

The police chiefs of both cities told Kentucky lawmakers how they're making the profession more appealing to new recruits.

We're not the police departments of the past.

We realize that our position is as guardians and protectors, and we have to take that seriously and we have to get that message out there and by interacting with the public and interacting with younger people.

That's why we ask for the lower age, because we realize I got people in 18 years old that want to be police.

I haven't seen that before.

That's because of the people that are working for us, are interacting and getting that message out there in 2021, a new officer made $45,000 walking through the door.

We know what the financial burden is not just of this job, but what every Kentuckian is going through right now.

And so to be able to say that in 2026, a new officer will will walk through the door and they will make $66,000 in their first year is extremely important.

If we expect to put out a quality product, we have to pay people at a quality quality rate.

Ultimately, and in this profession, just like any other, you're going to get what you pay for.

Louisville Metro Council will sign off on its city budget by the end of this month.

Lmpd is the most expensive city department.

Mayor Craig Greenberg is requesting nearly $250 million for the police.

Some police accountability activists say all that money would be better spent elsewhere.

Kentucky is set to receive millions to clean up mining hazards, and a federal program could keep thousands of children in the state from going hungry.

This summer.

More in today's look at headlines around Kentucky.

Kentucky will receive more than $74 million through a federal program to continue cleaning up hazards left by mining.

The Central Kentucky News Journal reports this is the third round from an award through the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement.

The funding will help rebuild water infrastructure and address water supply issues.

The state has used these funds for more than 40 projects in 15 counties.

Kentucky will participate in a federal summer food program that will impact about 450,000 students.

The Advocate Messenger reports the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program will give a one time benefit of $250 for each student.

Students ages 6 to 18 who currently receive benefits through the Cabinet for Health and Family Services programs, will be enrolled about 80% of the 450,000 students will automatically be enrolled and can expect $120 to be issued by June 30th.

Bronze statues of three music legends with Western Kentucky Roots were dedicated last week.

Hop Town Chronicle reports the life sized statues of John Prine and Don and Phil Everly now sit in Central City's Festival Square downtown.

The Everly Brothers were early rock and roll legends.

Some of their most successful singles were Bye Bye Love and Cathy's Clown.

Prine's parents were born in Muhlenberg County, which he sang about in his song Paradise.

Duke hired former Kentucky women's basketball coach Kyra Ellzey for the upcoming season.

According to the school's announcement, Ellzey will be an assistant coach to women's basketball team head coach Kara Lawson.

LG coached for four seasons at U.K. and led the team to back to back appearances in the NCAA tournament.

She also led Kentucky to the Southeastern Conference tournament title in 2022.

That Kit Messenger reports Ellzey as saying, quote, I am elated beyond belief to join the Duke family and the incredible staff that Coach Lawson has assembled.

Duke has a standard of excellence and competes at the highest level, and I look forward to being part of this rich tradition.

It is also a tremendous privilege to work with my sister and former teammate.

Kara is a servant leader who embodies loyalty, family and greatness, and I am grateful for this opportunity to assist her and to inspire, impact and influence Young women.

End quote.

For headlines around Kentucky, I'm June Leffler.

Thank you, June.

Kentucky's broadband access is getting even broader.

Governor Andy Beshear announced the state received federal approval for the broadband equity access and deployment or bid program.

The approval allows the state to use $1 billion in funds given to the state last year to expand high speed Internet service.

The program is focused on reaching unserved and underserved communities and improving connectivity.

Governor Beshear says the goal is to bring affordable, reliable, high speed Internet service to every home and business in the state.

Internet providers that want to apply for federal funds through the program must offer low cost options for service.

Some veteran journalists in Kentucky say they expect lawmakers will once again try to rewrite the state's open records laws.

That was one of the topics we discussed on last night's Kentucky tonight.

Our panelists were referring to House Bill 509, which died in the state Senate during the last legislative session and would have shielded public records on private devices from being disclosed in open records requests.

