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NEWS TRACKER

1. Holiday shopping goes beyond Black Fri-day, but there are ways to make the most of it. 1D

2. Lions Club telethon pre-party brings stars, cli-ents face to face. 2A

4. Can’t f igure out what to get someone? Go for charitable ‘adoption’ as a holiday gift. 1E

5. Video shows Ken-tucky Walmart employees throwing iPads. 6A

3. Coming to Texas ballots: George P. Bush, the grandson of one president and nephew of another, has taken the first step toward seeking elected office in Texas. 1B

MALLORY PANUSKA | The Sun

Renovation work is under way inside the Paducah Freight House at 300 S. Third St. Pictured above is the hallway of the second floor of the building, which is set to house the offices for Paducah Eco-nomic Development and EntrePaducah. The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce is slated to set up shop on the first floor.

Once a staple of the local river industry, the Paducah Freight House is well on its way to be-coming the new headquarters for three prominent local offi ces.

Engineers from Paducah-based A&K Construction are restoring the sturdy, historic, two-story brick building at 300

S. Third St. into a set of offi ces for the Paducah Economic De-velopment, EntrePaducah and Paducah Area Chamber of Com-merce. The three share space at the Commerce Center on Fourth Street and Kentucky Avenue and are slated to move into the reno-vated Freight House in January.

A&K Construction owner Ken-ny Hunt, who invested in the

historic building for the project, said restoration work began in late August. Crews are now clean-ing and repairing the exterior brick work, closing the dock ar-eas for the new offi ce spaces and working on the elevator shaft. He said the historic elements of the 1920s-era building, which is

Renovation under way for chamber buildingBY MALLORY PANUSKAmpanuska@paducahsun.com

“It’s been fun working on. It’s a building that’s in good shape. I think it’ll be a really good addition to downtown.”

Kenny HuntOwner, A&K Construction

Please see CHAMBER | 8A

Construction on a bustling portion of two-lane road north of Mayfi eld will eventually improve traf-fi c fl ow through the area as workers start to ramp up efforts to add two more lanes of travel.

Offi cials call the half-mile section of U.S. 45/Paducah Road — between Ky. 121 and the Purchase Parkway overpass — in Graves County a bottleneck for motorists, as more than 20 miles of four-lane traffi c south from Paducah suddenly funnels into two lanes on the outskirts of Mayfi eld.

With nearly 11,000 vehicles traveling through that portion of highway daily, widening the roadway could ease congestion in and out of the city as con-struction to remedy the issue gets under way, said Keith Todd, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet public information offi cer.

The $4.5 million con-struction project, awarded to Jim Smith Contract-ing Company on July 25, began this past week with the construction of retain-ing walls along the corri-dor from Oak Grove Creek northward to the Purchase Parkway. Workers will hold off additional con-struction efforts while tele-

phone and water lines are moved from the work zone.The project is scheduled to be completed in 200

working days. However, as construction season draws down ahead of winter, Todd said the contract does not account for days of construction between mid-November and March. Any work through the winter period puts the team ahead of the deadline.

“It’s hard to predict working day projects, when they would be completed,” Todd said.

As progress is made in that area, motorists should be alert for possible traffi c shifts and construction workers.

The corridor of construction is the same area that the city of Mayfi eld tried to annex in Tuesday’s election, but

Work aims to improve traffic flow

BY WILL PINKSTONwpinkston@paducahsun.com

Officials hope widening of bottleneck will ease congestion into Mayfield

“It will definitely help those businesses in that area, because we

have so much traffic in and

out of Paducah. It will really be an asset to our

community.”

Teresa CantrellMayfield mayor

Please see WIDENING | 7A

LOUISVILLE — The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting that an earthquake centered in Kentucky also rattled at least eight other states.

The USGS website says the epicen-ter of the 4.3 magnitude earthquake

on Saturday afternoon was about 10 miles west of Whitesburg, near the Virginia line. Residents in both states, as well as West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indi-ana, Ohio and Georgia, also reported feeling the temblor.

National Weather Service spokes-

man Jeff Carico said employees at the offi ce in Jackson, which is about 60 miles northwest of Whitesburg, felt the ground shake for about 15 seconds. He says the offi ce has gotten numerous calls, but so far no one has reported

Kentucky earthquake shakes up 9 statesBY REBECCA YONKER

Associated Press

Please see EARTHQUAKE | 7A

Capt. Don Hodgson and his Traf-fi c Enforcement Unit have had more than a month to adjust to the depart-ment’s new way of doing things. Just as the unit is getting comfortable with its new mission, it will be faced with its largest obstacle yet: overcoming holiday traffi c.

“People are in the holiday spirit,” Hodgson said. “They are shopping and

moving from place to place. They aren’t thinking about how they are driving.”

Midway through the team’s three-month trial period, the numbers speak

for themselves: The department saw a 20 percent reduction in the number of

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Paducah Police Officer Melissa Dillon uses a laser speedometer to help patrol for drivers going over the limit on Fri-day afternoon on Hinkleville Road. The largest challenge to come for Paducah Police’s Traffic Enforcement Unit will be upcoming holiday traffic patrol.

Traffic unit already making strides

Paducah police release numbers halfway through trial periodBY CORIANNE EGANcegan@paducahsun.com

“People are in the holiday spirit. They are shopping and moving from place to place. They

aren’t thinking about how they are driving.”

Paducah Police Capt. Don Hodgson

Please see TRAFFIC UNIT | 8A

COLLEGE FOOTBALL:

SUNDAY,SUNDAY, November 11, 2012 November 11, 2012 www.paducahsun.comwww.paducahsun.com Vol.Vol. 116116 No.No. 316316 Details 5A

The LineupMonday

West Kentucky Songwriters Chapter, Nashville Songwriters As-sociation International, 6-8 p.m. Curris Center, Murray State Univer-sity. 293-7252.

