[music] >> I will not rule out anything.

And right now I'm not going to rule in anything.

[MUSIC] The framers understood.

>> Congressman Thomas Massie is already thinking about his political future.

>> 74% of our students graduate with zero student loan debt, and that's something to be celebrated.

[MUSIC] >> How are things going at Kentucky's community and technical colleges?

We ask the man in charge.

[MUSIC] >> So the yellow tulip is the national symbol for hope.

And in that, we want everyone to know that there is always hope.

>> A small yellow flower has become a national symbol for mental health.

Why?

A Kentucky town has joined that campaign.

[MUSIC] >> Production of Kentucky edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition for Tuesday, May 26th.

I'm Laura Rogers and our KET Studios in Louisville.

Filling in tonight for Renee Shaw.

Just days after his primary defeat, Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky's fourth district is already looking ahead.

Ed Gallrein defeated Massie in the Republican primary last Tuesday.

This week, Massie filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for that House seat again in 2028, but he says he's.

>> Not necessarily running for that office.

He put out this message on X quote, I filed with FEC for the 2028 House race.

This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations, supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office.

I haven't made a final decision about which office to seek if I run.

Massie discussed his future plans Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

>> Congressman, I want to ask about your political future.

Some of your supporters were chanting, president, president, as you delivered your speech on Tuesday night.

Are you considering a run for president in 2028?

>> I will not rule out anything.

And right now I'm not going to rule in anything.

Look, I've spent the last five days on my farm with my grandkids and my cattle and my peach trees, and it's a pretty nice life.

I don't know if I want to screw that up again.

I've been in Congress 14 years, fighting.

Every hour that passes, I get decompressed a little bit more.

It's like coming up from the bottom of the ocean, and I'll take some time and decide what's next, but I think I will stay engaged in some way or shape.

Maybe it's from the outside.

I've been exposing what's going on in Washington, DC for years, and I'll keep doing it.

>> Congressman, I hear you not ruling out a potential run for president out.

Would you run as a Republican?

>> I won't rule anything out.

I won't rule out a run for county commissioner.

I used to be the county judge executive here.

That was probably the best job I ever had in politics.

I would encourage people watching this show to act locally and to run for local offices.

We can make a difference.

There's 3000 counties in this country run for one of those offices.

We got to change it at the grassroots first.

The framers understood a simple truth.

>> Since his defeat a week ago, Massie has also been mentioned as a potential candidate for governor in 2027.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is in Washington, D.C.

today.

He's participating in an anti fraud roundtable discussion led by Vice President JD Vance.

Coleman is one of more than a dozen Republican attorneys general invited to today's meeting.

The vice president kicked off the meeting by explaining their goals.

>> One of the things we've realized combating fraud is that the resources of the federal government, while vast, implemented and aided by a lot of the people who know best what's happening in their states, which is the attorneys general represented here today.

And they have a lot of legal resources, they have a lot of prosecutorial resources.

And of course, they have the desire to prevent fraud as much as we do.

And so I appreciate these leaders for being here, because we're going to work together, state and federal government, to try to combat fraud.

>> Following the opening comments, the roundtable discussion was held behind closed doors.

We've reached out to Attorney General Coleman's office for details about Kentucky's involvement.

Ten Fayette County High School seniors walked across the stage today as the newest graduates of Project Search.

It's a program that gives students with intellectual and developmental disabilities the chance to build job ready skills through an immersive nine month internship at UK Health Care.

More on how this program is preparing them for competitive employment and helping to strengthen Kentucky's workforce pipeline.

In today's Education Matters.

>> Kentucky ranks 48th out of 50 in hiring people with disabilities.

So we want to improve that across the state.

And so programs like Project Search kind of help fill that gap.

>> Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities really are an untapped resource in our community.

We have a huge void between those who are employed without disabilities and those who are not.

So we developed this program so that we could create a unique pathway of possibilities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be competitively employed, whether that's at UK health care or anywhere else in the community.