We just had a very chilling legislative session that ended earlier this year where there were some very blatant attacks on Kentucky's Open Records Act.

This is a piece of legislation that our friend and colleague John Fleischmann helped craft.

And I think there were a lot of sleepless nights for journalists in Kentucky, because we know that the great journalism that has been done for the past five decades, since that law was created was potentially at risk in the future, an attempt to to make it virtually impossible to obtain some records.

And I guess the thing that concerned me the most, the most is that this was a bipartisan effort.

You know, we've seen efforts in North Carolina and in New Jersey very recently to basically gut the respective Open Records act.

We dodged a bullet this session.

But as an editor, the thing that's you know, one of the things that keeps me up at night is that free flow of access to public records and information that the taxpayers, the voters, the residents, constituents in Kentucky deserve to have.

It's the public's work being done and paid for by the public.

By God, it needs to be to remain a public document.

You know, we've seen goes the the attempt to say, well, you know, you're just trying to get access to my phone.

And, you know, if we're doing personal business on our phones, I don't really care about your kids soccer schedule.

I don't care about your grocery lists.

I don't care about even the flirty little text messages you swap with your partner or whatever.

But if you're doing the public's business on your personal device, on personal Gmail or whatever kind of platform that you're using, it's a public record.

And so I'm expecting there'd be fireworks again in the next legislative session.

But it is going to continue because it is the nature of public officials to want to hide what they do, practice their business in secret.

That's been true ever since we've had governments.

Yeah.

But here we have a government that's founded on certain principles of transparency.

You know, we have a First Amendment in the Constitution, and that's been broadly interpreted to mean the public has a right to know what's going on.

And I wonder if the legislature isn't more problematic than it used to be because there are fewer reporters in Frankfort.

I would venture to you that about half of the legislators in Frankfort, because many of them are new, don't really have a good working relationship with a reporter.

And it takes that.

It takes an appreciation of the job that journalists do in order to understand why legislation like that was proposed is really damaging to the public's right to know.

Enter the public interest period.

You can see more of our discussion online on demand at Katie .0rg/ky tonight.

Summer officially begins later this week, but the heat and humidity, we can tell you they're already in full swing.

Our Kristi Dalton talks to the National weather service about our first heat wave of the year.

Kristi, we often hear it's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Well, for Kentucky, it's usually both.

Joining us now is John Gordon from the National Weather Service in Louisville.

Okay, John, we have the hottest temperatures of the year so far.

What is causing this heat wave?

Well, the jet stream is all messed up.

A jet stream is going way too far north.

It's brought this bubble of just intense heat across much of the nation, not just Kentucky.

Well above normal temperatures, places in Michigan, in New York that are 20 degrees above normal.

It's much earlier in the season and it's kind of the old sun.

They having a heat wave.

That's right.

Okay.

So how hot are we talking in?

What days are going to be the worst days?

Yeah, we're going to be in the nineties all week, at least through Saturday.

It looks like Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

We may break some record highs in Lexington, especially in the record books.

9798 is not out of the question.

And Louisville and Lexington.

And there's really the only chance of rain is today and Tuesday.

And then we got a chance on Sunday into Monday.

Not good you know to have that long heat.

Okay.

So a lot of heat, but also the humidity.

Well, the humidity, that's going to be a factor, right?

Yeah, that's a really good point.

So we don't really get the 72 points.

And when you don't get the high moisture, we're maybe not issuing heat advisories because we need 105 degree heat index to do that.

Yeah, it's going to be 100, 101.

Heat index.

That's hot enough.

I'm not sure you can tell the difference between one, two, five 1 to 1.

But yeah, there's definitely going to be some higher heat indices, but not as bad as it could be.

Okay.

Is there any relief in sight?

Yeah, there's a cool front.

Cool.

Not cool.

Cool front.

Sun into Monday.

Maybe we can get in the upper eighties Sunday into Monday.

Hopefully that will happen.

Let's all hope for that and get some rain in here because if we don't get some rain, we're going to get into some drought problems.