Ledbetter Masonic Lodge 952 F&AM, 7 p.m. Meal at 6:15.

  Graves County Genealogical

Society, 7 p.m., Graves County Li-brary. Refreshments. David Cissell, 247-4010.

 Paducah Masonic Lodge No. 127

F&AM, 7:30 p.m., 24th and Jack-son streets. Meal at 6. 443-3127.

Experimental Aircraft Associa-tion, Big Rivers Chapter, 7 p.m., McCracken County Extension Of-fice, 2705 Olivet Church Road. Wilma Newberry, 744-3841.

  Pfc. James M. Yancey Detach-

ment 1390, Marine Corps League, 7 p.m., VFW Post 1191, 1727 Washington St., Paducah. Call 994-2129, 898-7727, or 556-4469.

Wickliffe Masonic Lodge, 7:30 p.m., Meal, 6:30 p.m.

■ ■ ■

Items for the Lineup must be received in writing five days in advance. Mail to: Lineup, The Paducah Sun, P.O. Box 2300, Paducah, KY 42002-2300; fax the newsroom at 442-7859; or email news@paducahsun.com. An-nouncements are published day of event. Information: 575-8677.

2A • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Local paducahsun.com

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Life

Saturday’s lotteryKentucky

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Livingston Central High School is getting a $2.97 million facelift to make the school more energy effi cient and upgrade the building.

The Livingston County Board of Education award-ed a low-bid contract of $2.52 million in October to Vanguard Contractors of Paducah. Vanguard’s work will be the second phase of construction that began last year. Jim Smith Contract-ing of Smithland performed $450,000 in work to the campus in the fi rst phase.

Darryl Chittenden, dis-trict superintendent, said the project is the fi rst ma-jor construction project at the school since it was con-structed in 1984.

“Anything that could be started that would not be disruptive to school could start in the spring of 2013,

even before school is out,” Chittenden said. “It will real-ly fully be under way the day after school is adjourned.”

Chittenden said renova-

tions could require summer school activities to be con-ducted at another school.

Work outside includes sealing the brick exterior,

installing new windows and multiple HVAC sys-tems, and repairing gut-ters. The inside of the school will receive new

doors, ceilings and carpet-ing, as well as energy effi -cient boilers and lighting. Air conditioning will allow the kitchen and a computer

server room to have differ-ent temperatures from the rest of the school.

“It’s a big push from the Department of Education, to make things as energy ef-fi cient as possible,” Chitten-den said. “The new lighting will meet the low-energy ef-fi ciency standards. The win-dows are a pretty ineffi cient source of leaking heat and air right now, so the new windows and doors and the new HVAC will be focused on effi ciency.”

New gym seating, stu-dent lockers and bath-room renovations also are planned.

Funding for the project will come from the issuance of Qualifi ed Zone Academy Bonds, which may be used for renovating school build-ings, purchasing equipment or developing curricula. The bonds are a tax credit

Board plans $2.7 million in upgrades to Livingston schoolBY JODY NORWOOD

jnorwood@paducahsun.com

JODY NORWOOD | The Sun

Students board buses Friday in front of Livingston Central High School. Vanguard Contractors of Paducah won the low-bid to finish a $2.97 million renovation project at the school.

Please see SCHOOL | 3A

A year’s worth of work came down to the last 15 hours Sat-urday, when Telethon of Stars celebrities met with clients from Easter Seals West Kentucky, TLC of Southern Illinois, St. John’s Community Services-CDS of Ten-nessee and Easter Seals Southeast Missouri for a pre-telethon party.

“It’s absolutely fascinating. It’s the best part of the telethon, where our clients get to come face to face with the stars,” said telethon coordinator Dia Canter.

Hosts from Zonta Interna-tional, the organization spon-soring the party, kicked off the festivities with a performance of

Stars, clients come face to face

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Enija Brown, child representative from Easter Seals West Kentucky, sings along with cousin Tykeyah Jones as Ball in the House performs the national anthem at an autograph party for the 56th annual Telethon of Stars in Walker Hall on Saturday. The event gave Telethon headliners an opportunity to meet the people the event benefits.

BY LAUREL BLACKlblack@paducahsun.com

Please see PRE-PARTY | 3A

Like clockwork, the 56th an-nual Lions Club WPSD Local 6 Telethon of Stars got under way on time Saturday night.

The 15-hour live event broadcast on WPSD-TV serves as a fundraiser for sev-eral area organizations.

Telethon chair Lori Devine said last year volunteers went off the air with $346,787 in donations. The fi nal total re-sulted in $540,000 raised for Easter Seals West Kentucky,

TLC of Southern Illinois, St. John’s Community Services-CDS of Tennessee and Easter Seals Southeast Missouri.

“This is a well-oiled ma-chine,” Devine said. “This is our 56th year, so people involved know what they’re doing. Things have gone off pretty much without a hitch.”

Country music duo Steel Magnolia was the fi rst act to take the stage Saturday night. Ball in the House, Felix Cava-liere’s Rascals, Terry Mike Jeffrey and other music acts

joined “Days of Our Lives” star Shawn Christian.

Easter Seals West Kentucky director Danny Carroll said the telethon is one of the orga-nization’s largest fundraisers.

“It makes up a signifi cant portion of our budget for pri-vate donations for the year,” Carroll said.

“These are funds we’ve come to rely on each year to keep quality programs at the center.”

Annual telethon gets under wayBY JODY NORWOOD

jnorwood@paducahsun.com

Please see TELETHON | 3A

paducahsun.com Local/Region The Paducah Sun • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • 3A

and not usable for new con-struction. Chittenden said the district applied for the bonds in February 2011. The bonds are expected to be issued Nov. 27.

