I know that my loved one will never be forgotten.

A closer look at Kentucky's new COVID 19 Memorial Monument.

Why is Kelly Kraft running a new ad after the primary?

This is the first stepped step in action for people to see what our organization's future goals and vision are learning through play.

A Kentucky Children's Museum gets its first new attraction in a decade.

I tell people I was playing that game of it like you're it.

I could never catch anybody.

And then God said, You're it.

She was waiting for someone else to help the homeless get a clean start, but she ended up doing it herself.

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 Thursday, May 25th.

I'm Casey Parker Bell, filling i for Renee Sharp.

Thank you for joining us.

Kentucky paused today to remember seven law enforcement officers who died in 2022 and two who died decades ago.

Today's ceremony in Richmond had special meaning after a deputy shooting death earlier this week.

Every year we come, we come together and we honor those officers who have lost their lives.

This year, we honor nine officers, seven of which were killed last year.

All of them horrific acts need to occur.

And we're just thankful that we had a beautiful day to get here for families and spend some time remembering their loved ones.

The Department of Justice training staff, they have this memorial here on their facility.

It's absolutely beautiful.

They do a great job leading up to the service to make it to make it beautiful, make it a special day.

It is an honor to join you today to recognize the men and women who serve in law enforcement every day and to help be with you, as we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

In Scripture, we are told there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

We have seen this love in the lives and the sacrifice of Travis early, Jerry Critchlow, Jodi Cash, Ralph Frazier, William Petrie, Jacob Chasen's and Logan Medlock.

Every single one of the seven officers we honored today are heroes.

They're also somebody's child, someone's sibling, someone's dad, someone who will be missed forever.

They are children of God that are irreplaceable to their families and their communities.

And their loss leaves a void.

And we will miss them every single day.

And what we're showing today is we will never, ever, ever forget them.

It starts off as almost a graveside type service where you really you think about your family and the loss as the day goes on and families start talking to each other.

They start telling those good stories, the stories of how they remember their loved ones, the things that were important to them.

They talk about their wives or their parents, their kids.

All the things that we would we get together as a family and remember someone that we've lost to those families whose loved ones we are honoring today.

Thank you for graciously sharing your children.

Spouses and parents with us in the name of a safer Kentucky.

Not only did your loved ones make the ultimate sacrifice, but you did too.

For that, you have the deepest and most profound thanks of myself and every single Kentuckian.

We will never forget your loved ones and the sacrifices that you made and you will continue to make alongside them.

Scott County deputy Caleb Conlee was also recognized during today's ceremony.

He was shot and killed in the line of duty earlier this week.

His name will be added to the memorial next year.

A vigil is planned for Deputy Connelly tonight at eight near the Georgetown City hall.

The public is welcome to attend.

People are asked to bring their own candles.

The funeral is set for June 1st, a week from today at Scott County High School at 11 a.m. where Funeral Home says he will be buried at Battle Grove Cemetery in Cynthia Anna.

After the service, a new COVID 19 memorial monument has been added to the Kentucky Capitol grounds.

The monument was unveiled yesterday afternoon in Frankfort and will stand as a permanent memorial to the thousands of Kentuckians lost during the pandemic and their families.

We gather today to remember how much our world has changed since March of 2020, and we gather to honor 18,000 Kentuckians lost.

The COVID 19 pandemic interrupted our entire world, introducing unexpected illness, grief and insecurity to our families and friends.

It pulled many of us into the depths of despair and isolation, rendering bare the reality that every person is susceptible.

It also gave us a glimpse of how our communities can hold each other up in times of great challenge.

It showed us the grit, determination and innovation of our medical and scientific communities and frontline workers as well as the compassion and altruism of all types of caregivers across our great commonwealth.

This is a story lived in our time that will be shared with future generations and will be told by us and in part by this memorial monument.

Grief is strange.

I can't plan it and I certainly can't control it.

There is no way to truly prepare for the grief that we have experienced.

However, the COVID memorial brings me joy because I know that my loved one will never be forgotten.

Covid's Dark Shadow touched all of our lives and it spared no one.

Generations of Kentuckians will come to this area of the Capitol to learn about our heroes as well as reflect on the many great challenges that we face together, including the once in every 100 years pandemic.

We will recognize the loss that we have been through.

We will recognize the sacrifices that were made.

And we will provide a place and a safe place for everyone to be able to come to grief, to remember, and hopefully to process it in a way that helps them move forward through tragedy that no one could have ever imagined.

Kentucky showed the world what it looked like to come together.

Let us embrace a spirit of oneness.

A family.

As we honor all Kentuckians and reflect on the great motto of our Commonwealth.

United we stand, Divided we Fall.

