Kentucky Life.

Thirty seasons, wow.

What a landmark for our show and it's one that we're really proud of.

There is another important landmark in Kentucky this year.

It's the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Kentucky State Park System.

We're going to be celebrating this all throughout our season and figured what better way to kick things off than at one of the most iconic sites in the state park system, Chained Rock at Pine Mountain State Resort Park.

In the 30th season of our show, we're going to explore from here to Cumberland Falls to the Land Between the Lakes to Natural Bridge and all points in between.

Our Kentucky Life vans are gassed up and we've been putting the miles on them to bring you stories from some of our state's most iconic places.

So, come along with us as we explore some of the best the Commonwealth has to offer this season on Kentucky Life!

█ █ █ █ Welcome to Pine Mountain State Resort Park, our backdrop for this episode of Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston.

It made sense to have show number one of our 30th season here as Pine Mountain was park number one in the state park system.

A hundred years ago, it received that designation and remains a crown jewel in the Commonwealth.

With miles of hiking trails, two golf courses and bountiful wildlife, this really is a remarkable place to explore.

We'll learn more about it a little later in our show.

But first, if you've looked up lately, you might have noticed the airways are busier than ever as more and more travelers are flying.

Increased demand coupled with a generation of pilots reaching retirement age has created plenty of opportunities for new flyers.

And at Eastern Kentucky University, aviation students are rising to the challenge.

I had a chance to take to the skies with them.

Come along for the ride.

█ █ █ █ I feel the need.

The need for speed.

..280 Mike [Eku] is taking off Runway 36, departing to the north.

Flight instructor Coleman Dillon offered us a lift in a Cessna 172, so we could see for ourselves how EKU aviation students learn to fly.

And we can see Richmond over there to our right.

Oh, yeah.

I can see it there.

Yeah, the view is spectacular.

It really is.

All right.

So, how would you like to take the controls for a little bit?

It feels a little bumpy for that.

[Coleman laughs] I kind of like you doing this right now.

All right.

That's fine, that's fine.

Okay, so maybe I'm not quite ready to take the reins just yet, but I did meet a few students who definitely are.

So my mom's a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines and then my stepdad's a pilot for them.

So, I kind of grew up traveling and in the business, so that's kind of what got me into it.

I wanted to be an engineer originally and then in my senior of high school I did a discovery flight, and after that I was like, this is awesome.

It's funny.

I was actually afraid to fly growing up.

No joke, yeah.

Flying a small plane is a lot different than riding in the back of a big plane.

I'd tell everybody, go take a discovery flight.

Most every airport, they have a flight school, they offer discovery flights.

And they'll just take you up and let you try it, and it's awesome.

So, yeah, get in that small plane and being in control of it is different than like riding in the back.

You know, you're in control, it makes you feel a lot more safe.

You're like, okay, I kind of know what's going on.

And then, like, you come here and they tell you everything you need to know about a plane, the ins and outs of everything, and so you -- if something goes wrong, it kind of clicks in, you know exactly what to do and it makes you feel really good about it, yeah.

Well, growing up, I've always just been interested in aviation.

I used to want to go into the Air Force.

And in high school, I did some job shadowing and I talked to some people about like commercial airlines, stuff like that.

And I was really interested.

My major is professional flight, so I fly out of here, and then I also have the aerospace management dual concentration.

So, that's more the business side of it.

It's just so much stuff like outside of the classroom.

You're in an airplane every day and it's great.

And it's something you do for school and it's just a lot of fun.

Modern flight simulator technology has made the transition much easier for students who train in realistic conditions with virtual reality headsets.

We use them for our private, which is our first certification, as well as instrument training.

And the idea is before they even step foot in an airplane, they're here doing some of the basic fundamentals.

Doing a pre-flight, doing monkey skills of up and down, left and right kinds of things so that they can, again, reduce the amount of time and the cost that they're actually in an airplane.

