And it's time that we stop demonizing our educators.

Governor Andy Beshear on Republican criticism of Education Commissioner Jason Glass.

You're from where I'm from, and they trust me.

This coal miner's daughter is now a doctor and ready to help heal and her hometown.

We currently house just over 4400 ancestors.

And so this will really let us start moving things forward.

The University of Kentucky takes a big step and handling the ancestral remains and cultural items of Native Americans in Kentucky.

That's just wrong.

I mean, it's just wrong to be able to bring students in and not be able to have them complete.

And you.

Obama's new president talks about closing the graduation gap.

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 KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Thursday, May 18th.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Thursday with us.

Kentucky has its lowest unemployment rate ever.

The state announced a jobless rate of 3.7% in April.

That's down from the 3.8% in March.

Governor Andy Beshear praised the new numbers during his news conference today.

Now, on a separate matter, Republicans, including gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron, have criticized Education Commissioner Jason Glass for being too, quote, woke.

The governor says those attacks are an attempt to create a political boogeyman to scare voters.

And it's time that we stop demonizing our educators and we start supporting them.

So we're 44th in teacher pay.

And you hear this from some of the highest elected public officials.

We are not going to have the teachers that we need to stay.

Number two, in per capita economic development if we don't pay them more.

But if we also don't stop yelling at them.

And while they try to say it in terms of Jason Glass, because they're trying to create a single boogeyman to get everybody riled up on it is an attack on every single public school employee that's out there and other government news.

Kentucky has a new personnel cabinet secretary.

The governor appointed Mary Elizabeth Bailey yesterday.

She served as deputy secretary and has worked for state government for more than 25 years.

She will replace Darina Weathers.

The governor has appointed her to serve as the new commonwealth's attorney for Jefferson County, making her the first black woman in that job.

She will replace Tom Wine, who died of cancer on May 6th.

Friends are remembering Lemon Swan at a celebration of life underway right now at Gray Line Station in Lexington.

Swan was a first term state representative who died Sunday days after going into the hospital for a medical emergency.

He was 45.

Tomorrow, visitation for him is planned from 930 to 11:30 a.m. Eastern at Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington with the funeral to follow at the church at 1130.

Reviewing more election news now this week.

It hasn't or it wasn't just statewide offices on the ballot this week, but in six Kentucky counties, people voted on whether to allow alcohol sales.

That includes in Allen County, where voters passed a measure to go wet.

Our Laura Rogers was in Scottsville today to learn about what that will mean for the county moving forward.

Well, you could go to every county around us except from Monroe County and purchase purchase alcohol, and now they don't have to.

57% of Allen County voters passed a measure on Tuesday to go wet, allowing alcohol sales in the county.

A lot of the people I talked to around Allen County felt really good about it passing.

I think everyone was surprised at the margin of which it passed.

The group Citizens for Economic Growth in Allen County raised $6,000 to help get the word out, whether they drink or whether they don't.

They thought that we ought to have the choice as citizens of Allen County to either buy it or not buy it.

The group championed the cause seven years ago and the measure failed.

We did a better job of educating people and getting the word out better.

Really, social media was our biggest push on this.

I went around Allen County the few days before the vote and I just talked to people.

Reporter Sara michaels had several conversations with allen county citizens about the wet, dry vote.

So the unifying theme of the no votes were that alcohol brings more bad than good to Allen county.

The idea was that it increases the accessibility which could allow children or people who are minors to have greater access to alcohol.

Michael says many of the people who were opposed also cited religious reasons.

She talked to church pastors who did not want to see the county approve alcohol sales.

When I drove through Scottsville and the outskirts of Allen County, the no vote signs outnumbered the signs by about 5 to 1 lot of people that was against it.

43% of the people voted was against it.

But those who advocated for the measure to pass believe it will bring economic growth.

We can directly charge a regulatory fee on the gross sales of all alcohol.

That'll be the initial money made.