>> A program like Project Search really does focus a lot more on what we call soft skills.

So those are those transferable skills, communication, time management, learning about budgeting and money, and all the things that come with having a job.

Those are the ones that you really focus on, because there's kind of a misconception that learning job tasks is harder, but it's really not.

The soft skills are what is really difficult, especially in the population of students that I'm working with.

>> We have some students that will go on to do some jobs that require certifications.

We have some students that will fill the need, whether it be for labor markets, jobs that are often routine that our students can do.

These are individuals that work in our community and want to work.

They become part of our tax base.

They become part of a system that offers them purpose for life.

>> Like, I want to get a job after, like I want to have like, I want to have money and things like that.

So yeah, it didn't work out for me.

>> Oh yeah.

I'm a nursing assistant.

Yeah.

I applied for nursing assistant.

Yeah.

>> The core mission is competitive integrated employment.

And so what that means is more than 16 hours a week working, making competitive pay, which just means making the same pay as someone who does not have a disability, just like anyone that would be working in that job.

And for our program success, we'd like to have 70% of our interns reaching that goal.

>> It built a foundation in Kentucky that everybody does count.

Everybody does matter.

And it's an opportunity for businesses to understand that there's all kinds of individuals out there with all kinds of gifts, and they all come in different and unique ways.

I think it enriches everything our community should be about.

When we look at differences in individuals and in groups of people in our community.

>> It's very, very encouraging when you look at these individuals because on day one, when they enter the program a year ago, they would never have envisioned themselves standing up in front of an auditorium full of people talking about their goals and where they wanted to go, and being that confident.

It wasn't that they didn't have the skill.

It was something that needed to be honed and to build that confidence in these individuals.

So it's incredible to see these young people be on a track for success.

And I believe that the possibilities are unlimited.

And I believe they believe that.

And that's what's most important.

>> Lots of possibility here.

This is the third year for Project Search at UK Health Care.

The program began in 1996 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and has grown to almost 800 sites in 48 states and ten countries.

Recently, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education reported some good news with retention and graduation rates and increases in certificates, diplomas and associate degrees awarded by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.

Our Renee Shaw spoke with the president of Kctcs to find out how the 16 colleges across the state are meeting workforce demands, serving as a launch pad for higher degree completion and skilling up former inmates for the jobs of today.

>> Well, Doctor Ryan Carroll, thank you for a few minutes of your time.

>> Glad to be back.

>> So talk to us about what kctcs the enrollment numbers, the success rates.

We know we've gotten a recent report from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education really bragging about some recent metrics.

What does it look like?

>> Well, the state of KICC s is strong across all 16 colleges.

Our enrollment is at an all time record high at 120,000 enrolled students.

We're bumping up off of a six plus percent enrollment increase from the past year.

We have 70,000 Kentuckians utilizing our workforce training skills as well.

Plus the Kentucky Fire Commission, which is around 16,000 students.

>> Tell us about that.

That's interesting.

>> They've been with us for over 20 years, and firefighters, like other first responders, need annual continuing education and training.

We provide that and they're attached to us.

And so 98% of all training with our firefighters are with Kctcs.

And you add up our enrollment workforce and firefighters, around 200,000 plus Kentuckians are entering our facilities every single year.

And some other points of pride.

Our graduation rate just peaked at over 51%, which outpaces the national average by easily 1617 points.

And our affordability.

CPE likes to brag on this, too, is that 74% of our students graduate with zero student loan debt, and that's something to be celebrated.

>> So why are you getting it so right?

And what can other states learn about how you're doing it?

>> Well, I think it's the quality of our programs that they're very relevant and they're actually tailored towards workforce needs.

And so number one is that we have program relevancy, whether it's welding, Hvac, or if you want to start with us and transfer to a four year, is that there's a really strong purpose when a student starts a career pathway with us with how to get to that job.

Number two is our affordability.

80 plus percent of our students receive financial aid of some sort.

