Families here today know exactly what that family is going through right?

The state's annual fallen officer memorial always has a special meaning, but especially this week.

Oh, it would be really nice if we had benches in the shape of a book.

Kind of decorated like a book that these people could sit on and read and enjoy nature.

It's more than an idea.

It's now a reality in one Kentucky city.

And they keep on trucking.

And law 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 for Wednesday, May 24th.

I'm Casey Parker Belle filling in for Rachel.

Thanks for joining us.

Kentucky State police honored fallen officers in Frankfurt this morning.

Their annual memorial ceremony started by recognizing the sacrifice of a Scott County deputy killed earlier this week.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the loss the Commonwealth fell to Motzko on behalf of everyone at Kentucky State Police.

Our deepest condolences go out to the Scott County Sheriff's Office with the tragic loss of their tabletop.

Unfortunately, our families here today know exactly what that family is going through.

Deputy Connally was shot and killed during a traffic stop along I-75 on Monday.

He leaves behind a wife and two young children.

37 fallen troopers, officers, highway patrolman and one K-9 were also honored today.

And memorial bench was unveiled in honor of K-9 or FINO.

The canine was shot and killed in 1991 as troopers conducted surveillance at a marijuana grow site in Bath County.

Lieutenant Governor Jaclyn Coleman also participated in a wreath laying ceremony honoring other fallen officers.

Before I begin, I just want to say directly to the families that I cannot fathom what you've been through and what you continue to endure.

But I am grateful that AK is he has made this a priority and continues to keep you a part of this family, because I know how important that connection is.

And to celebrate the family members life and service and sacrifice is something that I think none of us would take for granted.

The officers honored today all died in the line of duty since Kentucky State Police was established in 1948.

A different ceremony was also held in Frankfort today.

Governor Andy Beshear, along the state and local officials, dedicated the permanent Kentucky COVID memorial.

The sculpture is titled United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

It was designed and crafted by Kentucky native Amanda matthews.

Governor Beshear spoke about the memorial this afternoon.

We are here today to dedicate this meaningful memorial to the victims of COVID 19 in the Commonwealth and to their families.

We also dedicated in honor of those health care heroes, as well as the compassion, the dedication and the sacrifice of every Kentuckian while we fought this battle.

We'll have much more on today's ceremony tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

The LGBTQ plus community and its supporters are blasting Kentucky State Representative Josh Calloway for the wording in a tweet promoting his podcast.

Here's the tweet at the bottom.

It says The LGBTQ+ community is a disease.

We put a red circle around those words.

Here's a response to that from Rebecca Blankenship, executive director of band Conversion Therapy, Kentucky.

Quote, Representative Josh Calloway should immediately retract his reprehensible comment that the LGBT community is a disease.

He has friends and colleagues who are a part of that community.

We're deeply hurt by dehumanizing language like this.

Coleman Eldridge, chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party, put out this statement, quote, Reckless policies and words by extreme politicians in Frankfort have potentially deadly consequences, making these comments inexcusably dangerous.

Kentuckians deserve better.

Representative Calloway should be stripped of all his committee assignments, and Daniel Cameron should immediately denounce his endorsement.

Representative Calloway has responded.

He's tweeted, quote, I'm amazed at the hypocrisy of people who promote genital mutilation, chemical castration and the murder of unborn babies, yet clutch their pearls when they read a description posted on YouTube by my video producer.

We discuss the 2023 Kentucky primary and the upcoming fall races on Monday's Kentucky Tonight.

Yesterday on Kentucky Edition, we showed you some of the arguments for and against Governor Andy Beshear.

Tonight, some thoughts about his opponent this fall.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

He's done a lot on fentanyl eradication.

He's done a number of things on on on child and trafficking and human trafficking.

He's supported the bills that we've passed, whereas Andy Beshear has sued us on those bills.

Whether that's a pro-life bill or whether it's a whether it's the saying that boys can't play sports against girls Bill and the recent bill, House bill, Senate Bill 150 on saying that a number a number of things but one of them is that we're not going to allow boys to be in dressing rooms with girls.

