Well, one key thing that I think a lot of people would say they need in local officials is sustained investment in the region.

A local journalist breaks down Eastern Kentucky's past and looks toward the future.

We're trying really hard to get folks away from water.

Flood survivors on the move to new homes on higher ground.

And new laws kick in this week, including a ban on gray machines.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press, Endowment for Public Affairs and the Kate Millennium Fund.

Welcome to Kentucky Edition for Monday, June 26.

I'm Casey Parke-Bell filling in for Renee Shaw.

Thank you for joining us.

This week, we're focusing on eastern Kentucky.

The next two days, Renee will be hosting Kentucky edition from Pikeville.

As we take a closer look at the beauty and challenges of the diverse region of the Commonwealth.

But before we take off to eastern the eastern part of the state, we wanted to give you some background on the area and why we've decided to, as they say, take the show on the road.

So I spoke to Bill East Stepp, southern and eastern Kentucky reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, who has a long history covering the region.

Throughout the history of coal, there's been ups and downs, but it's been on a on a downturn.

The peak employment in Kentucky coal was in the late eighties, early nineties.

It's gone down substantially since then.

The last big downturn started in 2012.

So in the third quarter of 2011, you know, in the fall of 2011, in eastern Kentucky, there were 14,000 coal jobs.

Earlier this year, there were 3800.

The area once known for its production of coal, is reshaping its economy.

The downturn in coal has led to declining population numbers, and the Appalachian Regional Commission says that of the 54 counties it considers to be part of Appalachia, 51 are economically distressed at risk.

Nobody expects that coal in eastern Kentucky are really anywhere in the country is going to come back to the level that it was even 20 years ago.

So those jobs are not coming back.

What do locals say that they need to help the area?

Well, one key thing that I think a lot of people would say they need in local officials is sustained investment in the region.

There are a lot of folks who feel like, you know, the coal industry helped build this country and what's left.

And but now there's no jobs left.

There's environmental problems left as a result of the of the coal industry.

So what the region needs to go forward now is a sustained investment from federal or state sources to help develop a new economy there.

He steps says part of the pathway is by local communities working together and that many counties have already started in some cases, two or three counties share a jail, for instance, or an animal shelter.

And so I think you'll see more of that regional regionalization as you go forward so that counties can afford to have those services.

As economies look to make this transition, what are some of the advantages that Eastern Kentucky has?

People are always a primary advantage.

And Eastern Kentucky, the folks in Eastern have shown they can take a punch and come back.

I mean, you've had, you know, the economic problems, the flood from last year and some people have had to move out to find work.

There's no question about that.

But a lot of other people have have done have done what they had to do to stay home.

So that commitment to the region and that resilience, I think is a is a is a strong advantage for the region.

People are committed.

They want to stay and they want to make it work.

And there's other examine the beauty of the region.

I mean, I would argue it's as beautiful as anywhere in the country.

And there are efforts being made to capitalize on that in terms of tourism, especially outdoor tourism, the shift from production jobs to a knowledge based economy has caught the region off guard.

In the U.S., more than 33% of people have at least a bachelor's degree.

And our study shows that in eastern Kentucky, that number is 16%.

Even with the challenges for the region, he says it has potential as a real entrepreneurial spirit.

There's a lot of small business people trying things, and I think that willingness to try different things and take a chance is it's a real positive thing for the area and it's working out for some folks.

Coming up, we'll have more stories focused on the eastern Kentucky region, including an interview with a Holocaust survivor who has lived in Appalachia for more than 50 years.

And be sure to tune in tomorrow as we continue Kentucky edition on the road.

In other news, it's now been a year since the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe versus Wade abortion decision, with the so-called Dobbs decision that led Kentucky to ban almost all abortions.

We have reaction to the one year anniversary of the decision.

David Walls of the Conservative Family Foundation put out a statement.

It says in part, As we approach the one year anniversary of the historic Dobbs decision overturning Roe versus Wade, the pro-life movement has much to celebrate while remaining steadfast in building a culture that values all human life by protecting every unborn child from the grave evil of abortion.

End quote.

The ACLU of Kentucky tweeted this, quote, One year ago, The Dobbs decision forever changed abortion access.

And Kentucky, we now live in a forced birth state where abortion is inaccessible.

We'll never stop fighting to restore reproductive freedom in the commonwealth.

The Kentucky Democratic Party wants the FBI to investigate a donation from an addiction recovery center to the Daniel Cameron campaign for governor.