And what's called a flash drought, we could really get into some problems.

So I'm hoping we can get something on Sunday.

Monday?

Yeah.

And it has been dry for this heat stretch for a lot of areas.

But we will take to shaving a few degrees off.

We'll take it even if we have to wait until next week for it.

Okay.

What are your top three tips to prepare for this kind of heat?

You got to hydrate.

Coffee and alcohol are not hydration.

A lot of water take breaks.

Breaks.

A lot of breaks.

Get away from that heat.

Don't do things foolishly in the afternoon.

Pickleball baseball things.

In the end of the afternoon, don't do it.

Take breaks, drink water, rest.

And if you can get near fans, you don't have air conditioning.

Get in.

Your fans do things to keep the body temperature heat down.

Okay, Wonderful.

Great advice.

Thank you so much for your time, John.

Thanks, Christine.

Bye bye.

Bye.

Just a few months ago, a new street sign was unveiled here in downtown Hopkinsville in honor of a native daughter.

To those who knew her growing up, she was Gloria, Jane Watkins.

To the rest of the world, she's best known as bell hooks.

Our Laura Rogers explains how her hometown is celebrating and preserving her legacy right, in her words.

It's helped me to just become a more open minded person.

Jada Poindexter is one of the countless young women inspired by the works of Bell hooks.

Her book, All About Love, is amazing, first of all, and it really just shows you how the world needs so much more.

That's one of the main problems with the world.

Jada, herself a young writer, wrote the poem The Longing as a black woman, reading it at the March 1st dedication of Bell Hooks Way.

I was just really drawn to write about belonging as a black woman, because there's been so many times that I haven't felt like that I belong to wherever I am simply because of the color of my skin.

Perhaps bell hooks would say the same.

She wrote nearly 40 books on the topics of race, gender and class, and is known the world over as a feminist icon.

Her works go beyond the borders of any map.

One of the things that she was concerned about was leaving a legacy.

So this just is the icing on the cake.

Gwenda Motley led the charge to honor her late sister with her own street and the city where they were born and raised.

I think that she would be very happy with the fact that her hometown, Hopkinsville, is naming a street after her.

The new sign now prominently displayed, just steps away from her mural.

And the bell hooks Legacy Room at the Penny Royal Area Museum.

It is absolutely wonderful.

It's emotional to me.

The room includes photographs and personal items from Hooks Berea home offering an intimate look at her life and career and her books, in particular on feminism leave a lasting impact.

It's a way to get to understand that people should treat people fairly, should treat people with respect, show love, show care, show concern.

Hopkinsville embracing the legacy of the woman who, despite her fame, I've seen her on TV and I would say, oh, yeah, I know Gloria never shied away from her western Kentucky roots to have bell hooks say in her writings that I am from Hopkinsville.

You might go to the map and see where in the world is that?

And then you might come here.

And when you do, you just may pass by or turn down a street that bears her name.

Well, Gloria, there you are.

How about that for Kentucky edition?

I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

Some of the people who knew bell hooks best reflected on her legacy.

For a Kentucky life story about the esteemed author and feminist.

Here's that.

Now, Bell, I'm going to say, is even though she's passed because her work and her life is so present.

So she is probably the preeminent contemporary scholar, one of the most prestigious scholars and thinkers in the in the country and in many parts of the world.

Bell Hooks is a feminist icon.

She was born Gloria Jean Watkins and later she adopted the pen name Bell Hooks, and that is the name of her great maternal grandmother.

She chose to not capitalize bell or Hooks because she set herself that she wanted the attention to be on the work and not on her as a personality or her ego.

Gloria was born September 25th, 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

I think that there's a lot about her that people don't know.

But one thing that I think people surely should know about her is that she was an intellectual genius.

I think what's amazing about Bell is that she names the problems that other academics, I think talk about in abstractions.

So long have feminists wanted to think about the intersections of difference.

But what Bell does is she names those intersections.

