Young Life

My name is Diann Walker, and I live in Indianapolis, Ind. My nephew, Jason Walker, was killed in a car accident on March 19, 2003 in Somerset, Ky. Before Jason died, he became a father on Sept. 23, 2002, when Sara Nicole Walker was born. She was the light of Jason's life. Sara lives in Stanford with her aunt, her mom's sister. I am Jason's Aunt Diann and I am Sara's great aunt. I'm writing to you so that I may wish Little Sara a happy fourth birthday for Sept. 23, 2006.

LOUISVILLE - Representatives from First Southern National Bank, headquartered in Stanford, purchased the state's grand champion ham for $500,000 Thursday at the Kentucky State Fair. The 43rd annual Kentucky Country Ham Breakfast and charity auction was hosted by Kentucky Farm Bureau. This year's grand champion ham was a 17.26-pound offering, exhibited by Broadbent's B&B Food Products of Cadiz. Proceeds from First Southern's $500,000 winning bid will be given to the charity of First Southern's choosing.

Dear Editor: It has been another week of death and destruction for young Americans in Iraq. Last week alone cost 49 young American lives, and we still have no end in sight. How many more brave young American men and women must die before this horrible fiasco is ended by our power hungry and egotistical leaders? I urge every citizen of this great country to write your elected officials and demand the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. My own son serves in the U.S. Air Force and recently returned from Iraq.

Calvary Hill Baptist Church will host Duane and Iris Blue and son, Denim, on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6. The Blues will conduct a community-wide conference on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the church with song and message. A brown bag lunch will be served. The Blues will also be in charge of the morning and evening services on Sunday. The morning worship service will begin at 10:45 and will be followed by a potluck meal. The evening service will begin at 6 o'clock and will be followed by desserts and coffee.

STANFORD - Centre College President John Roush had a much younger audience than he's probably used to on March 27, when he paid a visit to Stanford Elementary School. Roush, Centre's 20th president, spoke to students about the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and what lessons they could learn from his life. "Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president and most important president in the history of our nation," Roush said. Lincoln exhibited three main qualities Roush told students they should strive to exhibit as well: honesty, kindness and courageousness.

If your heart is in your dream No request is too extreme When you wish upon a star As dreamers do — Disney theme song Abby Crews will soon get her wish — one most little girls only dream of, but that for her will be a dream come true. She has a date with a small, dark and handsome — mouse! “She’s head-over-heels in love with Mickey Mouse,” said her mother, Sara Crews, during a party with friends and relatives at Winchester’s McDonald’s Sunday afternoon.

December in the Bluegrass is filled with joyous occasions, family tradition and festive events celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve. Many of these holiday gatherings will include the consumption of alcohol, lending way to the potential for impaired drivers on Kentucky roadways. Every year law enforcement officials make a plea to those who drink to stay off the roads. While drunk driving is a horrible crime any day of the year, statistics show that the holiday season has the greatest incidence for crashes involving alcohol.

February is Black History Month, probably as good a time as any to let Skip know I'm sorry even if the offense committed against him occurred nearly 50 years ago. The memory is as vivid as the permanent stain put on our society by the way black people have been treated for decades. My rural Kentucky hometown was probably little different than most other small communities across the South in 1959. Blacks and whites could visit the same movie theater, but the people of color were required to enter through an alley and then sit in the balcony.

“See ya tomorrow,” the young lady said with a smile as she walked out of the doctor’s waiting room and headed toward the Mayo Clinic elevators. I noticed her before she even spoke because she was so fit, so healthy looking, and seemed so familiar with the space and the nurses. After she left the area, I walked (hobbled on my crutches) to the nurse behind the schedule desk. Since we've been going to Mayo to “stay as together as long as possible,” we’ve become friends with many of the nurses and the doctors and feel free to openly talk about most anything to them.

Young people, by definition, are joined at the hip with fantasy and acquired knowledge that often comes through difficult periods of trial and error. Children, crawling like worms across any surface prior to learning to walk, taste anything that comes within reach of their hands. It is a difficult period of life for those who watch them and find, inevitably, that there is no adult mechanism in place to prevent things being pulled from tables, sucked out of drawers, thrown into space, and pulled apart.

