This new terminal is a better representation of Western Kentucky.

When you arrive your home, Paducah has a new airport terminal and a new front door to the community.

When you come into our downtown area, you know that you're in Russellville and you really see the beauty in it.

We visit a small Kentucky town with big plans when it comes to growth.

So things were really changing here.

And Paducah was looking to see how could we adjust to these wonderful assets that we had.

How Paducah is Thriving Art scene has received entrance national attention.

I just want it to be able to spread not just in not just in the ghetto hazard, but I want it to spread all through eastern Kentucky and maybe one day the entire state and how one group is using art to create community.

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 Monday evening to you.

A special Labor Day special from Kentucky Edition.

It is Monday, September the fourth.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for spending some of your holiday with us.

Tonight, we are sharing stories about the revitalization efforts going on in cities across Kentucky.

You'll hear from the people behind the projects that are making a lasting impact on their community.

And we begin in Western Kentucky, where the Barclay Regional Airport in McCracken County opened its new $43 million terminal in early July.

The new terminal replaces one that was almost 70 years old.

We checked out the upgrades and got a sense of what it means for the community.

This new terminal is a better representation of Western Kentucky.

When you arrive your home, Paducah has a brand new airport terminal replacing the one that had served the community for 67 years.

It's pretty sweet.

They have a drive from here 10 minutes to the airport park, 100 feet from the gate, walk in, and in 15 minutes you're through security and and ready to get on the plane.

The old Barclay Regional Airport terminal lacked basic necessities.

The airport's executive director says the new terminal completely changes what people see when they arrive in Paducah.

This new terminal is fresh and new, and it was about time.

The old terminal, you know, didn't have sprinkler systems.

We had asbestos and it resembled more of an old time bus station rather than an airport terminal.

The new terminal has the appeal of a modern airport.

Art produced by locals adorns the walls.

New seating now has charging stations readily available.

TSA has the latest security upgrades.

There's even a bathroom for pets and for the first time, Barkly Regional has a SkyBridge allowing passengers to stay out of the elements.

90% of the money was through the Federal government.

We wouldn't have been able to approach anything like that without the federal government help.

State jumped in, helped a good deal.

We raised some money all on our own.

So it's really a community community effort.

Federal, state and local.

The $43 million terminal opened in early July and spans over 25,000 square feet.

About 5 million of the cost came from the state and more than another 5 million came from local governments.

Our effort was to bring the community together, whether it be the chamber, the city, the county business leaders, people in this community that make a difference.

We had to we had to rally all that support.

The airport is named after Alvin Barkley, the former vice president from western Kentucky.

It has one airline contour that flies to and from Charlotte.

The Charlotte Airport is one of the dozen largest hubs in the United States.

Now, with the new terminal, local leaders believe more flights are possible and that economic development possibilities are clear.

We're very interested in attracting new industry to Paducah, and we believe that any new industry is going to require a local airport to get in and out of, whether it be by private access or commercial.

And this new terminal really checks all the boxes for us.

It's a big plus for the community, not just for people individually traveling, but companies that come here, obviously, where we try to locate bring other economic development into the community and prospects come land at that airport.

And it's a it's a good first look at what our community has to offer.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm KC Parker, the airport's executive director and Paducah mayor say they're working to get a low cost airline to fly from Barclay Regional and to give western Kentucky residents a new choice of destination.

We recently began a new series Mondays on Main, featuring downtown revitalization efforts in communities all across Kentucky, and kicked the series off with a trip to Russellville, the seat of Logan County in south central Kentucky, as it celebrates its 225th birthday this year.

We're on a summer stroll on Main Street in downtown Russellville.

I kind of compare it to Mayberry.

Mayor Mark Stratton is a lifelong resident.

My dad had a business here back in the sixties, and so I can remember when downtown was booming every day.

It was a big out and it was a big outing for us kids and other kids.

And when it got to come to the big city of Russellville, things may look a little different these days, but Russellville is still home to lots of activity, including boutiques, restaurants and bed and breakfasts.

So when there's a good pattern of being able to eat and shop and visit and entertain all in the same area, I think that just creates a whole atmosphere.

And that's that's really what we're hoping to be able to accomplish as an atmosphere.

Part of that atmosphere revolves around the historic nature of the city.

Here in Russellville, we're very rich in a lot of history that we want to preserve.

According to the Chamber of Commerce, downtown is home to more than 200 businesses since the pandemic.

I would say there's been a huge trend for that shop local and the small business here at the chamber, we're really trying to emphasize that.

