♪ This is blood money.

>> Money from opioid companies is going to people who help fight opioid addiction.

>> And then there's always been a little bit of the tension between Hopkinsville and Clarksville and the basin where loyalties lie.

>> How Fort Campbell's place on the map has created a friendly competition and deep sense of community between 2 cities.

>> We don't know where you are going to our need to go and let you know your history.

>> And how a campaign to remember Fayette County's Black Hamlets became a June teen celebration.

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

♪ ♪ ♪ >> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky.

Addition this Thursday, June, the 20th, I'm Kelsey Starks in for Renee Shaab this evening.

>> Kentucky is giving more than 12 million dollars to groups on the front lines of fighting addiction.

Today, Attorney General Russel Coleman and announced 51 organizations will get the latest round of funding from the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission.

Now, that's an organization responsible for distributing Kentucky's share of nearly 900 million dollars.

Recouped from settlements with opioid companies.

>> This is blood money purchased by pain and the devastation of families across this commonwealth, which is why we must the such stewart's of this money.

There's no margin of error anymore.

And drug use because of the presence of fentanyl.

the synthetic opioid, that's 50 to 100 times stronger.

Then morphine.

You can assume that there's fentanyl and every th the pill that's handed from student to student saying this will help yet.

With this test or after a practice after a tough football This came out of.

But as medicine cabinet, this will also help not job.

There's no margin of error.

And so we have to approach prevention differently.

>> Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky fell nearly 10% last year, marking a second year in a row of annual decline.

Still, though, more than 1900 Kentuckians died.

Fentanyl accounted for almost 80% of those deaths.

Attorneys General Coleman made today's funding announcement at Dv 8 Kitchen in Lexington.

It offers second chance employment opportunities for people in the early stages of recovery.

And today received $151,000 grant as part of today's announcement.

Kicking off today's summer solstice, several families gathered in Washington, D.C., they're calling on the federal government to finalize a new rule they say could save lives.

An average of 39 children die in hot cars each year in the U.S. according to the advocacy group, Kids and Car Safety in 2021, a bipartisan infrastructure law was passed requiring automakers to install alert systems in rear seats of all new cars.

3 years later, the new rule has still not been adopted.

Today, parents of children who died in hot cars made emotional pleas for change.

>> Technology exists.

It's readily available to stop hot car and I will work for the rest of my life to ensure that this doesn't happen to anyone >> 27 children have died in a hot car in Kentucky since 1990, the most recent death was in 2020 in Christian County, Kids and Car Safety says in most cases the person responsible was a loving and protective caregiver.

He just made a deadly mistake.

>> Moving to today's medical news, pertussis continues to be a problem in Lexington, the health department says more cases were reported last week.

The city is now up to more than 30 confirmed cases.

Pertussis or whooping cough is a highly contagious virus that is spread by coughing and sneezing.

The health department declared an outbreak of protests in Lexington, nearly a month ago.

The Kentucky National Guard will honor 2 guardsman tomorrow for their work rescuing a flood victims during the Eastern Kentucky floods in July of 2022. the guard will present Sergeant First Class Jeremy Love and Staff Sergeant Ryan Hunter with the Kentucky Medal of Valor for their roles in rescue missions lap and Hunter are among the guard members who rescued 241 people.

47 of those rescues involved hoisting a flood victims by helicopter.

We have video of some of those missions.

♪ >> Category you're in.

♪ ♪ >> The ceremony honoring Sergeant Love and Hunter is tomorrow morning at 10, 30 in the state Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort.

U.S.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will attend the Republican National Convention next month in Milwaukee.

The Washington Times says it's the latest sign of an improving relationship between McConnell and former President Donald Trump.

McConnell and Trump didn't speak for 3 years until they briefly shook hands and spoke last week in Washington.

McConnell endorsed Trump's 2024 presidential bid on March 6th.

Senator McConnell is also pushing back against the idea of limiting how long Senate leaders can serve.

McConnell is the current Senate minority leader and he is the longest-serving party leader in the history of the U.S. Senate.

He is stepping down as minority leader after this year but will remain a U.S. senator, according to the Washington Examiner, McConnell told his Republican colleagues it would be a mistake to limit how long the party leader can serve.

The newspaper says other Republican senators are considering a limit.

McConnell says the U.S. House does not put limits on how long the speaker can serve and it would be a mistake for the Senate to do so.

Kentucky's unemployment rate is up from a year ago.