The fi rst phase of the project improved irriga-tion and erosion from a hill behind the high school and a ditch running along U.S.

60. Chittenden said most of the work was completed in a month last year with fi nish-ing touches put on recently.

Castleberry McGregor Swinford Architects are overseeing project plan-ning. With architect fees and a contingency fund for unexpected costs, Chit-tenden said the district has approved $3.55 million for the total cost of the project.

Calls to Vanguard project manager Jason Henson were not immediately returned.

Chittenden said the work was originally planned for last year, but the district negotiated an extra year on the bond issuance to allow for planning.

Call Jody Norwood, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8658.

the “The Star-Spangled Ban-ner” from Ball in the House, a Boston-based vocal band.

Headliners in attendance included Rascals front-man Felix Cavaliere, “Days of Our Lives” star Shawn Christian, saxophonist

Reggie Lafaye, singer Aar-on Loveland, and musician Duke Mason. The stars introduced themselves to a cheering audience and signed autographs.

Most of the headliners for the 56th annual Telethon of Stars — the largest locally produced telethon in the U.S.

— are veterans to the event, according to associate pro-ducer Charlie Katterjohn.

“Everybody who has headlined wants to come back,” he said.

Contact Laurel Black, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8641.

SCHOOL

CONTINUED FROM 2A

PRE-PARTY

CONTINUED FROM 2A

Man arrested in Cadiz stabbing

A Murray man was arrested following an early morning stabbing Saturday in Cadiz.

Cadiz police officers were called to the Barkley Manor Apartments at 5:30 a.m. when a resident reported an as-sault. The resident and a 17-year-old male juvenile told officers that Deronte A. Moss, 28, had forced his way into the apartment and argued with the ju-venile and a female.

The juvenile was stabbed in the arm during a fight and the resident also re-ceived minor injuries.

The two identified Moss, of 317 South 13th St. in Murray, as the at-tacker, police said.

Murray police officers took Moss into custody at 10:30 a.m. at a resi-dence on Pine Street. He was treated at Murray-Calloway County Hospital for injuries to his hands before being released to the custody of Cadiz Police Sgt. Chad Grace.

Moss is charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one count of first degree burglary. He also was served a Trigg County arrest warrant for second-degree burglary following a similar entry and assault at the same Barkley Manor apartment Nov. 5, po-

lice said.

— Staff report

Anti-violence rally set Thursday

After inclement weather forced the first attempt to be delayed, organizers behind Paducah’s first Take Back the Night vigil have moved to a different location.

Denese Peebles, president of A Com-munity of Women Inc., said the event will be held Thursday at First Christian Church of Paducah at 415 Audubon Drive. Candles will be lit outside at 6:30 p.m. before moving indoors.

“We’re going to start in the parking lot and then move in to the sanctuary,” Peebles said. “We wanted to make sure this one didn’t get canceled.”

The first attempt was held Oct. 15, but rain forced the rally to be canceled.

Take Back the Night offers area resi-dents a chance to speak out against sexual assault, domestic violence and abuse. Speakers include Capt. Matt Carter of the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department, Jennifer Villareal of Four Rivers Behavorial Health, and area poets.

— Staff report

Local Briefs

Carroll said about 60 cli-ents of Easter Seals West Kentucky were planning on attending. Several had vol-unteered to help through-out the night, Carroll said.

Carroll said funds raised during the telethon were in need this year with Eas-ter Seals West Kentucky launching the new Lily Pad. The new center is de-signed to provide special-ized child care for children who have complex medi-cal conditions. The Charity League of Paducah donated $250,000 to help launch the program, but fi nal con-struction costs are estimat-ed at $500,000.

“We just want to thank the generous community,” Devine said. “They’re here for us every year. Every do-nation counts, no matter the size.” Call Jody Norwood, a

Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8658.

TELETHON

CONTINUED FROM 2A

JODY NORWOOD | The Sun

Fans react to the opening of the 56th annual Lions Club WPSD Local 6 Telethon of Stars on Saturday night. The event serves as a fundraiser for Easter Seals West Ken-tucky, TLC of Southern Illinois, St. John’s Community Services-CDS of Tennessee and Easter Seals Southeast Missouri.

JODY NORWOOD | The Sun

Volunteers wait for the opening of the 56th annual Lions Club WPSD Local 6 Telethon of Stars Saturday night. Country music duo Steel Magnolia opened the 15-hour live telethon on schedule at 10 p.m.

BOWLING GREEN — The Kentucky Folklife Program has been folded into West-ern Kentucky University, al-most doubling the school’s archived collections.

Brent Bjorkman, direc-tor of the Kentucky Folklife Program, said the Ken-

tucky Historical Society in Frankfort decided it no longer wanted to offer the folklife program and so it joined WKU’s Department of Folk Studies and An-thropology.

WKU has had a folk stud-ies program and folklife ar-chives for four decades and

had worked with the state program in the past.

“(The move) was really a no-brainer,” Bjorkman said.

Bjorkman said the Ken-tucky Folklife Program’s archives were moved last week from Frankfort to WKU’s Kentucky Muse-

um where they are being housed in the Folklife Ar-chives.

“Having two major col-lections like this come to-gether, it’s going to add visibility to the already nationally recognized pro-gram,” Bjorkman said.

Jonathan Jeffrey, coordi-

nator of the WKU Folklife Archives, said the merger not only nearly doubles the WKU Folklife Archives to include more than 150 col-lections, it also makes the scope of the university’s collections broader be-cause the Kentucky Folklife Program archives has ma-

terial from around the state instead of just regionally as WKU’s archives do.

He said that means a va-riety of topics will be added to Western’s collection, including details about folklife on the Ohio River and interviews with Ken-tucky state park workers.