And so when you add up what our students are actually paying for an associate's or certificate, it's well less than half the price of a public four year in Kentucky.

And the third thing is that we're actually starting students, a higher education journey in high school.

Now, easily a third of our 120,000 students are high schoolers.

So I think those three things that we're starting college earlier, we're affordable and our programs have relevancy.

>> The dual credit program where kids can walk out, get a high school diploma and have an associate's degree at the same time.

And that's really growing in popularity.

>> In fact, several hundred students every single spring walk across stage at their local community college with an associate's degree before they graduate high school.

And this is something I wish was around when I was going through high school.

And what's happening here is that we're we're shortening the amount of time for that student to get their baccalaureate degree.

And a lot of them are going on to med school, engineering, law school, etc.

but secondly, we're saving them and their family money as well, that our tuition rate at dual credit is half the price while they're in high school.

And so it's not uncommon for us to have students this year go on to Howard, Yale, Harvard, and our Kentucky public and private institutions with an associate's degree with us about halfway through their baccalaureate degree.

>> Yeah, there used to be a post-secondary four year institution that their phrase was, you can get there from here.

I think that was Eastern at one time, but you could say that about Kctcs.

Wherever you are, you can get to where you want to go and it can start right here.

>> That's right.

And I must say that we're blessed to work with our partnerships with the four years, with public and private, is that we're making sure that our transfer pathways for those 16,000 or so students that start with us and transfer to a four year is as seamless as possible right now.

And so we're making sure that all of our agreements work both ways and that students, when they take a class with us, it transfer to that.

>> But that wasn't the whole point of one of the points of House Bill one back in 1997, when the system was created to make sure there was a seamless pathway of transfer.

>> That's right.

And, you know, at the time, it was a really controversial piece of legislation moving the community colleges out from underneath UK.

But it was the right piece of public policy.

Now that we're off and we're growing.

And then House Bill 610 back in 2010 solidified that law.

But every once in a while we find a course here, of course, there, where we have to get our provost and academic teams together and say, what's going on here?

We got to make sure that this transfer, we're doing such a great job of that now.

>> Almost 30 years.

I mean, if you think about that, which is just now, just now dawned on me, you know, that 2027, next year, it will be 30 years since the advent of the Kctcs system.

>> That's right.

And we have reason to celebrate not just with our enrollment and our affordability.

ET cetera.

But for our teammates, we have a lot of employees that actually started with UK, and they've been with us for the entire 30 year journey.

We want to celebrate our past and also be ready for the future as we implement new reforms that will affect us and also new expectations for higher ed.

But we're going to take a moment to celebrate Kctcs 30 years in existence.

We, you know, our graduation rate.

Listen to this used to be 41st in the nation.

Now we rank number four and all the arrows are going in the right direction.

So we have a lot to celebrate at our.

16 community and technical colleges.

>> Yes, and almost 71 campuses.

I understand there are 70, but there's another one.

>> Yeah.

So due to House Bill five, sponsored by Representative Decker and championed in the Senate by Senator Storm, we're actually going to be doing something that I think is a national model, that we're going to build a dedicated Kctcs campus, which will be attached to B CTC at the Danville North Point Correctional facilities, one of the larger prisons in Kentucky.

And long story short, is that we're going to be able to have inmates from all across the state that are in good behavior and towards the latter part of their sentencing, towards that release date, if they want to.

And they're motivated, become students of Kctcs and get job training skills or associate's degree.

So when they leave, when they exit, they have a job ready to go.

And this does three things.

Number one, it helps fill those open jobs in Kentucky.

So there's a workforce component.

Number two, it helps reduce the crime because the number one predictor about whether or not someone recommits is whether they're employed.

And the third thing is going to save taxpayer money, because when someone's out there working, they're paying their taxes, they're providing for their family.

And we as taxpayers aren't paying for them to be incarcerated.

>> And we know that 95% of those inmates are going to come out.