And if the argument is that fentanyl, an opioid usage has skyrocketed under Daniel Cameron's, you know, authority as attorney general, it's a little bit disingenuous to then say he's the law and order candidate.

See the entire program online on demand a dot org slash k y. Tonight, Congressman Morgan McGarvie of the Third District is among the Democrats urging President Biden to invoke the 14th Amendment to prevent the U.S. from defaulting.

McGarvey and other Democrats said so in a letter to the president sent May 19th.

House Republicans and the White House are negotiating on a plan to raise the debt ceiling before the U.S. runs out of money.

The 14th Amendment says the U.S. cannot default on its debt, and some constitutional scholars believe the wording of the amendment invalidates the debt ceiling statute.

Time now for our midweek check in with Rylan Barton, managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio Rolla talking all things and major political news in Kentucky.

And there is a lot to talk about.

Good to see you, Rylan.

Good to see you, too, Laura.

And of course, this time last week, we were thinking, okay, primary election had just passed.

We were going to get a little bit of a breather, but that's not quite the case because right away, Governor Andy Beshear kicking off his general election campaign two days after the primary, already running that television ad.

And then, of course, a few days later kicking off that three day bus tour across Kentucky.

Yeah, that's right.

This is moving a lot more quickly than we're used to in Kentucky politics, especially in these races for governor.

You know, traditionally, the the kickoff to the general election season is fancy farm beginning of August.

But here we are within the first week of the primary election, two days after Governor Andy Beshear was on TV with a big with a big ad.

Then he went on the statewide bus tour starting in Paducah and going across the state, touting his reelection.

And so this this feels a lot different.

There's already a lot of money being spent on this campaign.

And obviously, a big reason of of that is that Republicans feel like this is their chance to win back the governor's mansion.

Kentucky's become an increasingly Republican state in recent years.

They think that, you know, they really want to get the Democrat out of the governor's mansion.

But we'll see, because Governor Andy Beshear has had overwhelmingly positive approval ratings throughout his four years in office.

He's got just about 100% name I.D.

recognition across the state.

You know, Democrats feel like they have a good chance of holding on here.

But I think that, you know, everybody's expecting this to be a pretty tight race and a pretty expensive one, too.

And as for the GOP ticket, the Republicans, you know, they had that hotly contested primary, 12 candidates in the race.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron winning the nomination, of course, and they held that unity rally in Frankfurt last Friday.

What was the message there?

Yeah, it was such a hotly contested primary, but the results weren't really hotly contested.

Right.

Cameron really ran away with the results in that election.

But, yes, at this rally, it was an opportunity for the Republicans to show that all the way down the ballot, they're kind of going to campaign together.

This is something that we've seen the last few election cycles.

I remember in 2015, this is what Matt Bevin and the whole slate of candidates would do a lot.

They would show up to events together and really campaign as a slate.

I think that this is so they're trying to continue that.

And they you know, they have this this crew of people who are, you know, current statewide office holders, also people trying to kind of advance the ladder of Republican politics.

And really with the top of the ticket there with Attorney General Daniel Cameron, they're trying to lend each other the kind of credibility and support and and show that, you know, everybody on on the Republican ticket is on the same page here.

And I think really, again, like Cameron's, you know, dominant showing in that primary already showed that Republicans have done a lot of the work coming together behind that, behind him as a candidate.

There wasn't there it wasn't so tight of a race where I think there was some question as that a lot of people might be hurt by him having the nomination here.

So I think this is just a signal that Republicans are going to kind of try to campaign together.

And once again, they really feel like they have a good chance at toppling Beshear in such an increasingly Republican state, or at least a state where folks have been voting Republican a lot more.

And a lot of speculation.

Now who will General Cameron choose as his running mate?

He has not announced a running mate yet.

And you know, a big question, will he ask Ryan Walls to be his running mate, our agriculture commissioner, who was runner up in the primary.

What are you hearing as far as that goes?

I think that's a great question.

I don't really have any inside track on who that will be.

There has been some speculation that Quiroz would be that person because he got that second place finish.

He does have this, you know, a statewide network already after two consecutive terms as the agriculture commissioner.

But this is a new thing in Kentucky politics.

We really haven't had to deal with before.