Kentucky folklife collections merge at universityAssociated Press

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More American workers are facing the prospect of part-time employment. That’s one of the hidden consequences of the Affordable Care Act, now better known as Obamacare.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pillar Hotels & Resorts (Sheraton, Fairfield Inns, Hampton Inns, Holiday Inns) has already begun shifting more of its 5,500-employee workforce toward part-time employment in anticipation of the law’s impact. The company currently offers health insurance to employees who work at least 32 hours a week, but the health reform law will accelerate the rise in employer-provided health care costs, forcing the company to reduce its exposure by reducing the number of employees eligible for coverage.

CKE Restaurants (Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr.) is also among the companies that have already begun hiring part-time workers to replace full-time workers as a means of limiting Obamacare costs.

A recent survey of the country’s largest 100 corporations found that

71 would find it more economical to drop health coverage for their employees once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014. Under Obamacare, employers with at least 50 workers must pay fines for not offering health insurance — $2,000 per worker annually, $3,000 each in places where coverage is deemed sparse or unaffordable. The 71 companies would collectively save almost $27 billion annually by paying

the fines instead of offering insurance.

The government has given businesses strong incentive to drop coverage. And they could do it with a clear conscience knowing their employees could still receive taxpayer supported coverage through government exchanges.

That’s by design. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “The way we

see it is an innovative prevention-oriented way for businesses to be emancipated from health care costs because they have a way out.” Still doubt that Obamacare’s architects intended for companies to drop coverage?

Moving workers from employer-provided insurance to government exchanges is one more step toward the president’s stated goal, a single-payer (government-controlled) health system that rations care to the masses.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11 million Americans will lose their employee-provided health insurance coverage under Obamacare. Private surveys show it will be much higher — up to 35 million.

The big-company survey also found that 84 percent of large corporations have calculated that, without dropping employee coverage, their health costs will rise faster than they have the last five years because of Obamacare’s compliance costs. Meanwhile, the average family’s annual health care costs have risen more than $2,500 in five years. It will get worse. Soon. So brace yourselves.

Nothing’s impossibleI have foundFor when my chinis on the ground,I pick myself up,Dust myself off,Start all over again. — From the 1936 movie “Swing Time”

WASHINGTON — Conserva-tives should jauntily sing as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did in a year in which the coun-try’s chin was on the ground. Conservatives are hardly start-ing from scratch in their con-tinuing courtship of an elector-ate half of which embraced their message more warmly than it did this year’s messenger.

The election’s outcome was foreshadowed by Mitt Romney struggling as long as he did to surmount a notably weak fi eld of Republican rivals. His salient defi ciency was not of character but of chemistry, that indefi nable something sug-gested by the term empathy. Many voters who thought he lacked this did not trust him to employ on their behalf what he does not lack, economic understanding.

On Feb. 11, 2011, the person who should have been the Re-publican nominee laconically warned conservatives about a prerequisite for persuading people to make painful adjust-ments to a rickety entitle-ment state. Said Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels: “A more affi rmative, ‘better angels’ ap-proach to voters is really less an aesthetic than a practical one. With apologies for the ba-nality, I submit that, as we ask Americans to join us on such a boldly different course, it would help if they liked us, just a bit.” Romney was a diligent warrior. Next time, Republi-cans need a more likable one.

And one who tilts toward the libertarian side of the Republican Party’s fusion of social and laissez-faire conser-vatism. Most voters already favor less punitive immigration policies than the ones angrily advocated by clenched-fi st Republicans unwilling to

acknowledge that immigrat-ing — risking uncertainty for personal and family better-ment — is an entrepreneurial act. The speed with which civil unions and same-sex marriage have become debatable topics and even mainstream policies is astonishing. As is conserva-tives’ failure to recognize this: They need not endorse such policies but neither need they despise those, such as young people, who favor them. And it is strange for conservatives to turn a stony face toward any reconsideration of drug policies, particularly concern-ing marijuana, which confi rm conservatism’s warnings about government persistence in the teeth of evidence.

With much work — the most painful sort: thinking — to be done, conservatives should squander no energy on recriminations. Romney ran a gallant campaign. Imitation is the sincerest form of poli-tics, and Republicans should emulate Democrats’ tactics for locating and energizing their voters. Liberals have an inherent but not insuperable advantage: As enthusiasts of government, to which many of them are related as employees or clients, they are more moti-vated for political activity than are conservatives, who prefer private spaces. Never mind. Conservatives have a commen-surate advantage: Americans still fi nd congenial conserva-tism’s vocabulary of skepticism about statism. And events — ongoing economic anemia; the regulatory state’s metabolic urge to bully — will deepen this vocabulary’s resonance.

It is frequently said and

probably true that many people are more informed when pick-ing a refrigerator than when picking a president. This may, however, be rational ignorance because the probability of any individual’s vote mattering to an election’s outcome is negli-gible compared to the effort re-quired to acquire information and vote. (Elections are run by governments, so it is unwise to expect them to be run well, but really: Are hours-long waits at polling places inevitable?) Fortunately, the electoral vote system, by requiring 51 presi-dential elections, multiplies the chances of competitive contests and of votes with magnifi ed importance.

As the stakes of politics increase with government’s size, so does voter engagement. And 2012 redundantly proved what 2010 demonstrated. The 2010 elections, the fi rst after the Supreme Court’s excel-lent Citizens United decision liberalized the rules about funding political advocacy, were especially competitive. Social science confi rms what common sense suggests: More spending on political advocacy means more voter information and interest. The approximate-ly $2 billion spent in support of this year’s presidential candi-dates — only about two-thirds as much as Procter & Gamble spent on U.S. advertising last year — surely contributed to the high turnout in targeted states.

