News

By Dennis Brown

The Kentucky Department for Public Health (DPH) has reported one confirmed case and three probable cases of swine flu to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The officials are reporting the state's third probable swine flu case, this one in a Montgomery County infant.

State Health Commissioner William Hacker says officials are awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The infant has not been hospitalized and the Montgomery County Health Department is investigating the case.

Kentucky confirmed its first case of swine flu on Thursday in a Warren County woman who is hospitalized in Georgia. There are also probable cases involving an infant in the Barren River Health District and a Fayette County man.

The second probable case reported is an infant from another area within the Barren River Health District who had been in close contact with someone who recently traveled to Mexico. It is unrelated to the confirmed case. The child's family and other close contacts are being evaluated for illness and possible preventive treatment. The child has not been hospitalized. A sample from the patient has been sent to the CDC for further testing to determine whether swine flu is the cause of illness. The name of the county in which the patient resides will be released if the case is confirmed.

Kentucky health officials ask that Kentuckians who have traveled recently to Mexico or other countries or communities within the U.S. where the new H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu has been reported, or who are planning such travel, be alert for the symptoms of swine flu in the following ways:

* Monitor yourself and travel companions for symptoms of fever, chills, headache, sore throat, cough, body aches, and vomiting or diarrhea.

* If symptoms of illness develop within seven days of travel return, seek evaluation by a health care provider as soon as possible.

* Be sure to tell your health care provider about your recent travel and suggest testing for influenza.

* Stay home from work, school and other public places until you are feeling well.

People who have been in close contact with a person who has been diagnosed with swine flu or who reside in communities where there are one or more confirmed swine flu cases should also be alert for these symptoms.

Common sense precautions to prevent illness include: avoiding close contact with those who are ill; staying home when sick; covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing; avoiding touching the eyes, nose or mouth; and frequent hand washing.

Currently, there are more than 225 confirmed cases of swine flu reported in the U.S., a number that is expected to continue to grow. The World Health Organization and CDC have reported numerous human cases of a severe respiratory illness in at least three different regions of Mexico. The number of cases has risen steadily during April 2009. Laboratory testing of patient specimens has confirmed infections with swine influenza ("swine flu") A/H1N1 virus. This is a newly emerging, animal-origin virus that is now being spread from an infected person to another person.

For more information on swine flu, visit: http://cdc.gov/swineflu. Individuals can also visit http://healthalerts.ky.gov for information on swine flu and Kentucky, or follow KYHealthAlerts on Twitter to be notified when new information is posted at the Web site.

Goodwill Store opens in Vanceburg

By Dennis Brown

With Goodwill Industries Week underway across the US, one of the newest Goodwill stores will be holding a grand opening and open house right here in Lewis County.

The new store is located in the Lewis County Mall on Clarksburg Road in the location of the former Vanceburg Sundries and More.

Vanceburg Goodwill Manager Pam Carroll said the store opened in mid-February and has done brisk business since then. She added that most people visit the store just after the weekly delivery arrives on Thursday.

A ribbon cutting and open house will be held at the Vanceburg location on Wednesday, May 6, beginning at 11:00 a.m. Lenore Mason, Executive Director and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Southern Ohio, extends an invitation to everyone to visit during the grand opening or at any time.

Mason said Goodwill Industries week got underway Sunday and will continue through Saturday. “At this special time, our employees and staff of Goodwill Industries would like to thank the community for the continued support through their donations and purchases,” she added.

Refreshments will be served and door prizes will be awarded on Wednesday and Steve Hayes with WNXT Radio will be on hand to do on-air remote broadcasts.

Vanceburg Electric Plant Board Superintended Eric Bloomfield said he has worked with Goodwill Industries of Southern Ohio for several years as an accountant and said he has supported the opening of a Lewis County location for some time and said about three years ago the Southern Ohio chapter of Goodwill Industries sought, and was granted, approval from the Lexington Chapter to locate a store here.

He said Lewis County technically falls into the Lexington Chapter’s geographic territory.

The Southern Ohio Chapter of Goodwill Industries has retail stores and donation centers in Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Gallipolis and Middleport in Ohio along with the Greenup and Vanceburg locations.

Bloomfield explained that donations from all of the locations are taken to the primary location in Portsmouth where they are inspected, cleaned and then distributed back to the locations to be offered for sale.

“What you may find for sale in the Vanceburg store may have been donated at any of the other Goodwill locations,” Bloomfield said. “Each store has a particular inventory and the donations are distributed to keep the quota of all items in stock at each location.”

