♪ >> We'll see this man on the ballot in 2023, but he's not running for governor.

They have went above and beyond to do everything they can to make us feel.

Welcome here.

It's going to help us create our own little school.

>> Flood damage in Letcher County is forcing some schools to share space.

>> More of a southern gentleman.

Praise for Congressman Hal Rogers after he becomes the longest serving member of the U.S. House.

>> 2 men.

>> And paying for college can leave some students singing the blues and a well-known Kentucky musician wants to offer a little help.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

♪ ♪ Good evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Thursday, September 22nd Time in a Shaw.

Thank you for spending some of your Thursday night with us.

>> We already have a crowded Republican field for governor and 2023.

Now we have our first official GOP candidate for Lieutenant Governor Kelly Knight Craft who joined the race for governor last week named her running mate yesterday.

She's picked state Senator Max wise of Campbellsville.

This is not a surprise.

Wise was first elected to the state Senate in 2014, he serves as chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Kraft didn't have to pick a running mate.

Now the Kentucky General Assembly passed a law in 2020 that lets a candidate wait as late as August of an election year to pick a running mate.

The other Republican candidates for governor have not yet picked their running mates.

Before we vote for governor next year.

We're voting for members of Congress and the Kentucky General Assembly this year were also voting on 2 constitutional Amendments.

Amendment 2 was about abortion.

It reads in part, are you in favor of amending the Constitution of Kentucky by creating a new section of the Constitution to state as follows to protect human life.

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.

Lexington's Mayor Linda Gorton has put out a video statement about it and she comes out against amendment 2.

>> I'm a registered nurse and I come at this from that perspective.

I have had a career in nursing over a span of 40 years.

It is sacred to me for a patient and a physician to go in the exam room together, close the door and make those important health decisions.

The government has no business in that exam room.

That is flight on November.

The 8th I'm voting no on amendment 2.

And I want to do the same.

>> Mayor Gordon is a candidate for re-election.

Her opponent is David Kloiber, a member of the Urban County Council.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, he is said if he's elected, he would direct police not to investigate doctors, health care providers or women for abortions.

Koerber also says he would make sure the city's health insurance covers abortions out of state.

Congressman Hal Rogers, a Republican from the 5th district in Kentucky is getting praise for being the longest-serving current member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rogers was elected in 1980 and began serving in January of 1981.

So he's been in Congress more than 41 years.

The longest-serving member was Don Young of Alaska, but he died last March last week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy compared Young to Rogers.

Dawn was a yeller.

>> You're more of a southern gentleman Don preferred a knife in his boot.

You just like which I think is a little improvement.

I've known how.

For the 15 years I've been here.

I don't know of another person that has a greater respect for this institution.

A more caring this for both sides of the aisle.

I've watched how in a position of power as chair of appropriation.

Work with people on the other side simply because the issues right?

I watched him to find his party to stand up to do what is right.

I've traveled with him throughout his district with this is not a wealthy district.

It all.

But I watched him no matter how many years he has served to continue to have the ability to listen.

How Washington be on the forefront.

Watching an opioid epidemic in America and him leading to do something about it.

Simply because he watched something in his district.

>> Rogers is seeking his 22nd consecutive term this November.

He is opposed by Democrat Connor.

How blind?

Attorney General Daniel Cameron and 17 other attorneys general want President Biden to classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.

The CDC says opioids killed more than 75,000 Americans from February of 2021.

To February of this year.

Cameron says fentanyl has already killed far too many Kentuckians.

The letter to the president says if fentanyl is added to the list of weapons of mass destruction, it would require the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA to coordinate their responses with other government agencies, including the Department of Defense.

Action on Medical marijuana is on the way.

According to Governor Andy Beshear.

But the governor isn't saying yet what that action is during his news conference today, the governor said his medical cannabis task force gave him an initial report this morning that after the task force held a series of town hall meetings around the state, the governor is considering what executive actions he can take after the Kentucky General Assembly didn't pass legislation legalizing medical marijuana earlier this year.

The cleanup continues after the late July floods in eastern Kentucky, governor Beshear says starting today crews are tackling a problem that's made it difficult to drive in some places.

>> So crews are beginning to remove and collect abandoned cars and trucks that came to rest on the public right away or in waterways and which are blocking access to a public use area or which will pose a threat to infrastructure.

So want to be clear that and debris removal.

They're not going to private residences and removing cars that that have been impacted.

These are vehicles that are in right of ways that could impact of more flooding that are preventing the public from accessing a different areas.

>> Also, the governor signed an executive order creating the Council for Community Recovery and Resiliency made up of state and federal officials.

The goal is to provide comprehensive guidance for communities, recovering from disasters.