Media and other “nonpar-tisan” — please, no chortling — dismay about “too much money in politics” waned as seven of the 10 highest-spend-ing political entities supported Democrats and outspent the three supporting Republicans, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The advocacy infrastructure that is being developed by both sides in the post-Citizens United world will, over time, favor the most plausible side, which conservatives know is theirs.

EDITOR:In this day and age the word “cancer” is heard way

too often. Most people don’t realize the importance in researching the causes and developing cutting edge treat-ment — until you hear the words, “You have cancer.”

I was diagnosed in September ’05 at the age of 28 with AML. This is an aggressive form of leukemia. I didn’t know many people who had cancer back then, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world, and education.

Since then, I have lost my grandmother, and mother, both to cancer of different kinds. These days I hear of multiple cases each week. All the more reason society needs to be proactive and do our part to help with the research of this disease.

Residents of Paducah and our surrounding area have a historical opportunity to participate in crucial research that is being conducted this year. Enrollment is open for the American Cancer Society’s third ever Cancer Preven-tion Study. This will be taking place at Lourdes Hospital Nov. 15-17. Individuals between the ages of 30 and 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer and are will-ing to make a long-term commitment to the study can enroll by going to www.cps3lourdeshospital.org or calling 1-888-604-5888. There you can get a list of times avail-able and set up your appointment.

When I say long term, I mean you will receive a card every few years to update your information for the study.

In April, the American Cancer Society had 421 people en-roll in the study from western Kentucky, which was one of the largest single site enrollments in the Mid-South Division, which consists of six states. This goes to show that our area is concerned about creating a world with less cancer, but we can’t stop there.

I call on all of my fellow survivors to spread the word, for someone to enroll in your honor. And what better way to honor someone who has passed away than to show your support for this great event. Let’s join together and double our enrollment numbers in this study because it is up to us to keep future generations from hearing those dreaded words, “You have cancer.”

VENESSA WIERSMAPaducah

Edwin J. Paxton, Editor & Publisher, 1900-1961

Editorial

Letters

4A • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Opinion paducahsun.com

Cancer Prevention Studywill help future generations

EDITOR:On Oct. 30 an apparent designee of God wrote a letter

condemning all Democrats to being abominators. I am somewhat confused, however, as I had always thought that Judgment Day would be personally administered by the Creator himself. I did not realize that we would be getting a pre-emptive judgment about voting for presi-dent.

Never in my wildest imagination would I have guessed that voting Democratic would be equated with endorsing Sodom and Gomorrah. I know that the primary concern

Previous administration didnothing to change abortion law

of the letter-writer was abortion, which in my opinion is truly in and of itself a tragedy that befalls all who partici-pate in it.

As to President Obama not upholding the Constitution, I beg to differ. The Supreme Court enacted through Roe v. Wade in 1973 the right of abortion for women, alluding to the 9th and specifi cally the 14th amendments. Their decision.

The only time abortion seems to matter much is during the election cycle. Never during George W. Bush’s term when six of the eight years there was Republican control of the Senate, House of Representatives, executive branch and seven of nine Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, was there even a mention of doing anything about abortion. Nothing. Do you think it would have been any different if Romney had won?

What would they have had to talk about next election cycle? Condemning everyone who thinks perhaps corpo-rate interests have become too infl uential in America’s policies, and that by voting contrary to the party that embraces perpetuating that overwhelming infl uence is somehow evil, is itself alarming.

I think that the letter-writer would have been better served assigning judgment to the previous administration for its lack of action rather than the present administra-tion for its recognition of the law as it stands. I would also suggest that he read Luke 6:37, Luke 6:41, John 8:7 and Romans 2:1. On the other hand, as familiar as he is with Scripture, he probably knows them by heart.

DAVID G. SWAINLedbetter

LOOMINGObamacare’s consequences

beginning to appear

GOP doesn’t have to start from scratch

George Will

paducahsun.com Region The Paducah Sun • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • 5A

JOPLIN, Mo. — Against the backdrop of the stained-glass window that has be-come a signature piece of the building, churchgoers re-cently entered the newly re-built sanctuary of First Com-munity Church in Joplin.

It was an emotional morning for Craig Tally, who has served as the church’s pastor for more than four years.

“It’s like having been in exile somewhere and com-ing home after 18 months,” he said. “It’s not like be-ing somewhere for vaca-tion; it’s like being forced out and then being able to come home.”

Nearly a year and a half after it was badly dam-aged in the May 2011 tor-nado, the First Community Church sanctuary opened its doors for a Sunday morning worship service for more than 120 of its members.

Jim Everitt, who was married in the church 43 years ago and has been a member ever since, said he was happy to have the sanc-tuary restored.

“We all have worked so hard to get back in,” he said about 20 minutes be-fore the start of the service. “We’re going to be back in a familiar surrounding, and it’s nice and new.”

Eighteen months ago, the EF-5 tornado blew out the 365-panel stained-glass window on the east side of the sanctuary and blew the roof off the church. Wa-ter damage to the interior — the pews, the piano, the organ — from heavy rains during the following days was extensive.

David Mason, a 14-year member of the church, ar-rived at the building the morning after the tornado to survey the damage.

“Well, you know, I cried,” he said. “It was just awful. That’s all you can say.”

Tally said he was devas-tated by the damage done by the tornado.

“Our early thoughts were just whether or not we were going to make it, it was so damaged — just thoughts like, ‘What’s it going to in-volve? And how are we go-ing to do it?’” he said.

Members of the congre-gation met for the next eight months at Forest Park Bap-tist Church in Joplin while repairs to their church’s fellowship hall were under way. They had been wor-shipping in the hall, in the basement of their building, until this month.

Mason had been charged with taking care of the in-surance issues, and over-seeing the reconstruction and restoration project. He said the walls and roof of the sanctuary had to be rebuilt. The stained-glass window was installed ac-cording to its original de-sign — 365 brand-new pieces of hand-blown glass from Germany, in shades of blue and pink, that together represent life, he said.