Bloomfield noted that a donation to Goodwill is tax deductible and is also an environmentally friendly way to pass along items that are no longer needed or wanted. He said many new items are regularly found on Goodwill racks and shelves.

The local Goodwill store stocks many clothing items along with furniture, electronics, kitchen necessities, books, music, toys and miscellaneous.

With the downturn in the economy nationwide, media reports have noted that many people who had not shopped at Goodwill stores previously have been shopping there to find items at a savings from retail stores.

Goodwill is a non-profit organization that provides training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities and other disadvantages to become self-sufficient.

Goodwill Industries of Southern Ohio corporate offices are located at 324 Chillicothe Street in Portsmouth and more information about Goodwill may be obtained by calling 740-353-4394 or by visiting any Goodwill location.

Law enforcement receives Mobile Data Computers

By Dennis Brown

Area law enforcement agencies have become more efficient thanks to a grant to the Buffalo Trace Area Development District in the amount of $145,000 to purchase new Mobile Data Computers.

The units are laptop computers which are installed in cruisers to allow officers a direct link to gather information quickly right from the cruiser.

The computers are linked to dispatch centers and allow officers to immediately receive information needed during traffic stops and criminal investigations.

Visible alerts may also be sent to the terminals or from one terminal to many others. They are used in conjunction with the police radios and provide officers with additional information which could be invaluable in dangerous situations.

“Buffalo Trace is proud to partner with Kentucky homeland Security to provide law enforcement with this new technology,” said Kevin Cornette, Economic Development Director with Buffalo Trace.

“Mobile Data Computers provide the officer with information in their vehicle at their fingertips,” he added.

“MDCs allow the officer to run license checks, check for stolen property, communicate with all agencies across the state during emergencies and communicate with the Kentucky State Police network,” Cornette said.

Vanceburg Police Lt. Tom Flannigan and VPD Officer John Ferguson demonstrated an MDC last week which features a driver’s license scanner which is swiped across the license and immediately shows any prior offenses and information on file associated with the license holder.

Ferguson said the units are also capable of printing any citations and will store information which can be retrieved at any time. He noted that officers appearing in court would be able to take and MDC unit with them to have case information available rather than having to carry many files around with them.

The Vanceburg Police Department received two installed units and the Lewis County Sheriff’s Department received three installed units.

Buffalo Trace will be applying for additional funding later this year to complete the project which will provide MDCs to all police cruisers in the Buffalo Trace region in Fiscal Year 2010.

Names added to law enforcement memorial

By Joe Biesk

(AP) _ During the more than 100 years since William S. Wright's assassination in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, details of his murder _ at the hands of two Ku Klux Klan members _ has been left largely to the annals of forgotten history.

The story of the Letcher County deputy sheriff's Jan. 30, 1900 slaying became a dangerous subject that was not often discussed, said Benjamin Luntz, Wright's 59-year-old grandson. But last Monday, Wright's death was memorialized along with more than two dozen other fallen Kentucky officers.

Their names will be added to the state's memorial for fallen officers.

``For 100 years they didn't really mention anything about it,'' Luntz said of his grandfather's ambush. ``It's just too sensitive and it would have caused upheaval.''

The names of 28 fallen officers were added last Monday to a statewide memorial, bringing to 530 the number of inscribed names remembering Kentucky's slain police and law enforcement personnel. That includes two officers whose deaths occurred last year and 26 who died dating back to the 19th Century. The ceremony was attended by Vanceburg Police Lt. Tom Flannigan who was in Richmond to attend a training session.

Kentucky lost two officers last year, Bell County Sheriff's Office Deputy Sean Pursifull and Harlan County Constable Joe E. Howard. Pursifull was killed while sitting in his parked patrol car. His car was struck by another vehicle and he was killed.

Howard died of a heart attack after arresting a suspect who was wanted on a warrant.

The names going on the Kentucky Law Enforcement Memorial at Eastern Kentucky University are also being added to a national monument in Washington D.C. This year the names of 387 fallen officers from across the country, including 133 who were killed last year and 254 who died in past years, will be added.

A candlelight ceremony scheduled for next month will formally dedicate the new names to the national memorial later this month.

When Wright's name is added, he'll join his 18-year-old son, William Wright, who was killed a year later and whose name is already engraved on the memorial.

He was killed in an ambush just outside his home a few months later, Luntz said.

Wright's son, also a deputy sheriff in Letcher County, was killed in action the following April.