So are they going to be successful or are they going to be recommitted behind bars?

So hopefully this is a good path and that that can be scaled up as the program succeeds.

>> Exactly.

So we actually anticipate starting off at around 400 students, but we have the capacity to educate up to 700 at this facility.

And this is on top of what we're doing at our local jails and also one federal prison in Kentucky as well.

But you're right, 95% will be released.

And this piece of legislation doesn't affect the release dates.

It affects the ability for training.

And I must say, a public thank you to the Department of Corrections for being such strong partners during this process.

>> Yeah.

One last thing.

House Bill 619 that was passed this most recent legislative session.

What did it do?

>> House Bill 619 allows us to grow as an organization for the next 30 years.

And what it's going to do, it's going to have some governance reform.

The Board of Regents is going to be expanded.

There will be organizations that represent top industry sectors in Kentucky will now have a say.

So when the governor appoints from a list of their nominees, it's also going to make sure that we solidify our shared services across the system.

But also, it should be noted that 90 plus percent of what's in our reform package came from the recommendations of Kctcs employees.

And so we want to say thank you for including our thoughts into this piece of legislation will be enforced, will be implementing this over the summer into the fall.

And so for us, just like in 1997 when we were created, 619 is going to set us up for the next 30 years.

>> Well, thank you, Doctor Ryan Quarles, president of Kctcs, for stopping by and telling us about it.

>> Thank you so much.

And it's never too late to start or come back with your educational journey.

Kctcs.

>> You heard it right there.

Thank you doctor.

>> Thank you.

>> People in Nelson County noticed kids seem more stressed than ever.

Part of the problem.

Not enough places for kids to socialize.

So the community joined a national mental health project.

And a yellow flower is the key.

More on that in tonight's look at medical news.

>> The Yellow Tulip Project's goal nationally is to break the stigma of youth mental health.

To have a conversation ongoing about what is impacting our young people, and how can we break that stigma if we don't talk about it?

We can't address it if we don't bring awareness to it.

We can't bring in programs that will specifically target those areas.

And so we wanted to start a conversation.

>> The Family Resource.

Youth Center coordinators that are in the schools, they did a lot with the youth, specifically during Yellow Tulip Week.

And so that was about two weeks ago.

And what they did was they would do little workshops on how to advocate for mental health.

They painted rocks if they could not do their yellow tulip hope garden, but a lot of community members were able to plant tulip bulbs in the ground.

We did them back in October November area.

There's over 20 Hope gardens right now, just one year that we were able to do it in Nelson County, and those range from courthouses, jails, nonprofits and schools, and that's really powerful to have that connection of community that are all focused on bettering mental health, especially for youth.

>> So the yellow tulip is the national symbol for hope.

And in that, we want everyone to know that there is always hope.

There always community based organizations, trusted adults who are ready to be there for our young people.

Each of those signs that you see at our Hope gardens when they were out in the spring drive you to as a QR code that takes you to a local resource website that has information about the Yellow Tulip project and then local mental health resources in the community.

>> Youth have nothing to do here.

People who are young have nothing to do.

Yes, it's a wonderful bourbon capital of the world, but there's no movie theater anymore.

There's no roller rink.

There's nothing really geared towards kids.

And we know that that's going to impact mental health significantly.

And so this project couldn't have come at a better time.

>> The youth are involved right now.

They have been helping with planting the yellow tulips.

They've been involved with a variety of just workshops and activities, art projects around the Yellow tulip and having conversations around hope.

But our our future idea and hope is that they will be more engaged as youth leaders in the community.

Having that conversation publicly with their peers.

>> They get to see that people do care and people do listen.

You know, kids in schools or kids that I serve as a therapist now and at the police department, hearing kids say, there's nothing for me to do.

Nobody cares.

Now they get to see, okay, this garden signifies youth mental health, smashing the stigma for youth mental health.

Just to them, hearing that narrative gives them that little bit of hope.

And then they can then go to their friends and say, hey, people are talking about us.