The COVID 19 Memorial Monument can be seen at the State Capital Monument Park, located on the Capitol grounds.

In other news, Republicans are accusing Governor Beshear of playing politics with the Kentucky Board of Education.

According to The Courier Journal, two seats on the board were vacant for more than a year.

Two former members are now temporarily standing in.

By law, the board is required to have 11 voting members, and at least one of the two vacant seats would have to be filled by a Republican.

A spokesperson for the governor's office told the paper there are no vacancies, adding that while two members terms have expired, they are still on the board.

A statement from Senate President Robert Stivers accuses Beshear of not following state law.

Quote, He is not education first, but politics first, which is evident by him having appointed only Democrats to the board after blowing it up on his first day in office, giving us a far left education commissioner to now being unable to identify even two registered Republicans to appoint.

It is time for the governor to represent all people, not just members of his political party.

End quote.

The Republican Party of Kentucky issued a similar statement and is calling on Beshear to appoint two board members by the end of the month.

Governor Beshear talked about the board appointments during his news conference this afternoon.

We'll be looking for qualified individuals.

I even have, I think, an interview in this next week for someone that has been highly recommended.

I just want to make sure I get it right.

You know, you got to have the right person at a time when public education is under attack each and every day, when people for political gain are claiming our teachers throughout the Commonwealth are doing crazy or wrong things in their classroom when it's not happening.

I thought after the last governor, you know, we'd stop the silliness and no one would attack our teachers ever again.

But some of the things being said about them right now are worse than even the last governor.

We've got to make sure that we have people on that board that are willing to do the right thing, even when it's hard, because supporting our educators when they become a political target is absolutely critical.

We want to make sure that we get this right.

And I think people will will see us at least fill one of these positions.

In the short term, anyone appointed by the governor would need to be confirmed by the state Senate during the 2024 legislative session before the May 16th Kentucky primary.

You didn't hear much about the race for attorney general.

That's because the races in both parties were uncontested.

In the fall, Kentuckians will choose between former US attorney Russell Coleman, the Republican.

And on the Democratic side, state Representative Pamela Stephenson, a 27 year veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

On Kentucky tonight, last Monday, our panel talked about the candidates.

There's nobody more honorable than Russell Coleman.

I've been good friends, although he prosecuted me if I did wrong.

Russell Coleman is worked with the Democrat establishment in Louisville when he was a US when he was the U.S. attorney for Western District of Kentucky.

I don't think that you've got anybody in Kentucky that's going to say something bad about Russell Coleman with a straight face.

There may be a partizan get on and take a shot, but there's nobody Republican or Democrat, who's going to say anything bad about Russell Coleman.

He's a man of just great honor and and he'll do the job.

And he and he was made for this young.

So So if he was made for this job and he's a man of great honor and integrity, what's going to be.

Colonel Pam Stephenson, who was the Democratic nominee for this office, what's going to be her rebuttal?

Colonel Stephenson has her own job.

She served as a JAG officer in the Air Force for more than 25 years, prosecuting cases that affected military families like rape, incest, violent crimes.

She continued that work after she exited the Air Force and is helping currently military families, those folks that maybe would not otherwise have access to legal help.

She's helping those folks in Louisville.

That's a different set of skills because you really are serving the underserved.

You're seeing the folks that your office could potentially help and lift up.

But those are more white collar crimes maybe that are happening in federal district district court.

You're really lifting up the most basic Kentuckians.

She's fiery, she's passionate, and she's willing to to work to get the job done.

Our panel also talked about the race for governor and some of the other November races.

See the full conversation online on demand.

Katie Dawg slash K-Y.

Tonight is something you don't see very often in politics.

A candidate running an ad after an election.

Kelly Kraft, who came in third in the Republican primary for governor, has released a video thanking her supporters.

Here's part of that ad.

This movement has just started.

And I promise you, I will work hard for you every single day.

The ad ends with the words Stay tuned.

Kraft was the U.S. ambassador to Canada and then the ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump.

This was her first run for elected office.

After every election, the Kentucky attorney general's office picks 12 counties at random for election inquiries.

The counties were picked yesterday.

You see the names on your screen right now.

And there's no reason to suspect wrongdoing in these counties.

This is done to ensure election integrity and transparency.

The AG's office will investigate the election process in each of these 12 counties and hand over the findings to grand juries and circuit judges.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy for president last night on Twitter.

A Kentucky congressman was part of that announcement.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Congressman Thomas Massie of Northern Kentucky's fourth District was part of a question and answer session with DeSantis.

Massie endorsed the centers for the presidency even before DeSantis announced he was running.

An Emerson College poll done earlier this month shows former President Donald Trump leading DeSantis among Republicans in Kentucky by a margin of 70 to 14%.