The state says the jobless rate was 4.6% in May of 2024, it was 4.1% in May of 2023.

Now even though the unemployment rate is up, more people have jobs now compared to a year ago, the state says the number of Kentuckians working is just above 2 million people.

It's about 6600 more than this time last year.

♪ ♪ ♪ All week long.

We've been focusing on Hopkinsville and Christian County here on Kentucky.

Addition, we're taking a close look at the people, agriculture, business and culture and the history of the community going all the way back to the late 18th century.

In 1942, Christian County welcomed the U.S. Army installation known today as Fort Campbell into its backyard.

That forever changed the region.

Fort Campbell straddles the Kentucky Tennessee border between Hopkinsville Kentucky in Clarksville, Tennessee.

As the largest employer in Christian County and home to the famed 100st Airborne division.

The only air assault division in the world.

Fort Campbell has come to play a vital role in the cultural and economic vitality of the area.

Kentucky edition went on the road to visit the military base.

>> Fort Campbell is currently the home of the 100st Airborne Division.

And there are 2 10 units, one 60th Special Operations, Aviation Regiment and 5th Special Forces group.

There's also the 52nd explosive ordinance Disposal Brigade.

We have a major hospital unit associated with Blanchfield Army Hospital and then smaller 10 That live here.

Also when the camp first came into being in 1942, Hopkinsville is about 12 miles to the North.

Clarksville is about 12 miles to the south.

And there was nothing in between.

Initially it was assumed very early that this was going to be camp Campbell, Tennessee.

Hopkinsville had competed and was actually responsible for the Army.

Rick on team coming down in selecting this area.

And there's there's always been a little bit of attention between Hopkinsville and Clarksville and the basin where loyalties lie the little bit of tension is something that's good for the for the the city of Fort Campbell to play against enterprising young mayor Hopkinsville had started to campaign, which is really kind of effective and it was out of turn left at the main gate.

So if you're leaving Fort Campbell and you have made the decision your family was going to live off the city than the local economy turning left would take you to Hopkinsville.

It's one of the best places in people seek it out for their final assignment.

Sometimes because of the great relationship with both Hopkinsville in Clarksville and the local area because there's a lot employment opportunities for service in cities and grade schools for families.

Great recreation.

Work and we'll have that done at Pratt Museum named in honor of one of our early assistant division commanders who was killed on D-Day 18 years ago.

And we covered the history of the 100st Airborne division and then the army matured then museum system.

So we have a large army museum enterprise of 27 museums, enrolling your sharing our artifacts and a working together professionally.

And when we did that, we were able to expand their story lines a little bit.

We generally bring in about 40,000 people a year and we're getting increase that number substantially with the new Wings of Liberty Museum.

The new Wings of Liberty Museum.

We'll have about 60,000 Square feet of exhibit space.

We tell the history of the city of Fort Campbell and the units that have been signed here.

The units have been assigned here, primarily have been the 100 and first task force one, 60 in the that Special Forces group, our experts and what we call vertical and development work there.

So the museum's storyline is the history of parachutists lighters helicopters, special operations conducted guy with a special air crews and things like that.

And we've already designed those exhibits.

And we're just waiting for the building to be built.

And the goal that we're looking for is to have a public-facing museum that will be very accessible to those who don't have easy privileges for getting on to Fort Campbell.

Some people say it's difficult to get on because you have to get a visitor's pass and all of that.

So this will be right along Fort Campbell Boulevard so that visitors can turn directly and without having to go through post security and come up to the museum the state of Tennessee has substantially with the funding of the exhibit hall and getting the project started and the foundation is looking towards the state of Kentucky for our large education center.

So that will KET that Tennessee, Kentucky partnership and promoting the history of the city of Fort Campbell in the units that were signed here while simultaneously bringing in both local communities and providing resources that would be advantageous for our veterans for Army families and for our educators at all.

Local colleges, high schools and elementary schools.

>> A groundbreaking ceremony for that Wings of Liberty Museum happens one week from today.

Construction will begin in immediately.

It's expected to open sometime late next year.

♪ >> Thank you, Doctor Kelly, for joining us from the historic Alhambra theater here and Hopkinsville.

It's been a pleasure to be here and it's a pleasure to have you on the set.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here.

And this is a beautiful setting.

Beautiful setting couldn't get much better.

And we thank the folks here.

Margaret and Verizon.