All of this adds up to a whole world of opportunity for graduates.

The demand for pilots in the US and worldwide is continuing to expand.

Our students will graduate with about 250 to 300 hours.

So the goal is you got to get to that thousand hours.

So the regional airlines is where most of our pilots go.

Regionals are the equivalent -- the analogy I use is the Triple-A league for Major League Baseball.

And then after a few years, then they get promoted up into the majors.

You're flying for Delta, proper, big airplanes, 737s, 757s.

How did we get to this place where we see such a shortage of pilots?

It's a mandatory retirement.

The FAA says it's age 65 you can't fly commercially.

And as the post-Vietnam older folks, and I'll throw myself into that category, that's where a vast majority of those captains that are manning the cockpits of major airlines, they're all reaching that age.

And there are thousands that are leaving every month.

And the airlines are looking over their shoulders saying, "Where are these pilots coming from?

We've got to --" because of the demand.

Right.

The demand is up.

There are more retiring than there are being graduated from programs in the military.

So the airlines are looking to fill that void and our program happens to be the beneficiary of that demand.

Flight instructors say teaching the next generation of pilots is a big responsibility, but quite the rewarding experience.

I fly one-on-one with students.

I get to give them direct feedback.

So I basically get paid to sit and fly and yell at people.

I love it.

It's perfect.

No, I'm just kidding.

I don't yell, but we do do a lot of constructive feedback and all that stuff, and we're always learning in the plane.

It's a dream job.

I love it.

I believe in the old saying, if you love what you do, never work a day in your life.

And I know a lot of pilots over the years who feel exactly the same way.

And I've heard them say, "You know, I'd do this for free if I didn't get paid."

I don't believe that, but it's a nice feeling when you do love what you do.

And while most students will graduate and quickly become airborne, I think I'm gonna stay out of the cockpit for now.

What a beautiful sight.

So, you're sure you don't want to take the control?

You know, I'm feeling better with you, you literally flying the plane, man.

That's all right.

It's a little bumpy up here for me.

That's okay.

All right, I'm going to reduce the power to 1,500 and we're going to start slowly descending.

And once we're about 45 degrees past the runway, which is about now, we're gonna go ahead and make this base turn.

Central traffic SCOG 280 Mike Eku is turning left base for Runway 36.

Full stop.

Central.

And final looks clear, might be a smidge high.

And there we go.

Beautiful.

Bang.

Great job, man.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I think you got a future in this.

[chuckles] I hope so.

I see big things for you, Coleman.

I do.

Thank you, thank you.

I'm gonna start looking inside every cockpit of every commercial flight I get in now to see if my new buddy Coleman's in.

Yeah, I hope to see you sometime.

That'd be great.

That would be so cool.

█ █ █ █ We're here at the Laurel Cove Amphitheater at the beautiful Pine Mountain State Resort Park.

As we told you a little earlier in the show, throughout the course of our season on Kentucky Life, we're going to be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Kentucky State Parks Group.

Here to tell us a little bit more about this, we've got Ron Vanover.

He's Deputy Commissioner.

And Jennifer Spence, she is the curator for Kentucky State Parks.

Thank you both for being with us.

Thank you.

And, Ron, let's start with you.

This was park number one.

There were three other parks in that initial system.

Tell us about those.

Sure.

Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky, was one of those beautiful state parks that was chosen because of the railroad system.

It was so integral during that time.

And the railroad ended up donating and working with the Kentucky State Parks Commission to make that state park, which is a part of the Red River Gorge region in that area.

And then, later you would have Pioneer Memorial State Park, which we know today as Old Ford Harrod.

And please keep in mind that Harrodsburg is celebrating its 250th anniversary, which is remarkable for a park.

And then, you have the Blue and Gray.

Now, the Blue and Gray, it's no longer a state park.

But it was considered a healing park.

It was built with the emphasis of knowing that we could take the Confederacy and the Union and link it together as a healing where they could come together at that park.