It used to be that that candidate for governor would pick their running mate when they were signing up to run for governor.

But state law changed a couple of years ago.

They don't need to do that until after the primary election, if I'm not badly mistaken.

That's not until August now.

So there's a little bit of time for him to suss that out.

Yeah.

So that's that's one of the names that's being kicked around.

Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarrels.

But we'll see for the next couple months.

All right.

Something else that we're talking about here, Senator Mitch McConnell making a recent appearance in Lexington and he addressed those debt ceiling talks.

You know, we're kind of getting this panicked message from Washington, D.C., that we're in a political standoff.

The White House and House Republicans can't come to an agreement that the US is going to run out of money to pay our bills by June 1st.

But Senator McConnell's message was a little bit more like, Hey, don't panic, relax.

And it's been so interesting that McConnell's really not been he's been pushing away the the spotlight on this.

He doesn't want to be the person seen as being the chief negotiator at the White House here.

He really wants the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, to be the chief negotiator here.

I mean, not to mention he's the minority leader of the Senate.

He's not the one ultimately in charge of whether or not this is going to pass out of the Senate, although it will you know, it needs Republicans kind of need to get on board with this for it to pass the House.

And Mitch McConnell was pretty much the most powerful Republican in Washington at this point.

So he was in Lexington earlier this week.

He said, quote, I think everybody needs to relax about the the debt ceiling talks.

But I think that was a kind of signal that he did have confidence that this would produce a result, a positive result, that they will get past these talks and and that the country won't default on its debts.

All right, Roland, we appreciate you so much.

Thank you for your insight and perspective today.

Thanks, Laura.

Kentucky is moving toward a new nuclear future.

Legislation passed this year set up a process to establish a commission to oversee new nuclear power in the commonwealth.

Today, the working group created to establish the commission had its first meeting.

It is time for this Commonwealth to take the next step towards a nuclear future.

Today, Kentucky took that first step to nuclear energy development.

Working Group met today for the first time in Frankfort.

I think this is a real opportunity to talk about how we can support manufacturing supply chain, fuel development.

Like we have a history with in Paducah and in addition, Power generation.

The working group was established by the General Assembly earlier this year and has three goals.

It will identify barriers to new nuclear energy science in Kentucky.

The group will develop recommendations for how a nuclear Energy Commission would address those barriers.

And it will submit a report to the governor and the Legislative Research Commission with recommendations for the creation of a permanent nuclear energy Commission.

State Senator Robin Webb says the working group is also an opportunity to address concerns Kentuckians may have.

Well, I think our experience in these Kentucky with some of the waste facilities in the past would have us have concern about the environment in water supply.

State Senator Danny Carroll carried the legislation establishing a work group.

Carroll told KCET earlier this year that some coal fired power plants could be used as new nuclear power facilities in the Commonwealth.

And there have been some assessments done of our coal power plants and many of them would would be eligible for conversion to nuclear.

So, you know, I think that's a good possibility as far as industry throughout the state and hopeful There are no operating nuclear reactors in the Commonwealth.

But State Senator Danny Carroll sponsored legislation that lifted Kentucky's nuclear moratorium in 2017.

He hopes the report from this year's working group will lead to legislation in the 2024 session of the General Assembly.

It's a big day for big Kentucky employer.

The new 2023 Ford F-Series trucks are on the way from the Kentucky truck plant, Louisville.

More than 8500 workers are now assembling the trucks.

This is after Ford's $700 million investment that added 500 jobs in Louisville, the super duty launch.

We approach totally different.

We we drove like millions of miles.

Every vehicle we release got drove before, you know, we did a lot of extra testing on the vehicle and we're not seeing the quality generation at launch that we normally do.

This is the best launch we've had globally.

The state estimates that 12,000 people work directly for Ford in Kentucky, and Ford supports another 120,000 jobs tied to Ford, with a total economic impact of about $12 billion.

The plant can produce 100 of these trucks every hour.

Southgate in northern Kentucky, when unveil a Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire Memorial on Sunday.

165 people died in the Supper Club Fire on May 28th, 1977.

This year's the 46th anniversary of the fire.

The building lacked smoke detectors and sprinklers.