She says it's imperialist, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

And so she names the Nexus, and her concerns were about bringing in classism and racism into the conversation of feminism.

She holds feminism's feet to the fire and says, if you're not dealing with anti racism and especially anti blackness, you're not a feminist.

I mean, I think one of her books out of her many 40 really that represented her life's work is feminism is for everybody.

And when I met Bill in 93, that's what hit me the most.

The first room that I entered that bill was in was not full of academics.

That room was full of mail carriers and hairdressers, servers and people who cleaned up and sanitation workers and all women, but from all walks of life.

And I think that that was sort of the center of her work, that equal rights for women is for women, but it's also for everybody that giving women rights empowers the children, empowers the women, and also empowers the men.

Love of course, was a concept that she came to later on.

But true love is is radical.

Bill's vision was that the wrongs in society could be dismantled with love like one person at a time.

One of the things that I loved that Bill says is that love is an action, that it's a verb.

And so if it is, then of course it's radical.

She would sometimes say that it's about loving yourself enough to end domination.

And I'll quote her to me, I think the world has lost the love.

And if we could come back to love, things could be different.

But there was a way in which she inhabited the world.

That was about the critique, but which is why people kind of go, Labonte to love because they see it as a break from her critique of popular culture.

But I honestly think we have to read these things together.

On Belle talks about love.

She's not describing a state of affairs.

She's saying, If we enact love in this way and justice is the destination which she will be remembered for, is naming the intersections of injustice that she thinks love can ameliorate.

We knew of her work and we admired her for it and we appreciated it and we were in all of it.

But when she passed December 15th, 2021, we were overwhelmed at the response from all over the world.

I see her legacy as being able to change people's lives.

Reading her book and finding your books and finding yourself in them has the ability to sort of make you walk differently, make you hold your body differently.

It gives you a certain amount of confidence for you.

A woman academic mail carrier or a lunch lady.

I think knowing that Bell Hooks was a Kentuckian, was born and raised in Kentucky, makes the rest of us to know that we are capable and able to achieve greatness.

That little bookish, nerdy black girls from the hills and hollers and small towns and the large towns or wherever we were from in Kentucky could have something to say and to use our individual passions for the benefit of the larger community.

You can check out that extraordinary documentary Becoming Bell Hooks.

It's available on demand online at Katie dot org.

Now be sure to tune in again tomorrow with a take a look at the history of Hopkinsville.

And we'll also share how the town honors indigenous cultures and traditions.

That's tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

Children in Kenton County have a bigger space to expand their imaginations.

On Monday, Camden County Public Library's Erlanger Branch cut the ribbon on its newly renovated children's section.

The renovations include new flooring, new furniture and an expanded book collection.

First Lady Brittney Basheer was there for the ribbon cutting and to help celebrate the expansion of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Kentucky to Clinton County.

The Kenton County Public Library was the final partner in the Kentucky chapter of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

That means free schoolchildren and all 120 counties in Kentucky can receive a free book every month from the program.

The Kentucky Wildcats have a chance to redeem themselves.

The Bat Cats lost to Texas A&M 5 to 1 last night and just their second college World Series game in program history.

The Aggies scored all five runs in the sixth inning.

Kentucky's only run came from Ryan Nicholson's solo home run in the ninth.

Now the Wildcats are looking to avoid a season ending loss to Florida.

You can catch that tonight at seven Eastern Time.

Good luck, fellas.

Kentucky Edition is on the road and we are just getting started.

We are loving our time exploring this beautiful town.

And we're going to share more about this region of the state all week right here on KCET.

If you haven't done so, yeah, go ahead and subscribe to our Kentucky edition email newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at KET.ORG You can also find Kentucky edition on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV.

And we always encourage you to send us a story idea at Public Affairs at Kentucky Technology and follow KET on Facebook.

X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram to stay in the loop.

From Hopkinsville, I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for joining us tonight.

Take really good care and I'll see you right back here again tomorrow night