STANFORD - Centre College President John Roush had a much younger audience than he's probably used to on March 27, when he paid a visit to Stanford Elementary School. Roush, Centre's 20th president, spoke to students about the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and what lessons they could learn from his life. "Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president and most important president in the history of our nation," Roush said. Lincoln exhibited three main qualities Roush told students they should strive to exhibit as well: honesty, kindness and courageousness.

If your heart is in your dream No request is too extreme When you wish upon a star As dreamers do — Disney theme song Abby Crews will soon get her wish — one most little girls only dream of, but that for her will be a dream come true. She has a date with a small, dark and handsome — mouse! “She’s head-over-heels in love with Mickey Mouse,” said her mother, Sara Crews, during a party with friends and relatives at Winchester’s McDonald’s Sunday afternoon.

“See ya tomorrow,” the young lady said with a smile as she walked out of the doctor’s waiting room and headed toward the Mayo Clinic elevators. I noticed her before she even spoke because she was so fit, so healthy looking, and seemed so familiar with the space and the nurses. After she left the area, I walked (hobbled on my crutches) to the nurse behind the schedule desk. Since we've been going to Mayo to “stay as together as long as possible,” we’ve become friends with many of the nurses and the doctors and feel free to openly talk about most anything to them.

December in the Bluegrass is filled with joyous occasions, family tradition and festive events celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve. Many of these holiday gatherings will include the consumption of alcohol, lending way to the potential for impaired drivers on Kentucky roadways. Every year law enforcement officials make a plea to those who drink to stay off the roads. While drunk driving is a horrible crime any day of the year, statistics show that the holiday season has the greatest incidence for crashes involving alcohol.

Jennie Carol Tarter's life consisted of many loves - running, dining out, shopping, UK football, being on the water, Keeneland. But more than anything she loved her sons, 10-year-old Evan and 7-year-old Mason. "She loved being a mom," added Amy Longwill, friend of Jennie Carol. However, at age 34, her life was cut short. While celebrating her successful completion of the 2008 Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon over dinner the Friday following the April 26 race, Jennie Carol collapsed after choking, according to a bio on www.jenniecarols5k.

Victor Comley, son of Calvin and Nola Johns Comley, was born in the small Jessamine community of Pollard on Sept. 25, 1919. At age 89, he accepts that he is one of the World War II veterans all too rapidly becoming statistics. Physically, he admits that he, too, is "fading. " "My memory is still good," he said, proving it by recalling in detail one of the highlights of his young life at Pollard Elementary School. "I spelled down my classmates in every spelling bee we had, 6th through 8th grade.

Calvary Hill Baptist Church will host Duane and Iris Blue and son, Denim, on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6. The Blues will conduct a community-wide conference on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the church with song and message. A brown bag lunch will be served. The Blues will also be in charge of the morning and evening services on Sunday. The morning worship service will begin at 10:45 and will be followed by a potluck meal. The evening service will begin at 6 o'clock and will be followed by desserts and coffee.

February is Black History Month, probably as good a time as any to let Skip know I'm sorry even if the offense committed against him occurred nearly 50 years ago. The memory is as vivid as the permanent stain put on our society by the way black people have been treated for decades. My rural Kentucky hometown was probably little different than most other small communities across the South in 1959. Blacks and whites could visit the same movie theater, but the people of color were required to enter through an alley and then sit in the balcony.

STANFORD - A year ago Nathan Todd lost one of his oldest and dearest friends. The tragedy became the first real trauma in Todd's young life. "Daniel (Ryan) and I had been close pals for years, going to the same schools and the same church," says Todd, 17, of his 20-year-old friend who died in a traffic accident. "The funeral was the hardest thing I ever had to go through in my life. " But Todd didn't just attend Ryan's funeral; he preached it. "It was the first funeral I had ever done," he says.

A 15-year-old sophomore at Lincoln County High School was killed early Sunday when the truck he was riding in left Shake Rag Road and struck a tree. Scotti Joe Perkins, who was a sophomore at LCHS, was thrown from a pickup driven by Christopher Upton, 21, Stanford. Another passenger, Josh Gerkey, 20, Stanford, was also thrown from the truck and was airlifted to the University of Kentucky Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition Tuesday. Trooper Rodney Wren charged Upton with first-offense driving while intoxicated, failure to wear a seat belt, having an open alcoholic beverage container in his vehicle and providing alcohol to a minor.