There were many smiling faces yesterday morning as students from Letcher County return to school.

But for some students back to school looked a little bit different this year.

Students from West Whitesburg Elementary are now sharing space with Letcher County Central High School while work continues to restore their building after it was damaged by flood water.

>> It is absolutely amazing to be here today to see our students coming in this morning to see our buses on the road.

It's been a long few months since our flood.

So we have really look forward to this first day of school.

It's exciting.

It was so great to see our kids come back and the flooding affected every part of what you're counting.

So probably 75 members of my staff had significant loss.

>> Lost homes, cars, property damage.

I have dealt with the same things that our students and families are dealing with.

Everyone who's been impacted.

He's been here every single day, getting ready for this very first day of school.

They've worked in the towers, getting their classrooms ready.

>> Working to help other teachers in the building working to get their families ready in so many of those people, Weaver even reached out to tie your son.

Thanks for you that a lot.

Now we don't need my family.

Doesn't need to give it to someone else.

They have the compassion they had to look for.

Those students may have to look for people.

>> We're all affected in some But the people came together.

It was the amazing a sight to see and maybe very proud Letcher County.

I'm proud to be from electric county.

>> We're all one big family here.

Let your county and we're always going to be watching for our students and see what they need.

We have delivered various gift cards to our students.

Has it impacted our own staff?

We've had monetary donations.

We've had gift cards given to the in from various organizations.

We also have a family resource center and then we have community distributions.

Then we have a therapist that are available to students need that.

We've had every staff member to some special training.

>> For trauma after a natural disaster.

we're here to support our students and not just their basic needs, but in their emotional health as well.

Our kids, our most precious commodity.

So anything that we can do to make it better for them.

So help the situation to move them forward and passed the worst parts of the U.S. that we're willing to do it.

We had 3 schools that the steroid and had to be with a restored.

And so we had to move faster campuses on with our other campuses.

What's less per gallon than trees are largest elementary.

And so they don't expect that could fit.

The students was here at the hospital.

The transition here.

>> At first I thought was going to be extremely hard and for our families and for our staff.

But it's been a blessing in disguise.

The people up here to Letcher County Central Hospital.

They have went above and beyond to do everything they can to make us feel.

Welcome here.

It's going to help us create our own little school.

We estimate that a couple of the buildings will be back.

>> Hopefully by Christmas.

That's what we're pushing for.

West Wattsburg is a different situation but had an open classroom format that was built in the 70's.

So we don't have a timeline yet for that.

>> Particular facility.

>> Our school to come back and be better than ever.

When we get to go back into that building.

But for now, we we're just we're so glad to be here.

We're so excited to be here.

As a superintendent to watch what's happened over the last 8 weeks and to see how far we've come.

I'm so very proud of my staff.

My employees, our community, our students and our families.

>> This was not an ordinary flood.

It locked up a lot of our county.

It's not going to be a quick fix for our county as a whole.

>> But getting school started in getting our students back on campus.

It's a step in the right direction.

>> Sure is Whitesburg Middle School and Martha Jane Potter Elementary was so damaged by the flooding.

Those students are attending school at other buildings.

>> Most of Kentucky's teachers received a pay raise this year.

The Kentucky General Assembly did not approve an across the board raise for teachers and their budget.

>> But they did give school districts flexibility to raise teacher salaries.

162 of Kentucky's 171 school boards gave their teachers raises.

Yesterday.

State legislators were briefed on how teacher raises worked for the current school year.

Now Casey Parker Bell reports on the meeting.

>> This budget currently is the most favorable.

I feel like for education that I can recall in the last 15 years I've been in public schools, a survey conducted by the Kentucky School Boards Association found almost 95% of the state's school boards, Cape Teachers races for this academic year of the 9 school boards that didn't give teachers raises 5 say they gave them raises for the previous year.

Eric Kennedy from the Kentucky School Boards Association says schools have different processes for giving raises to employees.

There were just a myriad of diverse approaches that school districts.

School boards took 2 targeting some some employment positions for even and over and above raise very often ones that we're having.

The most difficulty with recruiting and retaining bus drivers, custodians and food service were common categories.

Kennedy says the majority of the school board associations members prefer to handle pay policy at the local level like the state allowed school boards to do with the biennial budget, passed this legislative session that at any point there is then a statewide over and above sort of well, this year, everybody gets anyone certain raise can really cause a lot of.

Cause.

A lot of changes at the local level, too.

In some cases, maybe disrupt an approach that they have taken sometimes consistently for years.

It's no secret.

The Kentucky schools are struggling to hire and retain teachers.

Well, Representative Lisa Willner asked about that very problem and whether the race is given to teachers this year was enough.