There were also, you know, it'll it'll kind of spot away about the businesses that we think will come to Scottsville and Allen County because of the Michael says some of the growth that's expected is concerning to some.

Some other people thought that they've seen other counties nearby go west and they've seen their population increase as a result of that.

And they believe that that has led to more crime and they don't want that to happen in our county.

Harper says he's already fielding phone calls from businesses like grocery stores and restaurants who want to know more about the process.

I think the biggest impact is going to be our retail people that are allowed to sell, sell beer and wine.

I think I think the convenience stores that's going to increase their revenue at all the convenience stores.

Allen County is also home to a portion of Barron River Lake.

And those people, when they come camping here or come to use their boats or whatever.

They're coming from areas where buying alcohol is not an issue.

Unfortunately, we've heard this over and over.

A lot of local people have to tell them, well, you can go back to Glasgow or you can go to Bowling Green, or you can go here, you can go there.

But we're never sending those dollars here in Allen County.

Being able to buy beer out in that area, I think it'll definitely increase to retail sales out in that area.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

I will likely take 60 days for the county to start accepting applications after an application is accepted.

There is a 30 to 45 day approval process.

It could be late summer to early fall before you see liquor stores in Allen County.

We know now how many Kentuckians voted in Tuesday's primary.

The Kentucky secretary of state's office says voter turnout was 14.4 or 5%.

Now, that sounds low, but it's a little higher than the prediction of 10% based on absentee ballot requests and early voting.

Kentucky has about 3.4 million registered voters.

A little over a half million cast votes on Tuesday.

U.S.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is praising Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, as a defender of free speech.

Earlier in the week, Musk told CNBC that he would continue to say anything he wanted, even if it hurt his business.

Here's Senator Paul on the Fox News Channel.

Well, thank God for someone who can still speak their mind and won't take guff off some journalist who tells him he can't speak his mind.

And how dare you?

I think history will actually record that.

You know, back in the 1950s and sixties and seventies, that ACLU to the left were great defenders of free speech and the First Amendment.

And then somewhere along the way, something happened and people began to think that there was only certain types of speech that were acceptable.

And then along came Elon Musk and the country, the Bill of Rights, frankly.

All of us are going to be very thankful that a guy with a lot of money bought an entity, a social media, you know, entity Twitter, and allowed us to see what was going on with a government colluding to limit speech.

Senator Paul also discussed his bill that he says would prevent anyone in government from colluding with anybody in the media to limit constitution only protected speech.

The University of Kentucky's Rural Physician Leadership Program, based in Moorhead, focuses on taking small town med schools students and preparing them for the unique, vital role of the rural doctor.

We met one new doctor who's just set up shop in Pike County, and she knows the territory.

The Rural Physician Leadership Program is one of four campuses, medical school campuses that the University of Kentucky has.

Our campus started in 2008 because of a lack of physicians in rural areas.

There's a number of counties and cities in eastern Kentucky and throughout Kentucky that are medically underserved.

And we were created with the concept that if you were able to take people from rural communities and educate them in a rural community, that they would hopefully have a desire to return to a rural community and practice medicine.

We take 12 students a year.

You do your first two years in Lexington with the rest of the Lexington campus, so you do all of your classes there and then your last two years, you do it.

St Clair Regional Medical Center here in Moorhead.

I am a first generation college student and I say that proudly.

I am from elsewhere in City, Kentucky, which is a small town right on the Kentucky Virginia border.

It's really close to the breaks in our state park, which I'm sure a lot of people have heard of.

I am the daughter of a former coal miner.

He was disabled in the coal mines back in 1995.

So we grew up on fixed income and my mom stayed at home and worked different jobs.

They had big hopes for me.

I am now a Stilton in I just graduated from UK College of Medicine Real Physician Leadership Program this past Saturday with Sally's class, this group that just graduated.

We've had 110 students graduate from our program.

The students who have graduated and completed residency are 57 of those, and the majority of those are actually practicing in rural Kentucky, or at least in Kentucky.

