Opportunities

Young musicians ages 15 - 20 are eligible to apply for the highly competitive Kennedy Center/National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Summer Music Institute held July 2-30 in Washington, D.C. Only one student from Kentucky will be selected to receive a National Trustees' fellowship, which is a full scholarship, including housing, food allowance and local transportation. The Summer Music Institute gives students an opportunity to work with NSO members, receive private lessons and chamber music coaching, attend master classes and seminars, participate in the Summer Music Institute orchestra and perform in the D.C. metropolitan area.

Children's activity levels have dropped in recent decades through a number of factors, among them, cultural shifts in the way parents and supervisors address issues of child safety and supervision, differences in built and outdoor environments, to an increase in screen time. The days of neighborhood kids safely playing kick-the-can in bucolic suburbs have given way to supervised meetings and organized activity, increased school hours with less physical activity built into the day and greater use of electronic media.

At a time when spirits are generally low over the state of the economy, and the level of vitriol is high in matters of public interest, it is comforting to witness what promises to be a cooperative and uplifting community-wide effort. Anyone who left the Wednesday morning meeting at the Clark County Extension Services office with anything less than a sense of optimism was not paying attention. This community is fortunate to have the resources and the vision revealed by the Clark Regional Foundation for the Promotion of Health and its partner, the Clark County Health Department and Home Health Agency.

A third walking path is now available to Clark County citizens, thanks to a partnership between the Clark County Extension Service and Sekisui. “It's something that our office has talked about for a long time,” said Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences Jennifer Howard. The 1/8-mile path is on Extension Office property at 1400 Fortune Drive. Howard said representatives from the Sekisui America Corporation approached the Extension Office about working together on an environmental project.

One member of the Northern Kentucky Tea Party described the process of getting a local initiative on the November ballot as “frustrating.” It just got worse for the group trying to dissolve a bloated government agency. Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe ruled thousands of them “inadmissible.” Scores of Kenton County citizens, who belong to the Tea Party and the Home Builders Association of Northern Kentucky have spent months gathering signatures on a petition that would dissolve the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission on the November ballot.

Joe Malone first met John Calipari in the early 1990's when Calipari was coaching at Massachusetts, but it was the 1996 Final Four that the UMass coach truly impressed Malone. UMass lost to eventual national champion Kentucky in the Final Four that year when Calipari's team had a rally thwarted when he was given a technical foul for being outside the coaching box. “After the game, John's comments were all about it was his mistake. He apologized to the team and said it would not happen again,” Malone said.

Taylor Estes is getting plenty of chances to catch the eye of college softball coaches, and she will also get a chance to represent her county. The Danville junior catcher has been chosen to participate in the Queen of Diamonds Showcase South next month, and she has been selected as one of 50 players to represent the United States in the World Cup of Softball next January in the Netherlands. “I'm the only girl from Kentucky going to the World Cup. There's a lot of preparing for that trip.

Beginning Aug. 1, local teenagers will have an opportunity to spend a fun-filled week learning about the environment and how to enhance, use and protect it for future generations, all for free. Eco Camp 2011 is a joint venture of local manufacturer Sekisui S-LEC America, the Clark County Cooperative Extension Service and several other community groups for teens ages 14-17. It will be from Aug. 1 to 5 at the Sekisui plant located at 1200 Rolling Hills Lane in the Winchester Industrial Park.

All kids are not alike, and statistics show that some students just don’t perform as well as others in a traditional school setting. Unfortunately, all too often, some traditional school administrators and teachers give up on some of those students, and they fall by the wayside. Dropout rates are at an all-time high across Kentucky, and school districts are scrambling to find ways of engaging the at-risk students and keeping them in school and graduating. One way Clark County Public Schools is addressing the needs of its at-risk students is the Clark -Bourbon Day Treatment Program.

Stories about adventure opportunities in Kentucky are now available online with a new blog from the state’s Office of Adventure Tourism. Regional writers will provide material for the “Outdoor Adventure Blog.” Some of the topics already covered include winter hiking, Mammoth Cave, goose hunting, eagle watch weekends at state parks and various travel options in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. The blog can be viewed at www.getoutKY.com. The blog currently features eight writers covering four regions: west, east, north central and south central.