We say put your money where your heart is and there's room for more merchants to invest in the community.

The Logan Economic Alliance for Development is looking for new tenants to take over old buildings.

So we have been able to highlight about 11 properties that are downtown that we would really love to see some activity.

And we've already started to see a little activity on one end of our square.

And we have an investor there that is interested in helping us achieve our goal and is already looking into bringing possibly a restaurant or maybe some office space.

And we're really hoping that that starts to move us forward in the right direction.

City leaders say there's been renewed interest in recent years for downtown revitalize Asian.

I think downtown Russell, you know, has evolved over the years.

Like all downtowns and 2021, a group came together with the common goal of attracting more commerce and foot traffic.

There were a new committee was formed and that stands for revitalize, encourage and nurture, energize and welcome.

So those are our goals for what we're trying to do to our downtown area here in Russellville and actually all over Logan County.

We've got a well rounded group of individuals that all have like minded interest in just seeing the improvement in the county and the city specifically.

It's not just Main Street seeing more enterprise, but intersecting Fourth Street.

A small grocery store was purchased by new new owner and they completely revitalized it.

We've had a whole home that's been purchased and revitalized, and they're about to open as a new restaurant.

We have the loft, which has made huge renovations to their venue.

It's an event venue.

Steenburgen says while she looks forward to seeing more progress, she's proud of the work already accomplished.

When you come into our downtown area, you know that you're in Russellville and you really see the beauty in it.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

So after visiting Russellville for the first part of our Mondays on main series, we then headed over to Mt.

Sterling, the seat of Montgomery County, to see how a decades long revitalization project there has brightened up their downtown Main street.

And this downtown area has really just taken off in the last decade.

A group of people came together and just looked at our downtown, which we've got a great downtown we always have, but just said, we can do better.

We can start doing small things to just try to make noticeable impacts downtown.

So in 2010, a small building came up for sale.

It had been unoccupied since 1997 and I was able to purchase that building.

And that sort of started my love for the downtown and I was able to refurbish that.

And there was only two businesses that did survive more than three years in downtown, and every building was basically vacant.

Unless you were a lawyer or a bank.

And so we were trying to figure out how could we improve our downtown, make it more user friendly, walkable for growth.

We needed economic growth.

You cannot be successful as a solo business, so you have to have other businesses to support you.

I love my story of how I came to Mt.

Sterling.

I came for a visit and we were coming through town and we got stopped at the traffic light.

And I look to my right, which is the building that I'm in now, and it was empty, ran down, and I said, Oh, look at that building.

It is beautiful.

It would make a beautiful bridal store.

I lived in Florida and I already had an established bridal store where I custom designed all of my wedding gowns.

And my husband's like, Well, whoa, whoa, whoa.

This is your first time to town.

But I fell in love with the town immediately.

And all the warm, welcoming people.

And about three years later, we opened up Renee's bridal here in Mt.

Sterling.

And no regrets whatsoever.

We have, as a city offered small business facade grants and then so we have offered those grants to help businesses here in the city fix up the outside of their businesses, whether it's a paint job, a new window, a new door, maybe it's a new sign, but to make their business more inviting so people want to come in.

And so over the last ten years, we've really just seen so much excitement for people to want to join together and do what they can to make this community grow.

This street, the million dollar Street.

We came in and redid the waterli did this whole streetscape plan and flowers redid the sidewalks and look what it's done.

Businesses now want to invest here.

They want to have a business on this street.

This coffee shop, I mean, wow, what a what a great impact to our downtown area to have this wonderful coffee shop here.

It is not the same town that I opened my bridal store in six years ago.

And the businesses just keep coming and coming better.

And the reason why we're able to do that is because there's a strong heartbeat here in our sweet, beautiful town to shop local, support the local, and to really, really back us.

And so we couldn't do it without them.

Mount Stirling's most popular festivity is Court Days, a 220 year old tradition that draws thousands downtown to Scottsville now and Allen County, where our Laura Rogers is busy showing us how a team of creatives are transforming that community.

Ada Oliver has a graphic design degree from Georgetown College.

She returned home to Scottsville to open a boutique branding and design studio in 2019.

My first handful of clients were Scott Fall people and people I knew, and so it was a way for me to invest back in my community.

That same year, Seth Grades opened at Magnolia and Steele on West Main Street.

It's always been a dream of mine to own my own business as Allen County natives, both wanted to use their time and talents to better their community.

I was born and raised here.

Scotts has always been home, so I knew that I wanted to stay local to my hometown.

Really, the dream was to just have a space that I could beautify for my hometown.