I wanted to go back to a small town just like mine, to serve the community that raised me.

I grew up 45 minutes from Parkville Medical Center, and that was our closest hospital.

We were 45 minutes from a Wal-Mart.

And so getting anywhere was a challenge.

If something were to happen, it would take at least 45 minutes for an ambulance to get there and 45 back.

So a lot of the times people load up their family members and take them themselves because that's what you have to do.

And and people from those areas, they do what they have to do.

That's how they've been raised.

That's how their parents were raised.

It's all that they know.

So you really get a feel of what it's like to be a rural doctor and the needs.

And for me, I see people just like me, just like my family.

I mean, I think that when they hear me speak, you know, I have an accent and I know it and I'm proud of it now.

You know, there were times that I used to try to cover it up, but I've learned to embrace it now because I found that that's sometimes how people begin to trust you as they hear me talk.

And they think, Oh, well, you sound like my daughter.

You know, you sound like my cousin.

You're from where I'm from and they trust me.

What a wonderful person.

The Role Physician Leadership program began in 2008 with its first class graduating in 2012.

Could the former men's College Player of the Year return to Kentucky?

Oscar boy declared for the NBA draft earlier this year.

He has until the end of the month to decide if he wants to keep his name in.

Today, I asked Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio what he thinks Oscar will do.

I thought it was 100% chance, he laughed.

I think there's a chance he might have been working out.

He has.

I think.

I think his heart is in leaving.

But if he doesn't have a place to go, he might come back because he says that.

What did he say that was tweeted out?

I believe there will be a team in the NBA that will love what I do.

Yeah, I think his list of people, I'm a big believer people should follow their heart.

I think his heart is in moving on.

So I hope he finds a place.

But if he doesn't, if nobody wants him, I could see him coming back, coming back to the UK or getting in the transfer portal.

I think what he said yesterday, are you okay?

So I think if he says that, I have no reason to.

I thought that transferring was a possibility, but he seemed as definitively say if he comes back it'll be UK.

Last question.

30 seconds.

People happy with KAL or not?

Yes, but he better win this year.

I think a lot of people are like, this is the year Kal.

We got great players coming in.

We got to win.

You can see my full conversation with Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio on Connections this Sunday on Teti.

We talk about if he has any aspirations to run for elected office and how he's grown.

The show's fan base as a progressive with a mostly conservative audience.

Jones dishes on all that this Sunday at 12 noon Eastern, 11 Central right here on KCET and part two of our interview with the new University of Louisville President, Dr. Kim Shots all our trip Boston talks with her about what she brings to the table that helped her land the role and the lessons she's learned as a business executive that have informed plans to help students succeed.

Your work at Towson, when you came to the university from Towson University and in reading, kind of the evolution of you coming to the university, one of the things that really caught the eye of the search committee at the university here was the student success rates that you were able to achieve there at Townsend.

What did you do there and how do you see that being applicable to the University of Louisville?

So, you know, Towson, we had a 74% six year graduation rate, which is really the benchmark.

A six year graduation rate is the benchmark that's used in terms of student success nationally.

That was the second highest in the state of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, College Park was Ohio.

It was higher than that.

But but more important than that was the fact that our black, Latino and Pell eligible students and Pell eligible students are those that families earned under $50,000 a year.

Those students graduated at the same rate as the overall population.

There was no completion gap.

Unfortunately, that's not the case nationally.

You generally see those three demographic groups underperform or are disadvantaged in a way that they don't graduate the same rate as the overall population.

In fact, they're looking at a deficit of anywhere between 10 to 40% less than the overall population.

That's just wrong.

I mean, it's just wrong to be able to bring students in and not be able to have them complete, oftentimes having loans.

And as we know, student loans are not dischargeable.

So here you have somebody that could complete 2 to 3 years of college, be $10,000 in debt, not complete their degree and have ten grand and still be a high school graduate and have to figure out how to sort that out.

It's something that can change lives to not complete and higher education changes lives when you do get that college degree.