>> One of the things that we heard as recently as yesterday.

Is that compared with other peer professions professions with the same, you know, a level of of education expertise and so forth that we're not anywhere near keeping pace.

So even with all the things we did right.

Is it adequate?

And what do you think most of your members would say about that?

I think definitely if you went back and said so, you know, what did you do this year?

And we did the survey.

>> If you said, well, is that did you want to do more that you felt like you couldn't go?

There's other budget increases.

Some lines of insurance, ark's wood like property assessments.

There are some things the district's day.

They're just skyrocketing.

The cost.

So I think the answer question most of my members would say we need to do more.

We would want to do more.

If we had more, we would do more for Kentucky edition.

I'm Casey Parker Bell.

>> Thank you, Casey.

And the budget passed by the General Assembly earlier this year.

Legislators improved and are approved rather an increase in the seek funding formula.

That formula determines how much schools get per pupil based on average daily attendance.

The former was increased from $4,000 per student to 4,100 this year and will increase to $4,200 next year.

5 current or former University of Kentucky football players are suing Lexington Police after they were charged with burglary.

Police arrested 6 players after an off-campus party in March of 2021, a grand jury later declined to indict them.

5 of those 6 are suing Officer Cory then love the suit.

Claims been love.

KET there was no probable cause to charge them.

But he did so anyway in order to further his career, the suit also names officer Danell Gordon Police Chief Lawrence Weathers and the Lexington Fayette County government.

Police have not publicly reacted to the lawsuit.

Good news about the Artemis one rocket.

NASA tested new sales yesterday after hydrogen lakes cause to launch postponements.

NASA says the sale tests were successful, meaning a launch is possible.

On Tuesday, September 27th.

The Artemis is headed to the moon and carrying a satellite built by Morehead State University.

A fungus is killing bats, including a big number of them in Kentucky's mammoth cave.

White Nose syndrome is a fungus that affects bats can while they hibernate that couch of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife tells W Nky if the fungus is hurt or killed half of the 13 bat species found in Mammoth cave, he says over the last 10 to 15 years it's killed.

99% of the northern long eared bats in the cave system.

Kalb says the fungus may be getting on people shoes as they tour the cave.

They then spread it to other places.

The cave is having people walk on a mat to try to clean off the fungus.

♪ As cold jobs disappear.

People in Appalachia need to find other jobs but to get to them, they need training in the fall of 2017.

The Haas, the Kentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute, our economy opened its doors and painful in Johnson County, bringing 21st century manufacturing to the mountains, economy aims to turn former coal miners and others into machine us.

>> You can.

Lee is a cutting edge workforce development training center.

And we are reskilling and Upskilling the region's workforce for new careers.

>> In advanced manufacturing, logistics and transportation and anything of the digital age.

It's been an overwhelming success.

>> We started our first class.

We graduated our first class in 2007, 2.

And since that time we have graduated just under 200 students.

>> most of whom are now working >> Where the robotics industry.

>> It's a broad range because you can take the the robotics training here and apply to almost anything in the industry.

So you can go in to see her.

>> Kobach's or Thomas Rowe mobile industrial robots.

So the Rangers and limit the robots are not replacing jobs as mayor.

If anything, they're adding jobs.

>> Because now you're need someone to program and operate these robots and you can outsource your employees.

>> To do more than just staying in one location or more specific, too, just being test out for one specific job.

Now the employee has time to do multiple tasks by utilizing robots.

>> And I just took this as a late.

You know, I didn't know what I was getting at is, but I'm glad I did.

There's every day I wake up to something that is always guys.

Now it's always motivating.

>> I actually east from eastern Kentucky University back in >> it was enough.

He took over as it was hard to find a job early.

So I just kind of move back here.

I saw this opportunity took it.

I'm loving every second of it.

>> My dad went through this program 2 years ago and I've seen the success he had going through this it really does seem like a way better option than college because now they get you a job, 18 to professionalism.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

Here I was a 30 year coal miner.

>> Got laid off and was one of the first students in this class and was actually fortunate enough to get hired as a as a help.

Your instructor if we get a peek homeowner still coming through here earlier on there is there's more.

There are now a lot of homeowners have gone back to work.

Some of them up.

But there's still some out there that I'm sure will head this way.

At some 16 year coal miner.

yeah, I actually got up ended up getting on PI some payments.

And from an injury in the mines.

so that's when my life it really became totally unmanageable.

I end up going with prison sentence then hours into an 18 month through drug court program.

through that I started a sale and they are unknown.

And while this program here is just so near and dear.

>> This is not a second chance at life for me.