Kind of set an expectation of what things could look like or be.

Oliver signed the lease on that space, her current office and a studio on the Scottsville Square and March of 2020, when the world was going home, I was leaving home.

Scotts was full of great talent.

Much of that talent makes up the heart of Scottsville, a group that promotes the development and success of the downtown area.

The last ten years it's been a significant change in the way it looks.

Part of that is due to the group's beautification efforts and a streetscape project that began about 25 years ago.

The facades of the buildings are gorgeous.

When I was a kid, it was just like a concrete jungle.

There was nothing pretty there.

And so to see all of the trees and the the plants and the flowers that bloom with every season, it's been a really neat process to watch happen.

The Heart of Scottsville meets monthly to discuss their goals and vision and to plan events that draw people downtown.

First, Friday is a huge thing that the heart puts on first Friday of every month we close down the square.

It's a huge vendor event.

Food trucks, tons of people come out and support.

It's just a really, really awesome night.

Oliver and Graves say the group's involvement with Kentucky Main Street and Main Street America has been helpful in its growth.

The foundation is already there, so it's not like we're starting with nothing.

We're able to utilize those resources, use processes that have worked and been successful in other small towns and implement those things here.

The Scottsville Square is also home to the Allen County Farmers Market, open twice a week to support growers and producers and to give more opportunities for residents to shop local.

The Scottsville community is a very tight knit community.

When you come here you are going to see a community that supports one another well.

The heart of Scottsville extends that support, encouraging a healthy economy and the success of entrepreneurs.

Scotts has always been a place for small businesses to thrive.

There are lots of generationally owned businesses here, and both business owners say they hope Scottsville continues to thrive for generations to come.

Building on the work they're doing now is just a dream, and I'm extremely thankful to be where I'm at.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Heart of Scottsville recently won the Readers Choice Award for best nonprofit organization from the Citizen Times newspaper and Allen County.

Well, Scottsville isn't the only Kentucky city that understands the power of creativity.

Paducah has been touting its creative credentials for a decade.

This year, Paducah celebrates its 10th anniversary as a unique SCO creative city, one of only nine in the United States.

The global designation reflects the creativity and culture that you'll find there.

Laura Rogers She keeps on track into the western part of the state and visits with the Paducah Convention and Visitors Bureau about what this all means for the area.

I love we're doing what the big cities are, but you don't have to be a big city.

Fewer than 300 cities in the world are members of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

And Paducah, Kentucky is one of them.

It opens doors for us.

I have to say, it has opened doors for us internationally.

It's opened doors for us nationally across the state.

Mary Hammond is executive director of the Paducah Convention and Visitors Bureau.

She says it was the craftiness of early settlers that began.

Paducah has rich heritage of culture and creativity.

They came through the Cumberland Gap and down the Ohio River while they brought their goods with them, but they didn't bring a lot of clothes.

So every scrap of fabric was precious.

They saved all the fabric.

They pieced it together, made layers for warmth, and used those stitches from the home country.

Today, Paducah is home to such cultural assets as the National Quilt Museum, the Carson Center for the Performing Arts and the Lowertown Arts District.

UNESCO's has seven sub networks, and we found that we could check all the boxes for craft and folk art.

UNESCO's creative cities are chosen through a rigorous application process, showing how they prioritize creative and cultural industries and development plans.

You need to be a well-rounded community, a creative community that does value creativity and culture for sustainable urban development.

Once chosen, they also help review applications for future UNESCO's cities.

It's really cool to see relationships grow.

If it be in Japan.

Philippines tiles and has become to be very active.

One perk of the program hosting artists, performers and chefs from all over the world who share their time and talents with Western Kentucky.

A Paducah team also travels overseas and a recent trip to Spain, they taught locals how to hand stitch on quilt blocks.

It distinguishes us from all of those inland river cities that we share so much heritage with.

Each one has done something different.

Owensboro with the bluegrass music, you know, we all have something that we've taken hold of.

Culture and creativity are very much alive throughout our state and says the distinction gives them a, quote, seat at the table as she also serves on the U.S. Travel Association Board and is involved with Americans for the Arts.

It's inclusive of all different types of people in your community and other communities and finding those common bonds within your community that gives your city an identity.

And I think that's what I like the most.

We are a creative community.

She says it's proven an invaluable tool for marketing and promoting Paducah on the world stage.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

Santa Fe, New Mexico is the only other UNESCO's creative city for craft and folk art in the United States.

Now, art is one way to tie a community together, but food is another.