The Daily Beast reports the attorney general's office was investigating that center and that Cameron recused himself from the case after an open records request about the donation.

The Democrat's call comes after Cameron asked for the FBI to investigate donations from Associates of London Mayor Randall Weddle to the Beshear campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party.

All Kentuckians will have access to high speed Internet, according to Governor Andy Beshear, thanks to a federal grant of more than $1,000,000,000.

The money is from the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, a part of the infrastructure law passed in 2021.

Dozens of new laws are set to take effect later this week.

State lawmakers passed more than 170 bills during this year's legislative session.

Some of the bills took effect as soon as they were signed into law.

Many more go into effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns, which is this Thursday.

That includes House Bill 594, which makes thousands of so-called gray machines illegal in Kentucky.

Lexington Republican Killian Timoney was the bill's sponsor.

Kentucky has always done an excellent job of regulating gaming.

And we want to continue that effort now by outlawing illegal gaming machines and explicitly saying what is not gambling and what is not and what devices and machines are gambling machines and which ones are not.

Exceptions in the bill include charitable gaming, e-sports and skill based contests.

Beginning Thursday, hazing will also be a crime in Kentucky.

Senate Bill nine is named Loftus Law after Lofton Hazelwood, the 18 year old freshman, died in 2021 from excessive alcohol consumption.

Earlier this year, his mother told lawmakers the new anti-hazing law is needed to keep college kids safe.

We don't want anybody to go through what we went through.

I want everybody to think about being 3 hours away and you get that phone call.

Current law places the burden on universities and colleges to enforce the act of hazing with a maximum penalty of expulsion.

Kentucky is joining 13 other states in elevating hazing to criminal status.

Another new law taking effect this week is Senate Bill 96.

It allows local governments to temporarily close roads and waive traffic regulations for automotive racing.

Events will highlight additional bills that will soon be law throughout the week.

And coming up tomorrow night, we explore the complicated diagnosis of autism and understanding autism.

A forum you'll meet people living with autism, their families, caregivers.

And we talk to experts in the medical field and beyond to help us better understand this neuro difference that is now estimated to affect one in 36 people.

One of the families you'll meet is the Vaughn family from Jefferson County.

This is their story.

James was a very happy baby.

He he was very joyful and jubilant.

He would giggle a lot.

You could always see the light in his eyes.

He crawled early and then it was like, step, step, run.

He would take a couple of steps.

And then after that, he just kind of ran everywhere.

But he was not a pointer.

He didn't point at all during those early years, but if he wanted something, he would guide our hands to the object or to whatever it was he wanted or he needed.

Probably the earliest sign that we noticed is that we didn't always get yes or no answers from James.

James, what?

Recite the books we would read.

But when we would ask him, Would you like eggs or would you like rice, we would get a yes.

I before Mariama noticed, I kind of started just doing a little online research.

I'm honestly seeing signs and symptoms, and I was like, This may be him and we'll see how it goes.

But that expressive language piece was the first sign that we saw that something was not exactly typical with James's development at three years old, when we put him in preschool that first day, they told me, Oh, well, he can't transition to music class.

That was the first step that went okay.

Well, now it's not just speech, it's also something else.

We started private art therapy and we also started the speech.

And then by the time he reached kindergarten, that is when we reached out for the community diagnosis and we received the community diagnosis of autism.

It wasn't a complete shock, but it still took time to absorb the diagnosis.

You learn something really quick.

Is that you have to be his advocate.

You have to be able, because a lot of times kids can't know, explain themselves.

You have to be the one to kind of pump them up and and be a voice for what you know, you can do what you see day to day.

You kind of have to have kind of whole conglomerate of things to to kind of help them and know.

Those practitioners we went to did that, the speech did that.

The O.T., when he transitioned the behavior therapy, the amount of information, the experience, the input we got to help James as he went through these therapies.

I mean, it just opened up another world.

I still remember my mother saying, oh, don't worry, he'll grow out of it, out of some of it.

And at the time I listened to her, but I didn't really understand what she meant.

I thought she meant, oh, it'll just go away.

But she didn't say that.

But in my mind, I think it was all a lot to process.

But I feel that she meant he will grow and he has.

And we all have grown and nothing has stayed static.

He will grow.

We all will grow.

As the saying goes, if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism, no.

Two are alike.

Which makes this diagnosis even more difficult to understand and navigate.

We attempt to break down the facts and help you connect with resources.

Tomorrow on Understanding Autism.