What is there now?

What's there at that point?

It's farmland now.

In the late '30s, it did not get the economic movement that they thought.

And the governor at the time ended up selling the property.

Jennifer, the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, it really was a turning point for the system with what they were able to do from an infrastructure standpoint, right?

Yes.

Both of those programs were able to help Kentucky State Parks, the early parks, develop and build infrastructure through trails, through shelters, through museums even, through the beautiful Laurel Cove Amphitheater that we have here today.

And then, from there in the '60s we really saw a boom in the park system.

What brought that about?

There was a national trend in travel, especially after the Second World War.

People had money, they were traveling, they had the time off from work.

But Governor Bert T. Combs... Combs, right.

He really pushed for Kentucky State Parks to become the epicenter of recreational activities in the United States.

And that's really when -- the infrastructure was already there from the WPA and everything, but he really gave it the push to kind of take it to the next level, right?

Yes.

He built our parks to become resort parks with swimming pools, horse trails, lots of overnight accommodations through renovating lodges, building new lodges.

So a lot of the footprint we see today...

Yes, absolutely.

..just really came from that.

Ron, let me ask you.

A century ago, the General Assembly set up the park system and they had a very distinct purpose that they wanted it to do.

They wanted it together for the preservation, beautification, and maintenance of parks.

A century in, do you think you've been able to do that?

Absolutely.

You know, when we look at how beautiful our state park system is, we're considered the nation's finest.

All the states know who we are.

We've built upon that emphasis.

We're working towards sustainability moving forward as well.

But yeah, the vision of Dr. Willard Jillson and what he brought coming off of a train in Prestonsburg to where he became the leader of our state park system to move it forward is remarkable.

And looking at things from a more contemporary standpoint, in the times of disaster, the state park system has really been there to help.

Tell me about that.

It's all about being Team Kentucky.

It really is.

We are a part of the Kentucky Emergency Management System at the moment in terms of anytime there's bad weather predictions, we have a seat at the table.

And our Law Enforcement Division, called our rangers, are sitting at that table giving information to all of us.

We've not only helped with COVID-19, we've helped with the devastating tornadoes.

We've helped with flooding here recently.

And then another tornado came.

And we're presently housing 10 families now at Pennyrile Forest State Park.

And so really housing is the key to that for people who have been displaced by a natural disaster.

Compassion, being housing, this is what we do with Team Kentucky.

A final question, we looked back on how all this came together, and Ron, I'll ask you in particular, looking ahead 100 years from now, where do you think all this will be?

It's going to be even better, because we have set a strong foundation to move it forward into the next 100 years.

You know, I'm reminded about Mrs. Wooten, who was the spouse of Bailey Wooten, one of our former commissioners.

Once she said, "These parks were planned, they were planned for acquisition, but they were put together by people, remarkable people."

And we have remarkable people along with legislative support that's gonna move this forward for the next 100 years.

Well, it's clearly a passion project for all of you.

And we appreciate all the work that you do with that.

Again, Ron Vanover, Jennifer Spence, thanks for being with us today.

You're most welcome.

Thank you.

█ █ █ █ Kentucky has been home to some legendary musicians over the years.

From Western Kentucky, there's the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe.

From Eastern Kentucky, you've got country stars like Loretta Lynn and Dwight Yoakam.

And Louisville and Bowling Green have produced hip-hop and rock groups like Nappy Roots, Cage the Elephant, and My Morning Jacket.

With so much musical talent coming from every corner of our state, the Frazier Museum in Louisville set a challenge for itself, creating a playlist featuring one artist from every county in Kentucky.

And when you take a listen, you'll find 120 examples of Kentucky's musical excellence.

█ █ █ █ You can't pigeonhole Kentucky in terms of its artistic identity.

We associate Kentucky with bluegrass music, folk music, country music, all of which is phenomenal.