The people behind Cane Kitchen in Whitesburg have been working to improve physical and mental health through food.

We caught up with owner Valerie Horn, who was also a winner of the James Beard Foundation's National Leadership Award.

Our community is not healthy.

One is almost one in three have diabetes.

We have some of the highest cancer rates in the country.

We have the highest hypertension, obesity.

We do feel like food and healthy food is at the root of healing.

This is romaine lettuce.

I work with the Canton Community Center, City White Farmers Market and Cane Kitchen.

We sometimes refer to these as three sisters in reference to the Native American growing technique that used that grew beans, corn and squash together to use the least resources and provide the most gain.

We have tried very hard to lift up and find a space for everyone to have access to.

When you drive by live it on Thursday night, there's no family that would have to feel that that was not for you.

And it is for me.

Primarily, the free aspect is for that portion of our community, over 50% that we have below the poverty line.

But at the same time, we have our most affluent there and they enjoy it.

And so it's common ground in an opportunity for all to be there.

It's a farmer's market that no matter how many dollar bills were in your pocket, I think you'd be happy to be it and enjoy and want to have it provide proof of concept that it's not just a nice idea or sweet or cool, but it even makes financial sense that it there is value to it.

I was very pleased to learn that had been a an award winner for the James Beard Leadership Award.

It was a personal award as that's the way the awards are distributed.

But I very much except on behalf of this this team that is here and in this last year between the pandemic and between the flood, our community would not have survived without these helpers who have stepped up to do whatever they could at whatever level of resources that they had.

And we thank Valerie Horne for her leadership.

Eastern Kentucky is known for its arts and culture, and one organization in Hazard is making sure the creatives spirit gets passed on to a new generation of artists.

Our KC Parker Belle shows us how the Appalachian Arts Alliance is changing a community.

Eastern Kentucky is not the dark dreaded wastelands that a lot of people have have the image in their head of.

There's a vibrant, exciting, thriving community here.

How do you share something you love?

The main thing is not to miss anything.

For the three person team at the Appalachian Hearts Alliance.

You work to inspire a community.

Having it right here where people can can be in the community that they work in, that they live in, and having the opportunity to learn and play here has just made it a more seamless community.

Tim Deaton, executive director for the Arts Alliance, says they took off during the COVID pandemic.

They were one of the first to reopen their doors and the community was starving for a place to express themselves.

Now Hazards downtown is growing, and Deaton says the arts are two things.

People didn't really understand how the arts can influence and allow you to create a community.

Their programs range from theater.

I know you say that one line over here to music.

The reason I think it's important to, you know, be exposed to some culture, even if that's just taking a ballet class for a little kid, you know, for a semester this summer, a group of kids are working to put on a play from the ground up over just a week.

So when I was about 21, I was ready to to move away.

I was I didn't feel like there is anything here.

Lindsey Branson grew up in Perry County.

She moved away to pursue a music career but moved back and found a home in Hazzard.

I just love being able to work in Appalachia and be the person that younger me wish she could have had growing up.

The feeling is the same for the whole staff.

Deaton returned after pursuing his dreams in New York.

Just the mountains called me home.

I wanted to be back here with my family and with my people.

And so providing an opportunity to the next generations that I never had the opportunity to learn and to find a craft that you're interested in and actually craft that and hone in on those skills before you take that next step into later education.

It would have been a landmark for me.

The staff pursued what they believed to be their biggest dreams, but found that what they really wanted was back home, helping the next generation learn life's lessons through art.

We have a rich, rich heritage, a rich culture, and we're not going to let it die.

I just want it to be able to spread not just and not just in the good ole hazard, but I want it to spread all through eastern Kentucky and maybe one day the entire state.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm K.C.

Parker.

Bo.

No, thank you, KC.

And thank you to also Laura Rogers for these great stories that have taken us from eastern Kentucky to western Kentucky to show you the great revitalization efforts going on in those cities to make our entire Commonwealth a better place to live, work and play.

We've got some more great stories in line for you tomorrow, so we'll hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

We hope you all subscribe to our weekly Kentucky edition email newsletter that now comes out twice a week and watch full episodes and clips at KET dot org Now you can also find us on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV, so you can watch us anytime, anywhere on demand.

And we welcome you to send us a story idea at Public Affairs at KET dot org Maybe your community is the next one we feature on Mondays on Main.

And we invite you to follow Katie on Facebook X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram, to stay in the loop.

Thank you so much for watching.

I hope you have a great rest of your holiday and I will see you right back here again tomorrow night for Kentucky Edition.

Until I see you again, take really good care.