People are caring and this is one way to do it.

>> A four star general, the highest ranking official in the United States, Space Force, grew up in south central Kentucky.

General Chance Salzman is the chief of space operations and is a Bowling Green native.

He welcomed special guests Friday to a special showing in his hometown of a short film that explains more about this branch of the military.

Those guests included Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Brett Guthrie.

We asked General Salzman about the role of the Space Force and how our national security.

>> Unfortunately, over the last decade or so, it's become apparent that we can't just expect that space operations continue without other countries trying to take it away from us.

And so the Space Force was established in recognition of the fact that we have to protect our capabilities on orbit, so that we can continue to provide the things that the American people have come to expect and count on take for granted to some degree.

And so the Space Force is all about protecting our capabilities.

We also have to recognize that other countries are building satellites that are designed to target our forces.

And so we have to be able to not only protect our space capabilities, but deny an adversary the use of space capabilities against our military forces.

And so we take that responsibility very seriously.

We call it space control.

And that's really the formative purpose of the Space Force is to protect ours and deny an adversary the use of space forces against us.

>> Other Space Force officials and guardians were there, along with Brigadier General Nick Hague, a NASA astronaut who spent more than 300 days over the course of two missions in space.

>> Flying in space changes your perspective.

You float over to the cupola.

I think people have seen pictures of of the earth from space, but to be there with your nose pressed against the glass pane, staring out at the globe as the earth just kind of glides by underneath.

You don't see borders.

You see major geographic features, and you get a very deep sense of sense of connectedness with the world.

And then, you know, you're going around the earth every 90 minutes.

And so the sun is either rising or setting every 45 minutes.

And so during the day, you see that in the night, all the stars come out and you get to see the depths of the universe.

And just how much stuff is out there with the earth just kind of floating underneath you.

>> The film that was screened at Western Kentucky University's Hardin Planetarium is called Always Above and is described as an immersive, inspiring journey thousands of miles into space.

We have the story behind Lexington's name, the founding of Louisville, and the birth day of Duncan Hines.

As our Toby Gibbs takes a look back at this week in Kentucky history.

>> It's believed to be the first public worship service in Kentucky.

On May 28th, 1775, the Reverend John Life, an Episcopalian clergyman, conducted an Anglican church service at Boonesborough to close out the first legislative session west of the Alleghenies.

The next day, May 29th, 1775, a group of Central Kentucky settlers learned by letter about the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

Those settlers would name their community Lexington in tribute.

On May 27th, 1778, a group of settlers founded Louisville on Corn Island in present day Jefferson County.

The city was named after King Louis XVI of France.

Happy birthday to Duncan Hines, born in Bowling Green on May 26th, 1880.

As a traveling salesman, he assembled a list of good restaurants he encountered that grew into a book and a newspaper column.

He would later lend his name to a line of food products, including cake mixes.

An EF four tornado moved through parts of southwestern Kentucky on May 27th, 1917, killing 42 people in Fulton County.

17 people in Clinton County and five people in Graves County.

It's believed the tornado was on the ground for 50 miles.

Kentucky held its first ever presidential primary on May 25th, 1976.

Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter would win the Democratic primary.

On the Republican side, President Gerald Ford, who would narrowly defeat challenger Ronald Reagan.

And that's what happened this week in Kentucky history.

I'm Toby Gibbs.

>> Thanks so much, Toby.

Some of your tax dollars are headed to Kentucky's second congressional district.

What will that money do?

We caught up today with Senator Mitch McConnell and Congressman Brett Guthrie.

Much more on that and the rest of the news tomorrow night on Kentucky edition.

And we hope that you'll join us again back here tomorrow evening at 630 eastern, 530 central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, connect and inspire lots of ways to keep up with us.

Our Kentucky Edition email newsletters.

You can also watch full episodes and clips@ket.org, and you can find us on social media.

Thanks so much for watching.

Have a great night.

[MUSIC]