A Katy Forum at eight seven Central on Katy.

It's been almost a year since flooding devastated several eastern Kentucky counties.

One of the biggest challenges in the aftermath of the disaster, getting people into homes and out of harm's way.

That's been the mission of the Housing Development Alliance, a nonprofit that has been building homes for flood survivors.

The organization has moved one of those survivors into the first of seven new homes it's building in Brevard County.

More on that as Kentucky Edition goes on the road.

One of the really significant pieces of this event was somewhere around 70% of the homes, 70, 80% of the homes that were impacted were not actually in a flood zone.

They said that my home was not in a plane, just the weather has changed.

The waters keep getting bigger and bigger, more rain.

A lot of times people say, well, why would anybody live in a flood area?

Well, they didn't.

You know, this creek is never flood.

But now that we know they can flood, you know, do we want to put people back along the creeks or do we want to figure out how to get them higher up?

We're trying really hard to get folks away from water.

We're trying to do what we're calling some place based stuff out of play space development where we're building houses on non flood prone land in the actual community.

So somebody's spent their whole lives in rowdy Kentucky.

They may not want to move close to Hazard and live on a subdivision.

So can we find three or four lots that don't flood and do a little bit?

We've got one of those going on right now.

Seven lot development, just 30 east in Jackson HD, a supplied all appliances, fridge, a stove and dishwasher here behind me.

The first person who moved in was actually flooded in 2021 and was planning to rebuild a new home on that property when it got flooded.

2022 I didn't live in my home because the 21 had already ran me out of my home because it will get like two foot into my living quarters of my home and had to just completely moved out and live with my daughter for two years.

But the 22 flood took my house, knocked the porch and everything down, took the roof back part of the roof, tore it off and just knocked it off of foundations before I could never live in that home again.

And she was able to move just a mile down the road.

And so she's still in her home community.

I've lived here for 25 years.

I have four sisters and a daughter that lives here and a couple of grandkids.

We're trying to be culturally appropriate for Appalachia.

You know, there's there things about living in East Kentucky.

You know, if we all wanted to live in a subdivision, we'd probably move closer to the big city as opposed to living in the rural areas.

And so, you know, we like open spaces, we like outdoor activities, we like being close to family.

And so how do we create, recreate and preserve those things in these new developments?

The FDA's building seven homes up here, ma'am, was the first my sister's is going to be the second home and they're going to be about five.

More on up this line here.

So I see I see progress.

I know it's bouncing back now.

The Housing Development Alliance estimates it will cost more than a half billion dollars to rebuild in just the four counties it serves.

Breath it not Leslie and Perry.

There were 13 counties impacted by the flood.

Preston's Burge, attorney and civil rights advocate John Rosenberg has called Appalachia home for more than 50 years.

A survivor of the Holocaust, Rosenberg is the founder of Apple Red, a research and defense fund that's provided free legal services to many low income families in eastern Kentucky.

He and his wife, Jean, are considered Kentucky luminaries who have been champions for education and human rights since their arrival in the Bluegrass State at 91 years old.

Rosenberg tells our Rene Shaw that he's still working to help the poor and vulnerable and talks of the progress the Appalachian region he calls home has made.

I remember, you know, Governor Andy Beshear has talked about you and he had said what's so remarkable about John is that he took one of the most traumatic, horrific experiences anyone could go through, and he turned his anger and pain into a lifetime of compassion and service.

Do you view your life as one that has rendered compassion and service?

And what else would you add to that?

I don't know that you ever characterize how you try to be helpful to people.

It's really a privilege, I think, to have lived in this country and to have been able to you know, I'm very fortunate to be a lawyer.

Low income people have lots of legal needs and we've had serious issues on all the ones from day one.

The problem of trying to make the black lung system more more helpful to coal miners, it's always been very difficult for coal miners to get black, federal, black lung, even workers compensation in Kentucky over the years and the problems coal miners have had, especially in nonunion coal mines with mine safety.

Some of that's gotten better from time as the administration with Mine Safety and Health Administration has had its ups and downs.

But coal mine, health and safety has been very important to me, and I'm glad we've been able to help with that.

That as a lawyer, I've been able to help organize this apple road in eastern Kentucky.

I spent many years now since I was a director.

I'm still the emeritus director, but I'm and I'm glad that in here more recently, we started to get some additional funding and particularly federal money.

And we're glad that we can get some state funding for that.

