Package

The Winchester Board of Commissioners is considering a $3.3 million package from local firm Codell Construction to manage building of the College Park pool project. Kenny Davis, a Codell project manager, presented the commission with a bid tally and total cost estimate Tuesday. The package contains $2.7 million in bids from 11 contractors for work such as masonry, plumbing and site preparation. Another $581,000 in fees would be added onto the bid amount, including a $215,000 fee for Codell Construction to manage the project.

Charges against a Winchester man for accepting a package containing 2,500 oxycodone pills are going to the grand jury. James Dyer, 38 of 508 College St. was arrested last week for first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance after Winchester Police intercepted the package from FedEx. When the package was delivered to an apartment on Oxford Drive, Dyer accepted it, police said. The box contained 27 packages of the 30-milligram pills, which carry a street value of approximately $80,000, police said.

A grassroots effort has emerged to get package alcohol sales on the ballot in Danville. Black binders holding petitions are now sitting next to cash registers at several local gas stations. Chris Hill, owner of Chills Quick Stop locations on Hustonville Road and Lexington Avenue, said he has had the petition in his store since mid-summer. Hill said he did not know how many signatures have been collected but noted that the reaction has been positive. "Everyone is talking about it, and they want something done," Hill said.

In a sting operation using drug enforcement agents and Kentucky State police, a Danville man was arrested last week and charged with drug trafficking. Hector Espinoza, 22, 726 Second St., is charged with trafficking in more than 5 pounds of marijuana after police say he took possession of a package shipped by Federal Express that contained a brick of marijuana weighing close to 10 pounds. The drugs were reportedly discovered by Fed Ex officials after the package was returned to them with an incorrect address, according to Assistant County Attorney Carol Hill.

Business owners in Lincoln County are invited to attend a free seminar, where new online advertising opportunities will be explained by representatives of The Advocate-Messenger, a sister newspaper of The Interior Journal. The seminar will be held at Itsa Restaurant, 835 U.S. 27 N, at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15. A drawing will be held, and one business in attendance will win a Platinum banner package for one year on FindItKy.com, a new business-directory search engine that is being touted as a viable alternative to Yellow Pages.

Golfers can tee off with extra money in their pockets when they take along the American Lung Association's 25th annual Kentucky Golf Tour Book. The book offers reduced rates at more than 350 courses, practice ranges and indoor facilities, including 186 courses in Kentucky as well as courses in Indiana, Tennessee and Michigan. Listed in the package are courses in and around Boyle County, including Old Bridge Golf Club in Danville. All proceeds from the Kentucky Golf Tour Book go directly to the Lung Association to support important medical research and other lung health programs in local communities.

The central Kentucky chapter of the American Red Cross in cooperation with the Danville Walmart store is sponsoring a Gift from Home for GI Jo(e), which will send a care package of goodies to Boyle and Mercer county service personnel stationed abroad. The list of goodies was supplied by local National Guard personnel. Walmart will display a sample package that will sell for $20. Anyone wishing to purchase a package to be sent to the service personnel will take a card from the display and pay for that package at checkout.

HARRODSBURG - A new wireless Internet service will be available soon to residents of Harrodsburg and most Mercer County residents. Jason A. Bagan, owner of Burgin Wireless, received permission Monday from Harrodsburg City Commission to put antennas for the service on three city water towers. Bagan said the service will be available to city residents and 75 percent of county residents within six weeks and the entire county in three to four months. He also is exploring offering the service to residents in Anderson and Washington counties.

Intelligrated, the company that owns Danville's FKI Logistex factory, plans to finalize in December an economic incentive package with the state of Ohio that will allow it to close its Danville operations. Intelligrated's Vice President and General Counsel Mark Tefend said parts of the $24 million package offered by Ohio were approved on Oct. 26, and the company expects final approval of the remaining portions to be complete on Dec. 7. The deal will allow Intelligrated to retain 537 jobs at its current Ohio plants, while adding 267 new ones, according to a news release from the company.

CARROLLTON — General Butler State Resort Park is hosting a “Spirits of Butler Paranormal Weekend” on Oct. 23-24. Join Starr Williams, certified ghost investigator and spokesperson of Psy Tech Radio, and the investigation team RIP for a weekend of ghost hunting at the Butler-Turpin State Historic House and cemetery located at General Butler State Resort Park in Carrollton. Learn about the theories, the latest in high-tech equipment and the best practices of ghost investigations followed by an actual investigation led by the “Spirits of Butler” team.