Everything else inside the sanctuary on Sunday also was new, right down to the hymnals, visitor cards and pencils. Work continued al-most right up until the end.

“Just a week ago, I was thinking, ‘Is this going to happen?’” Mason said. “And it did. You’ve just got to put your trust in God.”

After the service, the con-gregation presented Ma-son with a picture of the church, framed by pieces of the old stained-glass win-dow, as a thank-you for his leadership in the rebuilding effort.

“I cannot begin to de-scribe the time he’s been here or in meetings or on the phone” to get the re-construction fi nished, Tally said. “He’s not fussed or fought harder for anything more than that window, and he’s not fallen to his knees for anything other than that window.”

Shirley Flood, a mem-ber of the church since it was built in 1962, said she had avoided going into the sanctuary during its recon-struction.

“I wanted to see it all at once,” she said. “I love that stained-glass window.”

Flood said she was happy to be back in her regular pew — and not just because the sanctuary was fi nally restored to its former glory.

“I don’t think the pews are going to be as uncom-fortable as the chairs down-stairs” in the fellowship hall, she said.

Associated Press

Bob Higgins greets another parishioner before services begin in the newly rebuilt sanctuary at First Community Church on Nov. 4 in Joplin, Mo. The May 2011 tornado caused heavy damage to the sanctuary and its 365-panel stained-glass window.

Joplin church opens rebuilt sanctuary

BY EMILY YOUNKERAssociated Press

RICHMOND — A long-talked-about proposal for a veterans’ center in Madison County is on its way to be-coming a reality.

Army veteran and Ameri-can Legion member Jerry Owens said plans for the center are on the drawing board now that Congress has agreed to allow the Blue Grass Army Depot to give 10 acres of land to Madison County for the express pur-pose of a center for veterans.

Owens said the center will be located near the county fairgrounds. He said after the land is offi cially turned over to veterans, different organizations will work out details of the center.

“We’re hoping to have a large meeting area, a kitch-en, offi ce space for each or-ganization and maybe use the remaining acreage for

a playground area,” he said.He said the center, when

it is fi nished, will be the base for several veteran or-ganizations, including the American Legion Post 12, American Legion Riders, American Legion 40 and 8, American Legion Auxil-iary, Sons of the American Legion, Disabled Ameri-can Veterans, Marine Corp League Det. 1012, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7098 and Vietnam Veterans.

However, Owens said all veterans are welcome at the facility regardless of wheth-er they are affi liated with a particular group or organi-zation.

“We need to provide a place for veterans to be to-gether,” he said.

In addition, Owens said he hopes that the facil-ity will also be able to host community events.

Madison planning for a veterans’ center

Associated Press

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Imaging supervisor Betty Brown

6A • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Region paducahsun.com

DES MOINES, Iowa — No matter how long the na-tion’s unemployment rate hovered around 8 percent, the Northeast and the West Coast were never in doubt for Barack Obama. No mat-ter how far it might have fallen before Election Day, Mitt Romney was always sure to win the South and rural Great Plains.

Nothing was so certain in the Midwest.

Iowa and the states along the shores of the Great Lakes from Minnesota to Ohio put Obama in the White House in 2008. Two years later, with voters in a foul mood as the Great Re-cession lingered, the GOP went fi ve-for-fi ve in races for the U.S. Senate, took over governor’s mansions in four states and state leg-islatures in fi ve.

Yet on Tuesday, Obama beat Mitt Romney by again winning every state in the region save one. Wiscon-sin voters who elected a tea party Republican to the Senate in 2010 picked a lib-eral Democrat to join him, while voters in Minnesota pushed Republicans in the statehouse from power and gave Democrats complete control of state govern-ment for the fi rst time in two decades.

That back-and-forth hardly makes for the so-called “Midwest Firewall” that Democrats can sup-posedly count on to de-

liver in every election. In-stead, Tuesday’s results reaffi rmed the future of the Midwest as a political battleground where voters willing to look past party will decide the outcome of elections.

“Voters in this state are independent,” said Wis-consin Gov. Scott Walker, a GOP hero who won elec-

tion and fought off a recall between Obama’s comfort-able wins in 2008 and 2012 in his state.

“They listen race by race to what the candidates have to offer,” Walker said. “And they’re not going to be swung one way or the other, but rather by what they think is important by that given race.”

So if you’re looking for clues about what will be important to voters in the Midwest in two years or four, folks on both sides of the aisle will tell you — per-haps not all that surpris-ingly — to start and stop with the economy.

“Maybe the auto bailout was part of the shift, and maybe Romney’s failures

as a candidate,” said poll-ster Paul Maslin, an ad-viser to Democratic Sen.-elect Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. “But the biggest determinant is the lack of economic security, causing a constant reassessment of the two political parties.”

Unlike the Northeast and South, where the political culture is deeply rooted in

the region’s history and is apt to change at a glacial pace, feelings about party are less engrained in the Midwest. That’s a product of the high concentration of working-class white voters, whom polls show to be deeply fo-cused on the economy and open to persuasion based on economic conditions.

That was evident Tues-day, when Romney’s op-position to the federal bailout of the auto indus-try — defi ned by an essay he wrote for The New York Times that the newspaper headlined, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” — echoed loudly in Ohio, where car making and the related parts supply chain are keys to the state’s manufacturing economy.

It kept Romney from ever seriously competing for Michigan, a state where his father served both as an auto company executive and for six years as governor. Obama pounced on Rom-ney’s opposition to the bail-out in Wisconsin and Iowa, two states less reliant on the auto industry but where manufacturing is a key part of the states’ economies.