``It's just good to have him remembered and his son remembered, Luntz said. ``They were so badly maligned and we could not really reply for so long. It's just nice that it's finally done.''

Wright's story is just one that had been lost through the years.

Often family members, friends or local historians come forward with suggested names that should be added to the memorial, said Kevin Morison, a spokesman for the National Fallen Officer Memorial. By next month there will be 18,661 names engraved on the memorial, Morison said.

Jennifer Thacker, president of victim support group, Concerns of Police Survivors, said the names of officers killed in the line of duty weren't steadily tracked until the 1980s. Recently, there have been an increasing number of historical names being added to the memorial, Thacker said.

Thacker, whose husband Brandon Thacker was killed in the line of duty, said the distinction on the memorial is an honor to her husband's memory.

``I'm proud that he's recognized for the sacrifice that he made and for the service that he provided,'' Thacker said. ``I think it's honorable to know that my husband's sacrifice will always be remembered and that people will know he died in a noble fashion.''

For Don Sturgill, seeing his the name of his grandfather, Jason Andrew ``BeeAn'' Webb, added to the memorial gave him a chance to learn about a grandfather he never knew. Webb was murdered in his barn on Christmas Eve 1931, by a man who wanted revenge for getting arrested on an illegal alcohol charge the day before.

Webb was nearly forgotten for years after his death because it was such a sorrowful subject, Sturgill said. It wasn't until Sturgill was a teenager that he even learned of his existence, he said.

Opening old wounds has given the family a chance to mourn his loss, Sturgill said.

``Such events are not primarily aimed at the deceased. Nor are they really about making the survivors feel better,'' Sturgill said. ``The real value of honoring our heroes is so that we can learn from their lives and try to emulate them in our own.''

Unemployed may find gap in benefits

By The Associated Press

(AP) _ Jobless Kentuckians whose state and federal unemployment checks have run out may have an eight-week gap before their newly extended benefits start arriving.

A spokesman for Gov. Steve Beshear told The Courier-Journal that while the unemployed will receive all the money that is due to them, it may take time for state workers to be trained and for computer systems to be updated.

Beshear signed an emergency order April 17 that allows Kentucky to use no-strings-attached federal stimulus money to help unemployed workers who have used up their 26 weeks of state benefits and 33 weeks of federal benefits and still haven't found jobs.

Jay Blanton, a spokesman for the governor, said jobless workers are now eligible for an extra 13 weeks of benefits.

``The experience in other states has been that it can take up to eight weeks to get everything in place,'' he said. ``We will get everyone their payments and benefits, but it will take some time to get the processes in place to make sure we're doing it right.''

The delay worries some unemployed workers who say they've already drained their savings and retirement plans to survive the past year.

``If I have to wait eight weeks from the time my extended benefits run out (in early May), it will be difficult to pay my bills,'' said Christina Dillon, who is now searching for work out of state.

Dillon, 44, said she has a bachelor's degree in marketing and 20 years of product management experience and ``can't even get nibbles on my resume. I never in my lifetime thought I'd have this much of a problem finding work.''

Beshear issued the emergency order when it became clear that the benefits wouldn't automatically kick in before jobless workers began exhausting existing aid.

He said last month that he believed the workers would be eligible for the additional benefits because the state's ``insured unemployment rate'' would reach 5 percent _ high enough to automatically trigger the additional benefits.

But that did not happen.

In fact, the rate, which is calculated weekly by the U.S. Department of Labor, dropped from 4.91 percent April 12 to 4.84 percent last Sunday.

The insured unemployment rate is the percentage of workers who have received benefits in the past quarter. Workers who have exhausted their 26 weeks of state benefits but have not found jobs and are collecting federal benefits are not counted.

Under the emergency regulation, the state can now use a different unemployment calculation to provide the extra 13 weeks of coverage after residents exhaust their regular state and federal benefits.

Also under the emergency regulation, once the 13 weeks are exhausted, jobless Kentuckians may be eligible for another seven weeks of assistance if Kentucky's three-month unemployment rate remains above 8 percent. The current three-month rate is 9.3 percent.

To receive the extended benefits, jobless workers will face more demanding requirements to prove they are searching for work, Blanton said.

``They have to show pretty detailed evidence, as I understand it, of an active job search,'' he said.

Blanton said the more rigorous requirements are the reason for the additional training and computer updates.

``Once all that is in place, the Office of Employment and Training will notify those eligible to apply for the extended benefits,'' he said.

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