The U.S. House has passed the Halt Fentanyl Act, a bill co-sponsored by Congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky's fifth Congressional District.

Rogers says the bill will give law enforcement the tools to keep drugs off America's streets.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has temporarily labeled fentanyl as a Schedule one drug, which allows for stronger penalties for people selling it illegally.

The bill would have that classification permanent.

With its passage in the House.

The bill now moves to the U.S. Senate.

That news comes as the CDC reports a slight increase in the number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2022.

But the increase was much smaller than the two previous years.

During the height of the COVID pandemic, and drug deaths declined in eight states, including Kentucky.

Nationally, there were 109,000 overdose deaths in 2022.

That's 2% higher than the 107,000 in 2021.

Former First lady Glenna Bevin has filed for divorce from former Governor Matt Bevin.

The Courier-Journal says she filed for divorce today in Jefferson Circuit Court.

The paperwork says they have been separated for more than a year.

The Bevin's have nine children.

Two of them are minors.

And Glenna Bevin is asking for joint custody of them.

And her petition says she cannot support herself and needs financial help from Governor Bevin.

Many lawmakers will return to Frankfort next week as special committees and task forces begin to meet ahead of the 2024 legislative session.

The groups will be studying specific policy issues.

A press release from Senate Majority Caucus lists what those seven special committees and task forces will be.

The Jail and Corrections Reform Task Force will look at the adequacy of existing jails and correctional facilities, as well as the state's incarcerated population is managed, among other things.

There will also be a task force on school and campus security.

It will review the implementation of a 2019 bill requiring a school resource officer in every school.

The task force will also examine mental health services within districts and determine if federal funds are available.

Each task force will submit its findings by December 4th.

The general Assembly will convene in January.

What a day for the University of Kentucky.

UK received a gift of $100 million from the bill.

Gatton Foundation.

That's not only the biggest gift in university history.

It's believed to be the biggest gift to any college of agriculture in American history.

Bill Gatton was a 1954 graduate of the UK College of Commerce.

He died last year as a thank you for the donation.

The college will be renamed after Catton's parents.

Edith Martin and Harry Gatton.

Nancy Cox, the UK vice president for land grant engagement, quoted Scott Smith, the college's Dean emeritus, about why the new name will be so meaningful if there are to be any person's names forever linked to our college.

The People's College of Kentucky.

I'm delighted that it be the names of a man and woman who were good farmers in rural Kentucky and raised children, men who were remarkable contributors to their community and state.

This is appropriate and more than sufficient distinction for such recognition, in my opinion.

UK will form a task force to decide how to use the money for scholarships, infrastructure and research.

Kentucky's unemployment rate fell in 78 of the Commonwealth's 120 counties from April 20, 22 to April 2023.

That's according to new numbers just released by the state.

The jobless rate went up in 25 counties and stayed the same in 17.

Woodford County had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.4%.

The highest rate was in Magoffin County at 8.5%.

The federal government is providing money to rural energy providers to modernize their electrical grids and invest in renewable energy.

In Kentucky, more than 1.8 million people are served by rural electric cooperatives.

These co-ops plan to use some of the more than $315 million being dispersed across the country to fund renewable energy projects like solar.

And a group located in Kentucky is already helping rural co-ops work toward securing the funding.

We haven't created the infrastructure for distributed renewable energy either.

And so we have to start building we have to start planning the tree that we didn't plant 20 years ago.

And the opportunities, right are in the billions.

Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at one Rural Electric cooperative in eastern Kentucky and how it hopes the federal money flowing to rural communities could help make improvements to the grid.

$11 million is headed to Kentucky from the US Department of Agriculture as part of a nationwide program to help rural America.

$1 million is headed to the Grace Community Health Center to build a clinic in Bell County to help people affected by the COVID pandemic.

Many people delayed getting dental, medical and mental health care because of the pandemic, and 10 million will go to the nonprofit group Community Ventures to set up a loan fund for independent meat processors and other agribusiness startups.

A new health study puts Kentucky in the top five, but this is nothing to brag about.

Details in tonight's look at health news.

The Lane report quotes results from a new study on laziness done by the online fitness website Total Sheep dot com.

The study looked at the percentage of adults who do little or no physical activity.

According to the survey, Alabama is the laziest state.

More than 31% of adults aren't active.

Kentucky and West Virginia were tied for fourth place with 30 points or 30.5%.

The top eight states in the survey were all southern or border states.

The Food Network is giving southern Kentucky some attention.

Guy's all-American Road trip taped an episode in Bowling Green.

One of the stops was at Cheney's dairy barn.

The family farm has been in operation since the late 1800s.

They tell us Guy Fieri paid them to visit a year ago.

They can finally let everyone in on the secret they shot probably for a day and a half.