According to exit polls, Obama did much better against Romney among working-class white voters in these states than he did nationally. Where Rom-ney had a 26-point lead among these voters nation-ally, Obama was within 14 points in Ohio, 8 points in Wisconsin and eked out a 2-point advantage in Iowa.

Obama’s wins in Midwest hardly a harbingerBY THOMAS BEAUMONT

Associated Press

Walmart employees seen throwing iPads

PIKEVILLE — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it is “em-barrassed” by video on YouTube and Facebook that shows employees at an eastern Kentucky Walmart throwing iPads to each other across a stock-room and slamming them down on the floor.

In a statement, Wal-Mart said the video of employ-ees “destroying merchan-dise” in the back of the Pikeville store in August made corporate officials “wince.” The statement said those shown in the video are no longer em-ployed by the company.

The statement said the store hasn’t had any iPads returned, and goes on to say that Wal-Mart stands behind the merchandise on its shelves.

— Associated Press

Police seek help in slaying investigation

SHELBYVILLE — Ken-tucky State Police are asking for help in solving a four-year-old slaying inves-tigation in Shelby County.

Police say they hope that someone might come for-ward with useful information in the killing of James Duck-ett, who was found dead in his Shelbyville home on Nov. 9, 2008. There is a reward for information that helps solve the case.

Police said in a state-ment that Duckett’s killing was “senseless and trag-ic” and that he was killed “in such an extremely violent manner” that the person responsible could pose a risk to the public. Police say the suspect stole Duckett’s truck and used his debit card to withdraw cash from a bank after killing him.

Anyone with information is asked to call Kentucky State Police at 502-227-2221 and speak with a detective.

— Associated Press

Briefs

Associated Press

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (right) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich participate in a roundtable discus-sion April 27 in Westerville, Ohio. A poor showing in the Midwest hampered Romney’s bid for the White House.

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paducahsun.com Region/From Page One The Paducah Sun • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • 7A

voters struck down the annex-ation question in a 79-10 vote.

Mayor Teresa Cantrell said if the area had been an-nexed, the city would have connected sewer services before road construction began. Despite the negated annexation, Cantrell said the city would still benefi t from the road upgrade.

“I think it’s defi nitely nec-essary, because it’s so con-gested there,” Cantrell said Thursday.

“It will defi nitely help those businesses in that area, because we have so much traffi c in and out of Paducah. It will really be an asset to our community.”

Call Will Pinkston, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8676.

any serious damage.USGS geophysicist John

Bellini said the quake is considered “light.”

“It’s not going to cause any signifi cant damage,” he said.

Bellini said people near the epicenter might have pictures fall off walls or books tumble from shelves.

That’s exactly what hap-pened at the Blackey Public Library, which is just west of Whitesburg in Letcher County and about 200 miles southeast of Louis-ville. Library worker Bon-nie Asher said she was coming downstairs when she heard a big boom. Ash-er said the entire building shook and the lights fl ick-ered off and on, and at fi rst she thought maybe a plane had crashed nearby.

“It was very scary,” she said. “It knocked about 14 books off one shelf.”

Otherwise, though, she said it happened quickly and there wasn’t any last-ing damage.

Whitesburg resident Charlotte Brown said she was at home and talking to a friend at her front door when she felt the ground start to shake — just a little bit at fi rst, then harder.

“It made me nervous,” she said, but the shaking lasted only a few seconds and didn’t hurt anything.

“It did shake the house and the dishes rattled,” she said.

In Tennessee, some work-ers at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge felt the temblor, but spokes-woman Ryn Etter said there was no impact to the plant.

Tennessee Valley Au-thority spokeswoman Jes-sica Stone said no problems from the quake have been reported at any plants op-erated by the nation’s larg-est public utility.

CONTINUED FROM 1A

WIDENING

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Joel Culbertson works at a road widening construction site on U.S. 45 just north of Mayfield. Workers started building a retaining wall Thursday.

EARTHQUAKE

CONTINUED FROM 1A

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Newly revealed letters writ-ten by Abraham Lincoln’s widow in the months after the president’s assassina-tion show her frantic mind-set as she grappled with enormous debts that left her feeling humiliated and fearful of prolonged home-lessness.

Three letters written by Mary Lincoln and her son Robert were donated Satur-day to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfi eld and will go on display after clean-ing and other preparations. The museum is a center for Lincoln research, drawing scholars and even a visit by actor Daniel Day-Lewis as he studied for his portrayal of the 16th president in Ste-ven Spielberg’s historical epic “Lincoln,” which opens nationwide next week.

Only an incomplete por-tion of one of the letters had ever been published. The rest is new to historians.

The letters were do-nated by descendants of Wall Street banker Benja-min Sherman, who helped raise around $11,000 to support the Lincoln fam-ily after the president’s death. The descendants

also donated a ledger from Sherman showing contri-butions from hundreds of people nationwide, which researchers will scour to learn more about the do-nors listed.

In one letter, Mary Lin-coln tells Sherman of the emotional toll the fi nancial struggles are taking on her as she and her youngest son, Tad, moved every few months between hotels be-fore they were able to buy a house in Chicago.

“We are homeless, and in return for the sacrifi ces, my great & noble Husband made, both, in his life & death, the paltry, fi rst year’s salary is offered us,” she wrote in the letter, dated Dec. 2, 1865. “... I am humiliated, when I think, that we are destined, to be forever, homeless. I can write no more.”

Mary Lincoln had what should have been a comfort-able level of income from interest on Sherman’s fund and on her share of Lin-coln’s estate, as well as Con-gress’ gift of the slain presi-dent’s 1865 salary. But she was beset by an estimated $26,000 in debts from the White House years, many of them to clothiers and jew-elers, and merchants were pressing her to pay.