The fire led to improvements in fire safety implemented across America.

Lincoln Wire reports.

The memorial dedication is Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern.

At 525, Alexandria Pike.

Among the speakers, a busboy who survived the fire.

Kentucky basketball fans are remembering Cotton Nash, a legendary wildcat from 1962 to 1964.

Nash has died at age 80.

He's seen in this picture to the left of coach Adolph Rupp during the 1964 NCAA Tournament.

In addition to his years with UK, Nash played in the NBA plus the American Basketball Association.

He was also a baseball player playing with the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins.

His real name was Charles.

He was nicknamed Cotton because of his blond hair.

There are five new names in the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.

The Louisville Sports Commission announced their 2023 inductees today.

Kentucky Edition's Kelsey Starks introduces us to the new class.

The Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame has been recognizing athletes and sports figures since 1963.

Includes names like Denny Crum, Pat Day, Muhammad Ali.

And today, the newest class was announced in.

Julie Howell is from the Louisville Sports Commission to tell us about the newest honorees.

And I bet you'll recognize some of these names.

Hi, Kelsey.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're excited about the 2023 class of inductees.

It includes Rick Beausejour, who we all know, we've read, we've listened to and so forth for about 45 years, I think, here in Louisville.

Yes.

Bridget DeVries, who was a trailblazer in Title nine and female sports.

She's from Kentucky, a UK graduate and made sports possible for a lot of girls like me when I was growing up out down in rural Kentucky.

Tom Leach, another familiar name, the voice of the Cats.

For years, well known author, won two Eclipse awards for his coverage of thoroughbred racing.

Chris Loftin, a mason County native basketball player, played ten years in Europe and the pros one of only five people to have his jersey retired at the University of Tennessee.

And lastly, Bubba Paris.

Bubba grew up in West Louisville, went to the sails High School, went to the University of Michigan, won three Super Bowls with the 49 ERs, and had a nine year NFL career that rivals most.

So there's a lot of sports talent here in Kentucky, as you can see.

And with the diversity of these honorees, what is this selection process like?

How do you choose?

Well, we take nominations from the public so anyone can nominate anyone.

And there is a nomination form on the website and along with selection criteria.

And as long as someone meets the criteria, which is you have to either be from Kentucky or have made a significant impact in your sport or your area of sport in the state.

But is it, for instance, he's from Gary, Indiana, but he has been doing his thing in Kentucky for 45 years.

So he deserves to be in the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.

So once nominations are received, we have a selection committee that's made up of media from across the state.

Every corner of the state has someone represented on that selection committee and they vote.

And then we have a third party accounting firm, Dean Dorton, that tallies the votes, calculates, and they give us a list of of the top vote getters.

And that is being that is was announced today the Sports Hall of Fame is owned and operated by the Louisville Sports Commission.

Explain what it is you will do.

So the Sports commission, we're a nonprofit.

Our main charge is to bring sporting events into Louisville that generate economic impact and improve the quality of life for our citizens here.

We do that a number of ways by hosting events, by owning and operating events and properties such as the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.

And then we're also acutely focused on providing youth in our area and in our state with opportunities to sports.

So we try to break down the barriers to kids in marginalized neighborhoods to be sure that if they aren't participating in sports because they don't have equipment, we get them equipment.

If they're not participating because they don't have the money to pay registration fees, we get them the money to pay registration fees because we feel strongly sports can change lives and we want every young person to have that opportunity.

And those young people may very well end up in the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame one day and September 12th is the induction ceremony for this need, these newest honorees.

And that is going to be held at Freedom Hall.

Back to you.

There are a lot of notable names in this year's class.

And the Louisville Sports Commission will be accepting nominations for next year's class in January.

If you want to stretch out and read a book, why not do it on a bench that looks like a book?

The Clinton County Public Library has teamed with several local artists to create a series of park benches painted to pay tribute to some classic books and the joy of reading.

A while ago, I had seen somebody sitting on a park bench and working in a library.

You notice people are reading.

So I was like, Oh, it would be really nice if we had benches in the shape of the book, kind of decorated like a book that these people could sit on and read and enjoy nature.