But Kentucky has produced so much more than that, and it's a shame that we don't talk about it enough.

█ █ █ █ I've worked in marketing at the museum since 2017.

In 2021, I started giving tours of our Cool Kentucky Exhibition.

And I made it a mission of mine to learn more about the pop culture of the state, started watching more Kentucky movies, reading more Kentucky history books.

One big blank spot in my Kentucky knowledge was music.

So, I took the drastic step back in 2021 of deleting everything on my Spotify, starting from scratch, and building up a playlist of only Kentucky music.

As I started building this list, I realized, wow, I'm growing geographically.

I'm learning a lot of music genres that I enjoy that I hadn't enjoyed before, but also the geographic diversity of Kentucky.

I was realizing there are 120 counties in this state.

I had about 60 of them represented just organically stuff, music that I'd found that I'd enjoyed.

And I thought, I wonder if I could find music from all the counties in Kentucky.

At the same time, the museum was actually working on a new exhibit called 120, where we're collecting stories and interesting history and myths and legends from the State of Kentucky.

And we thought, well, I'm working on this big playlist, why don't we just bake that into the exhibit?

So, I eventually concluded my playlist where I reached one song from every county in Kentucky.

We've got Appalachian dulcimer music, emo, opera, Motown, new wave, Latin pop music, prison rock, feminist hillbilly string music.

Micro genres that you hadn't even heard of before that are represented by really creative, innovative artists coming out of the State of Kentucky, whose music is informed by their location in Kentucky.

I mean, this playlist has, of course, the big heavy hitters of Kentucky music history, Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Jean Ritchie, Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Patty Loveless, Nappy Roots, Tyler Childers.

But you keep looking, there are 120 counties to represent.

I just named about eight or nine artists.

We've got 110 more people just to showcase.

And the harder you look, the more you will find some really incredible, talented people coming out of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

█ █ █ █ Growing up in Kentucky, I feel like country music was just -- I mean, you know, if you grew up in Kentucky, you feel like you're just country.

No matter if your music is or not.

I was born and raised in Ballard County, Kentucky, which is like the real Western Kentucky, right?

We're way over there.

I just grew up in the Ohio River bottoms, essentially.

So, grew up hunting and fishing and all that stuff.

And honestly, just exploring.

I see Kentucky show up in my own music with pretty much everything that I do.

You know, I feel like Kentucky as a whole can be really complex.

# When things got rough we did not complain # # Kentucky, 1988 # So, I wrote Kentucky 1988, actually, with Coal Miner's Daughter in mind, because when that album came out, I felt like I didn't have anything that kind of talked about my origin story or anything, you know.

That song is just about saying it wasn't all good, it wasn't all bad, but every part of it has made me who I am today.

I'm from a rural area.

I think there's kind of a lot of beauty in that.

You know, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of everything.

It's really complex.

I just have always tried to portray that and something to be proud of, I think.

[yodeling] I love yodeling because it's different, not everyone does that.

Yodeling is when you flip your voice an octave higher and then you do it really fast and stuff.

I was coming back from vacation and we heard LeAnn Rimes sing Blue and had like a voice loop kind of yodel thing.

And I thought it was really cool.

So the next day I went downstairs and practiced until I could kind of get it.

And then, my mom introduced me to Cowboy's Sweetheart, the song.

And then, I thought it was really cool because it had a yodel in it and I started yodeling after that.

I'm 14 years old.

I'm from London, Kentucky.

Laurel County is amazing.

There's the Honey Bun Festival, the Chicken Festival, Levi Jackson State Park.

It's not too big, it is not too small.

Everyone's really nice to each other.

It's just a really nice place to grow up.

They are very supportive of what I do and always invite me to events to sing my western music.

And I should write a song about Laurel County.

█ █ █ █ This is a very, very, very Kentucky band.

We go around the world in the State of Kentucky.

Kind of model ourselves after Springsteen, the way he says he's Jersey every other sentence.