So how did you build that?

How were you able to get those folks to where they need?

So so we did a scale about, you know, we had 22,000 students about the same size as U of L. About a third of our students were black.

Over 30% were Pell eligible.

So, I mean, we did it at scale.

These were not small populations to be able to do that.

I describe it as high touch and high tech.

One of the things that we did is we used predictive analytics so we could be able to see the fact that if students got A, B or C in this course, their ability to be able to take the next course and and do well enough to possibly get into the business school or get into a nursing program would be a challenge.

So we would intervene and be able to put them in a tutoring program or something to be able to support them to provide increase their probability of success moving forward.

So that's the predictive analytics people who did not declare their major after 60 credit hours, they wander, so they use up credit hours, they use a financial aid.

So we would intercept those students to be able to have them sit down, to be able to talk about majors that they could complete, because the worse degree is no degree.

The high touch side of it was the fact that, for example, we had first year advising, so we had very intrusive advising, and I use that phrase very deliberately.

Students do not like taking math.

They have they feel mass challenged.

So they come to college in their first semester.

They won't register for math class, second semester won't register for math class, third semester often won't register for a math class.

So here they are.

Maybe even two years ago, they've taken their last math class and quantitative skills to grade very quickly.

So here they take a math class.

Having looked at a d, d y or an algebra equation in two years and they don't do well, that prevents them from going into the types of majors that they were interested in.

So as a high touch, part of it is we would actually lay out what their first semester was going to look like and their second semester and and have it that they took that math early.

So we did very intrusive advising to be able to support that success.

And when you talk about those predictive analytics, that sure sounds like a technical right back to your business experience.

Is that a way that you were able to kind of draw on what you did?

It was it's actually a best practice nationally to be able to do it.

But I do agree metrics and being able to use that type of statistics and work as something and model it is a skill set that we need to build.

I mean, we teach data analytics to use them makes sense in terms of our own work.

And the final part of Chip Colston's interview with Dr. Scott.

So tomorrow night she'll talk about her plans for you available to help address problems and issues facing the Louisville area.

It is Mental Health Awareness Month, all the month of May, and you may notice more emphasis on mental health resources than mental health.

Flag is raised at the state capital.

All this week as an example, our Kelsey Stark sits down with a mother who has rallied the community in many ways in Louisville to break down the barriers to getting help when you need it.

Well, you'll be hearing a lot this month about mental health awareness, and that is exactly the point.

You're going to notice that the big four bridge here in Louisville is lit up in green and yellow.

The Pete Foundation is hosting a lot of events around town, including at a few blue city games.

And we are fortunate to have Molly Jones, the founder of the Pete Foundation, here to tell us about all the things that are happening, why they are so important.

But first, let's explain.

What is the Pete Foundation, why you're here today?

Pete Foundation was formed seven years ago, immediately following the loss of my son Pete, to suicide, brought on by depression.

And we realized so many people suffer that and we had to do something.

We had to increase awareness about depression, about mental illness, and get rid of the stigma so that people can seek care just like you could for any other illness.

So we formed it and have never looked back.

It's great work, it's exciting and we are met every day with open arms by people who want to know more about mental illness, mental health and how to get mental health care.

Yeah, you have made such a difference in this community already.

And it's been, you know, in the time that it was created, there has been a lot of progress.

There's a lot more awareness, I would say, about mental health issues, but there is still that stigma.

And those people you say still come to you seeking resources.

Where can I get help?

That's exactly right.

The topic has opened up a bit and that's great, but we needed to open up a lot more.

People don't know where they can get resources.

There's a lot of great resources here in Louisville.

People don't know of them because we don't talk about them.

They're only spoken about and, you know, little quiet circles with people who are suffering.

And we need everybody to just know what the resources are.

So when the time comes, you know where to look.

We get calls every day about where can I get help for this, or even calls about how can I let my work know that I need this help?

The best thing everybody can do is get used to hearing about mental health, a really good training that people can get.