Calling all gamers! If you haven't heard yet, the Humble Bundle crew has their latest bundle available. The bundle's retail value is worth more than $210. Hurry if you want to get in on the fun because tomorrow is the last day to get the bundle at whatever price you would like to pay, starting at only $1. This bundle is called the Humble THQ Bundle. Among the games included with the bundle are Company of Heroes, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, Darksiders, Metro 2033 and Red Faction: Armageddon.

WILMORE - It's no big news Asbury University sent students to help broadcast the London Olympic Games this summer - the institution has had students working in broadcasting for every Olypmics since 1984. What was big news was that of the eight journalism students who went across the Atlantic in July, one was from Garrard County. Courtney LeMay, now a senior, is majoring in media communications as well as journalism and thought her chances of going to London were gone when she didn't hear back about going with the media-communications department.

It's no big news that Asbury University sent students to help broadcast the London Olympic Games this summer - the institution has had students working in broadcasting for every Games since 1984. What was big news was the eight journalism students who went across the Atlantic in July - one of them from right across the river in Garrard County with a lot of Jessamine County connections. Courtney LeMay is now in her senior year at Asbury, and she has strong ties to the county through her mother, Alesia Sallee, who has taught in Jessamine County schools for 28 years; as well as her stepfather, Ralph Sallee, who coached the girls' basketball team at East Jessamine High School before he died from cancer in 2009.

LEXINGTON - They were always going to be a package deal. From the time they began hearing from college coaches, there was never any question that Daron and Zack Blaylock were going to the same school. The twins have too tight a bond with each other, too many shared experiences, too much in common to go their separate ways just yet. So long before the two freshman safeties knew they were coming to Kentucky, they came to the realization that wherever they were going, they were going together.

Betty Smith is taking a break from writing her column while she recuperates from surgery. In the meantime, the Sun is repeating some of her recent columns. Isn't it strange what some people save? And I am guilty. Mike is still trying to get the attic cleaned out, so he brought down a small box with a lot of yellowed, tattered newspaper clippings. Only one was dated, just clipped out of some paper in a distant time. The only one that I recognized was regarding a parcel sale to benefit the patients at the Veterans Hospital in Lexington.

Kevin Hopkins will be the guest of honor at Super Bowl XLVI Sunday in Indianapolis. Hopkins, employed at Scott's Service and Towing in Winchester, won an all-expenses paid trip last week during a drawing sponsored by NBC¿affiliate WLEX TV¿Channel 18 in Lexington. Hopkins entered the drawing with his sights set on a 92-inch television, but wasn't disappointed when his name was drawn for the SuperBowl package valued at more than $9,000. Hopkins was one of 18,000 people who entered to win one of the prize packages offered by the station.

Like many fathers and mothers of military members deployed in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, Jonah and Diane Mitchell always look forward to any correspondence from their son, Capt. Jason Mitchell. But a recent newsletter sent out by Capt. Mitchell's company stopped Jonah Mitchell in his tracks as he read it. “It tore at my heart,” Jonah Mitchell said. Under his son's command are 160 soldiers who are lacking care packages filled with items that most people take for granted - items such as drink mixes, nuts, dried fruits and toiletries.

A large portion of South Main Street in Nicholasville was closed Monday morning while bomb squads investigated a suspicious package that turned out to be an alarm box used on fire doors. Nicholasville City Commissioner Andy Williams saw a red box sitting against a tree in front of the post office as he drove by early in the morning, and he reported the item to police. “I had went to the post office a little bit after 6 this morning to drop off my bills, and as I pulled in there, I saw it sitting, and I thought, ‘This looks kind of strange,’ so I drove back around and took another look at it and thought, ‘Well, maybe you’d better go and check it out with PD,” Williams said.

Winchester Municipal Utilities is forgoing a self-funded insurance program, opting instead for new policies that will create thousands in savings on the utility’s benefits package. The WMU Commission approved a series of agreements Thursday for health, dental, life and disability insurance, that will essentially provide the same level of benefits for employees as the current plan. However, Jeff Truitt from the Benefit Insurance Marketing said the new policies will save more than $21,000 next year thanks primarily to a 1.9 percent drop in premiums for medical coverage.

Some local businesses have joined in with a church group to make Christmas brighter for 29 soldiers in the 101st Airborne deployed to Afghanistan from Fort Campbell, Ky. Women from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Danville started gathering items for the soldiers over the summer after one of the women visited the new Sam’s Club in Nicholasville and happened to see a similar effort being conducted for the soldiers by the Wilmore...