We started this thing in 1985.

Both got kicked out of college, basically, nothing left to do.

We got together in Scott's living room with a drummer named Toby Myrick, who just got off work at Domino's Pizza.

He came over, played a version of Six Days on the Road real hard and fast, and just clicked.

It was magic off the bat.

That terminology, cowpunk, we didn't invent it, we perfected it.

But cowpunk is like the melding of country bluegrass with hard rock, punk rock sounds.

It's pretty descriptive in the title.

It's kind of country punk, cowpunk.

And Ramones [] Johnny Cash, and I play a lot like Johnny Ramone and he sounds a lot like Johnny Cash.

So that's kind of dead on.

We sing about stuff that happens around Owensboro and the stuff we grew up with.

And kind of satirical look and kind of making fun of stuff, but still with a certain...

Reverence to it.

Certain reverence, yeah.

For sure.

The first song we ever wrote was -- I came up with this thing called Gearhead Blues about all the hotrodders and gearheads in high school, right?

Then it just kind of evolved into that, like, okay, we're gonna write about our surroundings and not try to be something we're not.

█ █ █ █ So, there was just a -- it was just, you know -- You were flunking out at UK at the time.

[Crosstalk] Yeah, I was in the UK.

I was flunking out at Western.

We were just home for the summer, hanging out with all our friends we graduated with.

We're at this party with like 400 people.

This dude stole the tractor and he climbs up, accidentally climbs up on these cars and just starts smashing these cars.

Everybody went deathly silent, you know, just everybody turned and looked at this thing, and then he stopped.

And then, just everybody started scream, I mean, it was like, it was insane.

It was total chaos.

So, it's just, it was one of those folk tales, you know, and it's like, it's perfect for us.

Again, we're not going to think about, talk about something we don't know about.

█ █ █ █ My biggest influences from my youth really were my parents' record collections.

So, just being able to throw those vinyl on the turntable, that really inspired my love for the technology itself, and for just, yeah, all of the hidden sonic gems that are found on wax.

I produce music and DJ under the moniker, Yared Sound.

And I co-own and cooperate a music technology and education company called Rhythm Science Sound.

In general, we make rhythm science, right?

So it's a wide swath of sound, but it could generally be categorized as electronic music in all of its dialects.

I mean, the place where I grew up in Nelson County is all throughout my music.

We lived outside of the city in the middle of the forest and so my childhood was being in the forest a lot.

And still to this day, the influence of forest song and just the silence that also you hear in the forest, that definitely influenced how I approach sound making and music making.

You know, I think the music that I make is folk music in a way.

I think it's just a question of technology.

So, if I'm sampling an almost 100-year-old song that was originally an old R&B or blues or folk song, is it still a blues and folk song when it comes out with all of these new beats and synthesizers on it, right?

It still kind of has that same essence.

So, yeah, absolutely, I see myself as kind of continuing in a long tradition of Southern rhythm scientists.

So that was perhaps my fondest memory of my seven years working here at the Frazier History Museum.

Back on March 15, 2024, we opened our 120 Cool Kentucky Counties exhibit.

We had about 30 to 40 different musicians from different counties appear at the exhibit opening.

Our one featured performer was Phoebe White.

We asked her to perform a set, and she sang Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky.

And we had all those musicians in the house sing accompanying vocals to Phoebe's performance, and it was a very special moment.

It was just a real treat to be a part of Kentucky music history here at the Frazier History Museum.

# Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue # [cheers and applause] So that's it for the Season 30 premiere of Kentucky Life.

We have so many excellent adventures lined up for you in the Kentucky State Park system this season.

And we've really enjoyed kicking it off right here at State Park number one, Pine Mountain.

If you have never checked this out, be sure you do so.

Now, if you enjoyed our show, be sure and like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more of what we like to call Kentucky Life Extras, where you'll have access to lots of other great videos.

Until then, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky Life.

█ █ █ █