This project, once our foundation board decided to do it and fund it, happened very quickly.

We are fortunate the city of Covington had a grant that fit right with what we were trying to do, which was bring art to life in the city of Covington.

We applied, we didn't receive that grant, but they liked our project so much that we received additional funding from the city of Covington to do the project.

We have six benches in total.

We did a call to artists in January.

All artists had to be local as we had to deliver the benches to them.

We had 38 submissions and we narrowed it down to the six finalists.

Our librarians put together a list of about 30 books for the artists to choose from, containing classics like Alice in Wonderland and some kids classics.

Artists had the opportunity to select what inspired them and create their benches from that.

We have lots of great books with all different kinds of art interpretations of them, and they're just fabulous.

I can't imagine, though, where the Crawdads Sing Bench being anywhere except for Baker Hunt.

Baker hunts a beautiful place for people to come together as part of the community to take art classes as you can take kitchen classes, cooking, yoga, ceramics, textile classes, kind of.

If there's a creative endeavor, we try to offer that here in the city of Covington.

It's just a gorgeous spot.

We have these Japanese cherry blossom trees.

They're weeping.

All of the grounds here are very intentional.

A lot of love throughout the years has been gone into putting these flowers here.

We maintain them weekly with our volunteer gardeners, as well as the staff who helps maintain the grounds.

Gabrielle Sigmon is one of the artists who created this bench.

She put her love, passion for reading and her artistic expression into the project.

I think anything we can do to encourage reading, especially in our youth, whether it's through reading a story or doing a hands on craft or painting a bench that people in the community can enjoy is important, really beautiful.

According to the Kenton County Library, the rest of the benches are in the process of being delivered to several locations around Covington.

A former UK basketball player is widely known for his skills off the court.

Lavon Williams, Jr played at UK on the 1978 team that won the national championship.

Since then, he's crafted a name for himself in the world of art.

More in tonight's Tapestry segment.

I've always loved art more so than anything else I've ever done.

Growing up as a kid, you know, we didn't have much money.

My brother was a woodcarver and so my brother, he would always make toys, he would make cars, He would make, you know, soldiers.

And then he would make just like any kind of thing that he wanted to.

And that was what we play with.

My grandmother and my mother would tell stories through art from the quilts that my grandmother, Mae and my mother made.

That's what influenced me.

The most.

People look at my work and they see it and they don't understand.

It's just a big quilt.

It's a quilt carved into wood.

There's a certain raw component to the work.

You can kind of see where his hand has passed over the work, whether he's carving or he's drawing onto the canvas or the wood.

You can just really see that like he has put himself into it.

We were just getting the gallery up and running again after the lockdown and I was looking for artists.

He was commissioned to do an installation in our bookshelf and I just happened to kind of come across him when he came in and he showed me one of his drawings, and I asked our BWC coordinator who he was.

I had seen some of his work and I thought he would be a really, really good fit for this space.

So I just decided to kind of get in contact with him and see if he wanted to do a show.

When I went to his studio to start looking at his work, I was just kind of utterly floored because he has so much work because he just he's just constantly making things.

This work that you see here at this gallery right now, it would just sitting in the back closet.

And then Zach Hall came and he saw what he liked and then he pulled it out.

And I see, I see what he what he's done with the work.

I mean, it is like, amazing.

I started out in this gallery.

My major show was at this gallery.

So this is like coming home.

What I hope they take away is like the artistry of it, the craft of it, and also the dedication.

Because to me, you want to be a student, you want to be a teacher, you want to be a master.

And now I feel like I reach mass and status.

My hope is that younger artists get inspired by the work here.

It's really easy as a young artist to get discouraged when you see other people's artwork and you think to yourself, like, I will never, you know, I'll never be able to make something like that.

That's that's just that's just too good.

And I think what's great about this work is like the works are part of a long career that he's had.

I think you can see that through working hard and through just kind of that continual study and that desire to learn and get better.

You know, you can reach that higher place as an artist.

Williams work has been featured at the Hickory Museum of Art, New York's Outsider Art Fair at the Kentucky Folk Art Center.

Thanks for watching Kentucky Edition.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Have a good night.