And then on Wednesday morning, a guy himself came out with all of his friends and their families and I proceeded to shoot a show.

And we're pretty excited to see what in the world is going to look like.

Cheney's dairy barn offers farm tours, ice cream, a lunch and dinner menu, and host special events.

That ice cream looks pretty good.

They say getting attention from big star like Guy Fieri is helpful to agriculture and agritourism with the dairy industry.

In 2000, there were 2100 dairy farms in the state of Kentucky.

We've just dropped below 400 because it's a very difficult business to be in and we're just losing them right and left.

And the average consumer now is four generations removed from the farm.

So if you start talking to people about they might not understand, but then when they're able to come to the farm, they're able to see the cows, they see the robot, they see how these cows are taken care of.

And then I think they have a better idea.

And if they want to ask questions, we're here to ask.

The Bowling Green episode of Guy's all-American Road Trip airs next Friday, June 2nd on Food Network.

Basic hygiene is something a lot of us take for granted.

But for those without stable housing, even a hot shower can be hard to come by.

To fill that need in Lexington, Lighthouse Ministries is opening a new shower facility downtown.

Because everyone deserves a clean start.

Shower facilities for individuals experiencing homelessness who are not residing in an emergency shelter are limited.

By adding the service, the lighthouse offers individuals the ability to receive housing, employment and other opportunities with dignity and respect.

When COVID hit, there was one place in town that did showers and they closed down, and I had a feeling that they probably were not going to open back up.

I was noticing people with the same clothes on for like two and three months and a lot of mentally ill people.

And, you know, I kept hoping that somebody else would do it.

I tell people I was playing that game of it like you're it.

I could never catch anybody.

And then God said, You're it.

You know, they don't like being dirty, but they don't have anywhere to go because they're rejected, because they're dirty and they have dirty clothes on.

So people automatically, you know, put a hand out.

They don't want you around them.

I think there's dignity in being clean instead of going in somewhere dirty.

People reject people when they're not when they don't look like us.

So that's it.

Just for their own self-esteem.

You know, I can't even tell you how many drug addicts I've talked to that went two weeks without a shower because they didn't have anywhere to go.

Mental health, that's number one.

Bluegrass community health is going to be here.

We have drug and alcohol.

We also have a podiatrist that's going to be upstairs that is going to be awesome.

That is my favorite thing so far because I know people are embarrassed of their feet.

One of the things we're going to do is we're going to get like this software where we can connect with other organizations and sending referrals and stuff for people.

We're going to go we're going to have a case manager and they're going to work with people.

We're going to sit down and we're going to find out what is it that you need.

It's going to make people feel better about themselves.

On top of showers, podiatry and mental health care, Clean Start will also provide haircuts.

The facility is expected to open at the end of June.

A children's museum in downtown Lexington just added its first new exhibit in a decade.

The addition provides hands on learning designed to encourage kids to explore science, technology, engineering and math.

We sat down with the executive director of the Explore Him, who walked us through all there is to learn.

The mission of the world of Lexington is to create a hands on learning environment that inspires imagination and curiosity.

The New York City Family Foundation Engineering Gallery is the heart of what the exploring is all about and the two exhibits that we have in this gallery the paper Airplane launcher and the imagination.

Building blocks are the quintessential forms of imagine.

We realized we really had a lot of exhibits that catered toward an older elementary school crowd, and so that that was sort of the beginning inception phase of what we were trying to accomplish.

This new gallery is part of a longer journey for the experience and the new chapter of our organization.

And this is the first step step in action for people to see what our organization's future goals and vision are.

So far, this this calendar year are the highest attendance numbers we've seen in roughly ten years.

And so what that tells us is that there is a desire and need for a great children's museum in this city and for this community.

Not only that, I think that it's telling us that our community has noticed the improvements that we've made and I believe that that's that's what we're seeing in our numbers right now.

The vast majority of the museum experience now is it's a lot of arts and humanities based exhibits.

And we have some gravity in motion.

But we really thought that we needed to hit more of a STEM based gallery experience.

And that's that's really what we chose.

Museums are all about, is letting your imagination take you so that you get to learn through that play experience.

You can learn more about the explore him on their website.

Explore IMDB.com.

The Children's museum is closed on Mondays.

It's a nice time of year to take a leisurely walk.

Of course, you could find yourself wheezing and sneezing as you enjoy this pleasant spring weather.

It's also allergy season, and if you think your allergies are getting worse, evidence suggests you're right.

We'll tell you about a new allergy study and how Kentucky stacks up to other places.

Tomorrow night on Kentucky Edition, we hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

You can subscribe to our weekly Kentucky Edition email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips at Georgie Until Tomorrow.

That's Kentucky edition.

Have a good night.