Newly revealed letters shed light on widow

Associated Press

Three letters written by Lincoln’s wife, Mary Lincoln, and her son Robert were donated Saturday to the Abra-ham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and will go on display after cleaning and other preparations. The museum is a center for Lincoln research, drawing schol-ars and even a visit by actor Daniel Day-Lewis as he studied for his portrayal of the 16th president in Steven Spielberg’s historical epic “Lincoln,” which opens nation-wide next week.

Associated Press

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8A • Sunday, November 11, 2012 • The Paducah Sun From Page One paducahsun.com

listed on the National Reg-ister of Historic Places, will be restored as close to the original as possible.

“The look of the build-ing, obviously, we’re trying to keep that as close as we can,” Hunt said.

Hunt called the build-ing unique and pointed out that the second fl oor is sus-pended from large tresses at-tached to the ceiling. That ar-chitecture will remain intact, he said, with the offi ces to be built around it. The com-pany has purchased refi ned brick to match the original and bought new windows from a local vendor.

“The windows were in bad shape, we couldn’t do any-thing with those,” Hunt said.

For many years the building served as a freight house for rail cars. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway dedicated it in 1925 and it remained a freight house until the 1970s, when a brokerage fi rm moved in. The struc-ture served most recently as home to an antique mall and closed several years ago. Hunt purchased the building over the summer with other investors. To-gether they are paying for the more than $1.6 million renovation.

Hunt said the project is moving smoothly, and he expects crews to hit the

January move-in deadline.“It’s been fun working

on,” Hunt said. “It’s a build-ing that’s in good shape. I think it’ll be a really good addition to downtown.”

Chad Chancellor, PED president, said the tenants will pick up rent payments after they move in, with the PED paying the bulk of the cost. He said the organiza-tion requested a second fl oor river view and will have the best access into the building. The Chamber of-fi ces will be on the fi rst fl oor with EntrePaducah setting up shop next to the PED.

The rent payments will be higher than what the groups are paying at the Commerce Center, Chancellor said, but utility payments will be much lower. Chancellor has said the poorly insulated Commerce Center gener-ates utility bills exceeding $60,000 a year, while the new building is expected to cost less than $20,000 an-nually in utilities.

“I think it will help us tre-mendously,” Chancellor said.

Once the groups move out of the city-owned Com-merce Center, the PED is set to buy the building for $1 and renovate it so a new call center can move in.

Contact Mallory Panuska, a Paducah Sun staff writ-er, at 270-575-8684 or follow @MalloryPanuska on Twitter.

collisions in October and a 24 percent drop in calls for ser-vice. The indirect effects are also being felt inside city lim-its. Hodgson reported an 11 percent lowering of crime re-ports, as well as a 10 percent increase in arrests of drivers with outstanding warrants.

“There’s a simple hypoth-esis here,” Hodgson said. “The more traffi c enforce-ment we do, the more visible we are, the less likely people are to try and get away with anything in that area.”

But as the numbers are going down, the three-man team heads into holiday shopping season in one of the most high-traffi c areas on their map. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman Keith Todd said traffi c in the area be-tween Exit 3 of Interstate 24 and the Kentucky Oaks Mall averages 24,835 cars per day. That number goes up in the months of No-vember and December.

“The city and the county have both done a good job renovating Holt Road and Pecan Drive to try and take the strain off of US 60,” Todd said. “But there are defi nitely more people out there shopping.”

The statistics are a step in the right direction for the TEU, but the team has not reached its original goal of a 35 percent re-duction in collision rates. They’ve had some growing pains as well, specifi cally in the target area of Lone Oak

Road. Hodgson said the unit initially had planned

to park and monitor traf-fi c, but the dense traffi c

and small shoulders have forced them to become mo-

bile and monitor traffi c as they drive through it.

“There’s a lot of problems on Lone Oak Road, from speeding to use of direc-tionals to yielding issues,” Hodgson said. “So we had initially set a goal of issuing 15 citations a day. Obvious-ly when you aren’t sitting and watching, that number becomes unrealistic.”

A new $6,000 traffi c trailer that the department bought with grant mon-ey will also help monitor traffi c. The trailer, which displays a car’s speed as it passes and also records information that will help Hodgson allocate his re-sources, will be delivered in about a week.

Hodgson and his team prepared traffi c safety fl i-ers that they will hand out in the mall and to stores in and around the area. The team will be joined by other offi cers in the department during the holiday months, providing an increased parking lot presence to ward off any vehicle thefts or collisions that could take place. With the added help, Hodgson is sure his team will continue to make posi-tive headway.

“We set some pretty lofty goals in the beginning,” Hodgson said. “And no one wants to meet them more than I do. But even if we keep on this track, reduc-ing collisions by 20 or 25 percent is a big deal.”

Contact Corianne Egan, a Sun staff writer, at (270) 575-8652 or follow @CoriEgan on Twitter.

TRAFFIC UNITCONTINUED FROM 1A

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Three Paducah Police vehicles are parked on the side of Hinkleville Road as officers patrol traffic Friday. The unit’s largest challenge to come will be patrolling during upcoming holiday traffic.

Shopping

■ Lock your vehicle.■ Never leave packages in plain view.■ Shop with others and park in

well-lighted areas.■ Report suspicious activity to

law enforcement.

Driving

■ Wear your seatbelt and obey all traffic laws.

■ Stay off your cell phone and

avoid other distraction.■ Do NOT text and drive.■ Slow down and increase follow-

ing distance.■ Enter or exit parking lots at

stop signs.■ Drive defensively.

Holiday safety

CHAMBER

CONTINUED FROM 1A

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Crews from A&K Construction in Paducah continue renovation work on the Paducah Freight House at 300 S. Third St. The building is slated to become the new office headquarters for the Paducah Economic Devel-opment, EntrePaducah and Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce.

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