All of those have been so accommodating for to us these last several days that we've been in providing us the a big shout out to them once again and to you.

We may have been talking a lot while we've been here in this region about education, workforce and economic development and all of those things, of course, in Madisonville Community College helps to nurture in some way to incubate the jobs of tomorrow to help prepare that workforce.

Talk to us a little bit about what Madisonville Community College offers primarily and how maybe things are evolving to KET pace with demand.

Sure we are always a transfer institution.

You know, first off, we we help students transfer 2 universities and other colleges.

But we also have a wide range of programs that helps students go out, find jobs that will help them find a better life.

That's what we always tell our students.

Our job is to help you find a better life.

we VI wide array of health care programs, occupational therapy, physical therapy.

Radiology respiratory therapy.

EMT paramedic.

So we really work hard to help meet our healthcare demands in our area.

And we really work with our local hospitals or clinics to say what is it that you need?

What do we need to really ramp off on?

How do we need to change our training?

So we do a lot of that.

We also work with advanced technology to get folks ready for manufacturing jobs and to move on into engineering majors at universities.

So those are the types of programs we have.

We also have business administration.

We have education.

We work closely with my state university to train so that they have a seamless transfer between a summary state to become classroom.

Teachers.

So we have all of those types of programs.

When you ask the what have we done to sort of meet?

Needs currently.

We've really ramped up having short term certificates to let people get in and out in just a matter of months to have a really good And and what's that term?

So short term certificate, what does that mean that we own it, Kim?

It's a certificate.

A full college certificate, but they can achieve certificates in weeks, 12 weeks.

Sometimes you sometimes it's 16 weeks, but a real good example of that is our linemen technology program.

We were approached 6 years ago by construction companies and utility company saying we need a lineman and we built that program and students can come into their program and in a matter of.

10 weeks, leave and be ready to become a utility lineman.

They also have their CDL license so they can drive the trucks and people who may have thought I can never get a college degree.

They're getting college credit and they learn I can do whatever I need to do.

And they're walking into jobs.

This started $60,000 a well, and are these primarily folks who are traditional college age?

Are these non-traditional age students?

Many, many non-traditional age students.

As you know, we still do coal-mining in this part of the game and some of our comb and minds of clothes lately.

And we have co miners who can come into this program and in, you know, 10, 12 weeks be ready to go back into a new a new career-high that helps them.

You give their families the life that they want to give.

But we also have traditional students are coming at high schools saying, well, I like to climb Poles.

Let's let's see what we can do again.

So it's a good mix.

We have veterans who are coming back and saying this is something I would like to get into as well.

So there's a good mix, but it's it's gives people the opportunity, no matter where they are in their lives to quickly come up, get good training and have good job.

Yeah, that's that's amazing.

And we think about, you know, the ebbs and flows of higher education when the economy is good.

Sometimes enrollment takes a little dip.

>> And when things calm me, why seemed to be taking a turn?

People think, OK, maybe I need to be retold and retrained.

Where are you right now?

Well, we are still coming out of the pandemic We an 8 year high in our role in the fall before the pandemic fall 2019.

And of course, we did have a dip.

We're coming that we're almost back to where we were in fall last fall.

We looked enrollment of about 3500 and that is climbing this coming fall.

It looks like right now.

So we're very happy with that.

But we're trying to think differently about programs.

We want to KET the traditional programs the students need, but we have barely been listening to our.

Companies are industries.

We work with and also our community few years ago.

Our community, our economic development, folks came to me and said, can we meet and they said we want to train people to fly.

We think that will help this area because it isn't anywhere else in the state.

Right?

And we started doing research and 5 years on here.

We said and we are training fixed wing pilots and also helicopter pilots.

We're the only helicopter program in the state and it is only U.S. and UK United is doing collegiate 6 tweeting program.

So we're doing that we've built that program.

Where are you?

We have found out in building it that there's a huge need for pilots.

He and that is another place where we're finding we're able to offer a program that really fits the needs of non-traditional states.

Yeah, well, we hear a lot about the pilot shortage, right?

And there's been conversations about adjusting retirement ages and violence.

But if you can recruit >> or it is on the other and right.

He could have a long career and that that just makes sense to exactly.

Well, it seems like you are doing incredible work out what the word is that 3 year plan for you real quickly look like where would you Hope Madisonville Community College will be in 3 years.

You know, community colleges.

and I'm I'm a very old student of the community College movement, community colleges.