And we started a nonprofit, a separate nonprofit in Whitesburg, the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, that's basically taken over much of the coal related work that Apple did for many years, so that Apple roots lawyers can concentrate on the poverty issues that had to permeate all this or day to day or consumer issues and family law and Social Security and SSI and housing problems, evictions and the like.

When we think about Eastern Kentucky, we know ever since Lyndon Johnson declared the war on Poverty that it's been persistently impoverished.

How have you seen things improved?

Have they improved?

And when you talk about the flooding of course, we're approaching the one year anniversary of those devastating floods in eastern Kentucky.

Did that set the region back?

Well, I mean, I think it was a horrific flood with more fatalities and destruction than anyone would have thought possible.

I do think it set people thinking more about the need to get housing out of the flood plain and to build and to plan for for housing that that's available to people that that is not going to flood again.

That's not going to happen overnight.

But I think we have seen a lot of improvement, especially in health care in eastern Kentucky and in school and in education.

Our roads are much better.

And I think we're trying lots of people besides me much smarter.

People are trying to find new and new ways of bringing an economy to eastern Kentucky.

Since the coal industry has suffered and is basically on the way out.

Health care is enormous.

I mean, we've it's really wonderful to have University of Pikeville, to have the dental school, to have the optometry school, to have the opposite school.

And now the dental school that's coming.

And there's a real boom in education there.

You probably because grown a great deal and I think under excellent leadership.

So there's there's a lot going on in the same and hopefully Big Sandy is going to have a new president before long.

What do you want to set the record straight about when it comes to here's what you should understand about Eastern Kentucky?

Well, I think that's a hard question to answer in one way.

You know, I think rural people who live in rural areas have a lot in common.

And whether you're farming in the West or in the Midwest, and they like being in a small in a rural location.

And I think the old stereotype of Little Abner and the what was on television that they are in our current and that's what they are stereotype that they are mistaken stereotypes.

I think you would find Eastern Kentuckians to be very welcoming.

I think you find them to be resilient.

I think in this last flooding, the way people come together, when when you need help, I think we saw that demonstrated, you know, over and over and over again.

But, you know and I know that in our neighborhood, if anything, if somebody has a problem, you know, and you need help, it's right there.

And I think you find that strong connections are hard working.

They appreciate where they live.

They appreciate their own history.

I want to return to talk about what the John and Jean, who was sitting just a few feet from us here in the studio with the John and Jean Rosenberg legacy is to Preston's burg, eastern Kentucky and the Commonwealth as a whole.

I think if we try to Jean would say, well, I think we try to live our lives the best we can and to help when we were to do that, try to make our communities the best communities I know.

I don't think we see ourselves any differently than than than anybody else.

I said to somebody recently, we certainly didn't come in here with white hats on and to tell anybody how to what their community should look like.

I think we're very blessed to have been to be able to help wherever we can.

Rosenberg is proud of the educational strides he's seen over the past few decades for our county has a school of innovation that is preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow and a science center that is boosting the interest in the STEM field.

The beginning of Fort Knox, the passing of the Great Compromiser, two presidential visits and the composing of a very familiar tune.

Toby Gibbs has that and more.

And this week in Kentucky, history, June 28th, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the Treasury Department to build an inland gold vault away from the coast for security reasons.

In 1936, work began and the first gold arrived at Fort Knox.

In early 1937, Fort Knox is named after Henry Knox, a Revolutionary War general and the first secretary of war to presidential visit to Kentucky occurred at July 2nd.

President James Monroe visited Lexington July 2nd, 1819.

He was in Lexington four days as part of a nationwide tour.

And former President Richard Nixon visited Hyden on July 2nd, 1978, for the dedication of a recreation center named for him.

It was his first public appearance since his resignation.

The great compromiser, Speaker of the House, Senator and Secretary of State Henry Clay, died of tuberculosis on June 29th, 1852.

He was the first American to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

Happy birthday to Mildred Hill, born June 27th, 1859, in Louisville.

It's an appropriate acknowledgment because Hill wrote the melody for a song called Good Morning to All, which was later used for another song, Happy Birthday to You.

Speaking of music, bluegrass music is synonymous with Kentucky, so it may surprise you to learn.

It wasn't until June 26, 2007, that bluegrass music was named as the official music of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

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

I'm Toby Gibbs.

We hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central for Kentucky edition from Pikeville, where we inform, connect and inspire.

Subscribe to our weekly Kentucky Edition email newsletter match for episodes and clips, dawg.

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Thank you for joining us and have a good night.