For more information:
Producer: Megan Moloney |
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Grinding It Out Weisenberger Mill The Weisenberger family, says one son, has milling in its blood. They’ve been at it in the same location on Elkhorn Creek since 1865, making the Weisenberger Mill in southern Scott County Kentucky’s oldest continuously operated mill. On this visit, owner Philip (the name also runs in the family) shows how corn and wheat are ground into several different grades of meal and flour for baking, as well as a line of complete mixes—and how the ancient technology of water turning wheels even keeps the office computers running.
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For more information: • At the Vietnam Veterans Home Page maintained by Bill McBride, you’ll find more photos and a veteran’s moving remembrance of his first visit to the Kentucky memorial.
Producer: Ellen Ballard |
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Shadows of a War The Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Designed by Lexington architect Helm Roberts, the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial also includes a separate slab with the names of Kentuckians still listed as missing in action. The shadow never touches that area. But as the fate of each man is learned, his name will be moved to the date of his death. The MIA stone is finished on both sides in hopes that one day, when all the missing are accounted for, it can be turned over. The memorial is located on Coffee Tree Road across from the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives. Our tour is led by Tom Fugate of the Kentucky Historical Society, which exhibits some of the personal objects left by visitors to the memorial at the nearby Kentucky Military History Museum. This segment also appears in Kentucky Life Program 716.
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Producer, videographer: Treg Ward |
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Sweet Success Ruth Hunt Candy In Kentucky, a Blue Monday is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s the specialty candy bar produced by Mount Sterling’s Ruth Hunt Candy Company, subject of our next visit. Ruth Tharpe Hunt was a housewife who made candy using her own recipes, originally just for friends, family, and bridge club members. But in 1921, with their encouragement, she opened a small at-home store. By 1930, despite the onset of Depression elsewhere, she was doing well enough to open a factory. This tour was taped at that facility, which operated until 2001, when operations were moved into an even larger nearby building. Customers are welcome to take their own personal tours of the factory, with its giant marble slabs for shaping suckers, copper kettles for stirring caramel, and vats of chocolate (no wax added, the company promises). For those who just want the finished product, Ruth Hunt Candy also operates a retail store in Lexington.
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For more information:
Producer: Pat Stipes |
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Whiskey Where the Buffalo Used To Roam Ancient Age (Buffalo Trace) Distillery Continuing our mini-tour of “sinful pleasures,” the next segment is a stop at one of Kentucky’s oldest operating distilleries, contributed by the state Department of Travel Development. At the time of the taping in 1995, the distillery and its flagship bourbon were known as Ancient Age. In 1999, after an extensive renovation, both were rechristened Buffalo Trace, in honor of an ancient trail used by the buffalo, which crossed the Kentucky River at the location of the distillery. (A visit to the reborn distillery is included in Kentucky Life Program 1012.) All told, the site has hosted one form or another of whiskey-making operation since the 1780s. The company even kept operating during the Prohibition era, having received one of only four permits granted nationwide to continue distilling spirits for “medicinal purposes.” In addition to showing some of the bourbon-making process, this visit features interviews with several long-time employees, some of whom have themselves been with the company for decades. Buffalo Trace Distillery is open to the public Monday through Friday.
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For more information:
Producer, videographer: Gale Worth |
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For the Birds Raptor Rehabilitation of Louisville Thanks to the Jurassic Park movies, many people now think of fearsome little dinosaurs when they hear the word “raptors.” But the term also refers to some of their feathered descendants: hawks, owls, eagles, falcons, and other birds of prey. And when those raptors come into conflict with humans, it’s usually the animals who are the ones in need of rescue. A Louisville-based group known as Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky has set itself that task. On receiving a report of an incapacitated bird, volunteers will pick it up, examine it for injuries and wounds, and, if at all possible, nurse it back to health and release it back into the wild. Some birds who can’t quite make it all the way back remain with the volunteers as “teaching birds,” visiting schools and community centers to help educate people about raptors, their place in the wild, and the legal protections afforded them.
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On a quiet hill in Frankfort overlooking the Kentucky state capitol, the names of more than 1,100 Kentuckians killed in the Vietnam War are inscribed on granite slabs that form a giant sundial. Each day, the shadow cast by the 25-foot steel gnomon falls on the names of men killed on that date—giving each man a personal “memorial day.”