>> Are all about accessibility and affordability and the world is changing fast.

I go from ends of the community colleges to KET it in place that meets the needs of our community and keeps education.

In a community for students, whether they're 18 years old or 50 years old that they can afford and that they can get to.

So in 3 years.

I want to continue to listen closely to the community.

Be sure we're giving them what they need.

And in turn, giving the commonwealth overall what it needs you.

I'm in a system of 16 colleges.

And along with our sister colleges, we work hard to see what the needs are across the state and try to meet those needs trying to be flexible and nimble to do that.

Well, sounds like you're doing just that.

Thank you so much, President Kelly.

It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Thank you.

♪ >> In a sense of place celebrated Juneteenth at Katyn town missionary that.

>> His church with stories about Fayette County's Hamlets.

The initiative was launched last year to remember and celebrate the rule black communities that developed in the 1800's.

>> One of the things that we know the African-American community is that we have a strong connection to place.

And those places they mean something to us.

They mean something to our history.

And so we wanted to make sure that we created a sense of place in our community is showing the contribution that African-Americans made all throughout Lexington of the project that we are involved in is called the Hamlet Project.

>> And it is rule community farm by African Americans immediately after the Civil War most of them would have started in 18.

65 after emancipation of December.

The 18th 18.

65.

>> When the 13th amendment was passed, today is our second Juneteenth for the a sense of place initiative.

And it is.

>> To remember and celebrate like since its historic role.

Black Hamlet.

Well, I think it's important that, you know, they just don't know where you are going to our need to go and let you know your history.

>> And to have this rich, rich history for months like people who just I did everything on peonies, they weren't rich by any means.

So documenting that history.

And putting it down on paper and having the older residents who remember this to actually be court, their memories will help us.

Document the Heat.

Our secret histories.

>> We automatically talk about African American history and associated with But there have been so many accomplishments that it happens.

They purchase property in these areas.

The Rosenwald school when he read about Rosenwald schools, the amount of money day.

I'm black community had to raise in order to build the Rosenwald schools and their community.

It's just astonishing.

I'm the type of community and networking they had with each other.

It's it's.

It's more anything that can imagine at this time because we don't you know, we don't live in a closely knit community anymore, but if we could take some of those principles and apply them today at think we could see exponential growth support, we could see just our communities thrive in jail.

♪ >> According to a sense of place, more than 20 hamlets developed in rural Fayette County between 18, 26 and 1924.

Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of chattel slavery in the United States.

But there were enslaved people being held captive in some states even after June 19th 18.

65 and Kentucky was one of them Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed enslaved people in Confederate states for slave states.

Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware did not secede from the union.

So they were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation.

There were still some enslaved people in the United States up until the 13th amendment was ratified in December of 18.

65 that 6 months after Juneteenth now in parts of Kentucky, August 8th is also a day to celebrate the end of slavery.

There are different theories about why some say it's because August 8th 18 63 is the day future.

President Andrew Johnson freed his own slaves.

Others say it's because that's the day word of the Emancipation Proclamation actually reached western Kentucky.

Another interesting Kentucky know about Juneteenth when Union forces liberated enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, they were commanded by General Gordon Granger.

General Granger is actually buried in Kentucky.

>> His grave is in Lexington, but he wasn't born in Kentuckyian he didn't die here.

Granger is buried in Lexington because his wife, it's from Lexington.

♪ >> As we told you here yesterday, Kentucky's baseball season ended.

>> With a loss to Florida and the College World Series.

But it was a great season.

The Wildcats record was 46 16 and the team made it to the World Series for the very first time ever after the game.

Coach Nick Manji and said, quote, Just so proud of our group of men.

I mean, our team really is a group of men.

That's what they are.

They're unbelievable in every sense of the word.

And they made history.

So this hurts hurts a lot because this team is fully capable of accomplishing our goal of national champions.

But that wasn't the case this year.

That's not what the Lord had planned.

Well, here's a contest that Spells f you and that with a trip to the nation's capital on the line.

>> We want to highlight students who are doing well.

Students who really have a priority for education and the show that our students can compete at a national level.

>> The group visit Hopkinsville is again this year hosting the regional Scripps Spelling Bee.

We'll share more on that high stakes event that encourages strong literacy skills right here tomorrow on Kentucky EDITION.

And we do hope you'll join us here again tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central for Kentucky edition where we inform connect and inspire.

We do hope you have a great night.

♪