It's called QPR.

Question, persuade, refer and it will help.

It's like the CPR for an emotional or mental health crisis and it will make everybody comfortable talking about mental health, about mental illness, about suicide, and about care.

So I say just talk about it, Bring it up.

Don't be afraid.

We're only afraid to bring it up because we don't bring it out Exactly.

Well, let's talk about the big stop, which is your big annual event festival that has in honor of your son every year previously known as Pete Fest.

And you all just released a big lineup.

We did.

We're very excited about our lineup this year.

We've moved the festival dates to August 18th, 19th, so that's important to keep in mind.

It had been more in the fall.

We're very excited with Lettuce Bahamas.

It's on a beautiful 90 acre nature preserve, so it's just a very serene, peaceful place to be.

And from the very beginning it was all about removing the stigma around mental health and providing information about mental health.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us and for all you do for our community.

The Big Stomp returns to Louisville August 18th and 19th, and tickets are on sale right now.

Thank you, Kelsey.

Next Tuesday, Olympic gold medalist Samantha Livingstone is in Louisville speaking at a behavioral health summit about Gen Z and mental health.

That's an all day event at the PNC Club at Cardinal Stadium on May 23rd.

The University of Kentucky is part of a national effort for the identification and the respectful removal and reburying of Native American remains.

UK is now investing almost $900,000 as part of that effort.

That's painstaking work.

We have been non-compliant for quite some time at different stages as legislation is changed.

This huge investment by the college and the university, it's being used to bolster our staffing so that we can really proceed with compliance at a more accelerated rate.

So we're going to be hiring a full time archeologist, an assistant Nagpur coordinator, a collection specialist, and then doubling down the archival researchers time.

We currently housed just over 4400 ancestors and currently have inventoried almost 7800 associated funerary objects.

Every repatriation is really unique.

A lot of work goes into the archival research to make sure that we have found every individual that might be associated with that site, every single one of their funerary belongings that we possibly can.

And then in many cases, creating an inventory to share with tribes for anything that might fall under that cultural item.

So anything that might be an unassociated funerary object or a sacred object or an object of cultural patrimony, it's time consuming, but it's so important to me and the other people who are working with me that we that we do find every funerary belonging, that we know that when someone is going to be returned, the all of them and all of their belongings are being returned and hopefully are going to be able to be reburied as as close to the way that they were.

We're really committed to doing this in the most respectful and dignified way possible.

82% of those collections are actually kind of the founding of the museum back in the thirties.

And those are the results of the Works Progress Administration excavations that happened during the Great Depression.

And when we're trying to reconcile the ancestor, heirs and funerary belongings and just inventories, there's some really complex issues at hand.

So it's been around for 100 years.

There's been a whole different variety of cataloging systems, which you don't necessarily still have a key for, despite it taking a significant amount of time.

UK is really moving forward.

We're reaching out and currently working on a really large repatriation that will actually account for 15% of the ancestors that we currently housed.

Once we get that additional staffing, we're going to be able to carry on more consultations, have more of these repatriations moving at the same time, whereas right now we're kind of forced with our limits to kind of be doing them one at a time.

And so this will really let us start moving things forward.

We're just really excited about the big investment.

The new investment in money means the number of people working on the project will double.

And Appalachian Clothing Company launches a line of groundbreaking attire for us to take a forward thinking idea like sustainable denim and to be running it for, you know, we represent everybody here.

How a pair of brothers is blazing a new trail in the fashion industry.

Find out more about that tomorrow on Kentucky edition, which we hope you'll join us for 630 Eastern, 530 Central, where we inform, connect and Inspire.

We hope you all subscribe to our email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips at KET.org.

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Send us an idea at Public Affairs.

At KET.org, thank you so much for watching.

Tonight, Inside Kentucky Politics with Trey Grayson and Bob Savage.

Tomorrow.

You don't want to miss that along with the great stories we have lined up for you.

Take good care and I'll see you tomorrow night.