>> You can ease 40,000 square-foot training facility which is built on abandoned mine land welcomed its first class to November 2017 with students ranging in age from 18 to 55.

The program is open to anyone wanting Vance, manufacturing training.

♪ On Wednesday, Berea College Honor trailblazing feminist and author Bell Hooks Hooks was a former distinguished professor in residence and Appalachian studies at the college.

The first bell Hooks day, including a ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly named Bell Hooks Way previously known as Strive.

Also bearing her name.

The bell took center where they say they're planning to celebrate Hooks throughout the year and beyond.

>> This is our first annual Bell Hooks Day.

And we're very excited.

Bell is an Apple action.

She's a black Appalachian.

We don't often think of the 2 of those is complimentary, but they did co constitute who she was and believed herself to be.

>> And she wanted to come back to the hills of Kentucky.

>> Bell came to be professor emeritus of Korea and found her institute here.

The Bell fix enters a space where students from underrepresented populations can come to be as they are outside of the social scripts that circumscribed.

They're living.

What I mean by that is that we're all put in boxes, right?

But what does it mean if you have a foot in each box?

You know, what does it mean that I'm not just a black student?

So there's the black Cultural center.

I'm not just an Appalachian student, right?

So that's the Appalachian Center.

But I need a space right?

Can be a black Appalachian.

Queer non-binary student.

So what is that?

Intersectional space?

The bell Hooks center is that intersectional space.

She wanted the students of Berea College to see in her own words that you can because I'm Paul 10 and worldly and still come back and contribute something to your home community.

>> She wanted to be accessible.

She wanted to be of the people.

And that's why she is the name Bell Hooks.

Lower case.

She had a steam guests like Laverne Cox, Emma Watson, Chamonix Perry, Darnell Moore, Cornel West and they all came from the for the footage of her conversation and we're receiving an This wasn't a paid gig and she invited those people who she wanted to be in.

But a lot of time in this community West.

That became her imprint on the college.

We have an annual symposium starting next summer.

We will have that every We also have bell hooks enter artists in residence.

We have for our speaker series.

Gender talked.

>> Well, look, stay is one in a long line of events that we plan to continue to do in order to honor the way Bell left an imprint on our team.

>> Bell Hooks wrote more than 30 books and articles on feminism and the need for societal change and 2020 time magazine named her one of its 100 women of the year Cook books who would have turned 70 this year died last December.

♪ >> He's been singing the Blues since he picked up a guitar and 13 years old and next month when he will be inducted in the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.

>> 5 years ago, Tee Dee Young Day was proclaimed in September and a big celebration tomorrow night will help future musicians continue their education >> when I got out of school, I will go to Reverend cracked.

This is Impala tale.

That was like a a wall that divided the train tracks in street and just well, they're only is it and they drink.

They then.

>> they had good times.

They had a >> spoons.

They had jokes that And the the base that was on his own like a foot to was trying on and they will pull in big news.

And I was like.

You Mr. Harrison said.

It takes time and you replace your time.

And what am I what I want to might want to add that family figure it out.

How he's doing.

That's all but I embarassed seeing him.

So that's happening.

>> Loses a is a is a night that if we don't KET it out, it's basic common that Dave is make a drastic change that you would need to identify at the blue.

Here and TDs.

It's a even musician.

To come and be at home if you have a talent.

>> Don't have that avenue will will work, >> When >> you know so many years like in the neighborhood.

You do some in the Yeah, your neighbors is going to correct you.

Your neighbors is going to help you.

This is what we're not doing.

In Lexington, a lot of we're not getting involved, what it is and show them that, hey, we care.

We love you.

And I think this will make a difference and crimes and everything is going to change it.

>> education.

Is the future.

>> Is he to S we have a place?

The letter P. >> Set now corn.

These kids with him.

That's that's my whole idea.

Is it's a use this venue.

To reach out.

Thank you very much.

>> Thank you.

To be a blue celebration.

40 de Young is tomorrow night at the lyric Theater in Lexington.

He'll be inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame October 28th at Renfro Valley Entertainment Center.

Kentucky is known for its contributions to international cuisine.

You know, a few weeks ago we talked about the hot brown tomorrow, their cheese.

What is it and how is it made the story behind another Kentucky delicacy.

That's tomorrow night on Kentucky edition, which we hope to see you for at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central where we inform connect and inspire subscribe to our weekly Kentucky Edition, e-mail news letter and watch full episodes at KET Dot Org.

>> You can also find Kentucky Edition on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV and follow KET on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay in the loop.

And also welcome to follow me on Twitter at Renee K E T. Thank you so very much for joining us tonight and hope to see you right back here again tomorrow night.

Until then.

Take really good care.

Have a great night.

♪ ♪ ♪