For more information:
• The Luci Center, P.O. Box 936, 500 Hebron Rd., Shelbyville, KY 40066, (502) 220-4308

Producer, editor: Charlee Heaton
Videographers: David Dampier, Prentice Walker
Audio: Thomas Cooper, Noel Depp, Brent Abshear

Helping Hooves

the Luci Center

To begin this edition of Kentucky Life, we meet some people who are improving their bodies and minds—and the horses who are helping them do it.

At the Luci Center in Shelby County, children and adults with physical or mental disabilities work on developing muscle control, learn to overcome emotional or behavioral problems, and add new skills to their repertoires through therapeutic riding and hippotherapy sessions and by helping to groom and care for horses. In hippotherapy, the patient sits on a horse, and the therapist analyzes how his or her body responds to the horse’s movements. The horse is then directed to move in specific ways to help the patient work on improving posture, balance, and muscle coordination. In therapeutic riding programs, participants move out into an arena setting for a horseback ride, with volunteers providing more or less assistance depending on the participant’s abilities.

Founder Paula Nieto, a physical therapist, started the Luci Center in Colorado in 1997 but moved it to Kentucky to take advantage of the milder winters. (The name came from a pet dog and stands for “love, understanding, care, and involvement.”) After a few years in Henry County, the center has settled onto a 26-acre farm outside Shelbyville. A small staff and a dedicated corps of volunteers keep things running year-round.

Of course, none of it is possible without the horses. Many of them came to the Luci Center after other “careers” in shows or racing, while others belonged to families whose children simply outgrew them. But from Danny Boy the pony to Pete the Clydesdale, each makes a unique contribution to improving the lives of the center’s clients.

Related Story: Kentucky Life visited Central Kentucky Riding for Hope, which operates similar programs at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, in Program 1313.

Watch This Story (8:22)

For more information:
• Southern Kentucky Model Aero Club
• Dad’s Toys, 1200-C SmallHouse Rd., Bowling Green, KY 42104, (270) 783-4004

Producer, editor: Andrea Hummel
Videographers: David Brinkley, Michael DePeriso

Hand Me an R/C

remote-controlled airplanes

Skilled pilots Eric Alford and Dennis Baack perform aerobatic stunts without ever leaving the ground in our next segment.

The two Warren Countians are both enthusiastic flyers of remote-controlled airplanes. In fact, Dennis even makes his living at it: He’s the proprietor of the Dad’s Toys hobby shop, which sells R/C planes, helicopters, boats, and cars plus related accessories.

The Bowling Green area is a good place for people with this particular passion, thanks to the efforts of SKYMAC—the Southern Kentucky Model Aero Club. Founded in the 1970s and still going strong, the club set out some time back to build one of the best R/C flying sites in the country. The result is the Carson Stahl Memorial Aerodrome, which boasts an 800-foot asphalt runway with 10 flight stations, a shelter, bathroom facilities, and even a concession stand.

SKYMAC meets once a month and runs an annual swap meet. The club has members in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee, but new recruits are always welcome.

Watch This Story (5:18)

For more information:
• Gin’s Place

Producer, editor: Kyle McCafferty
Videographers: Michael DePersio, Andrea Hummel, Mark Irons

May We See Your Papers?

papermaker and artist Virginia Petty

Most of the paper that surrounds us in our daily lives is made from trees, of course. But paper can be made, at least on a small scale, from an amazing variety of other plants. And Virginia (Gin) Petty, a Madison County artisan, has made it something of a personal crusade to explore the papermaking possibilities of as many as she can.

Over the years, Gin has experimented with everything from agrimony and asparagus to wool-grass and yucca. She’s tried cooking up paper from dandelions, pigweed, Johnsongrass, ragweed, and even kudzu as well as common and exotic flowers and Kentucky bluegrass. Some work better than others, of course, but the object is not so much to find something useful as it is to simply enjoy the search. Gin keeps an online journal of her papermaking and other artistic experiments and has published her own entirely handmade book with samples of more than two dozen kinds of paper, with notes about how each one was created.

A woodcarver for decades, Gin turned to papermaking when she “burned out” on carving. But she still thinks and works in three dimensions. Most of her paper is not destined for books or writing. Instead, she forms it into mobiles or sculptures (even a hat for her husband, writer Jim Tomlinson), combines it with other plant materials in luminaries and baskets, or layers it onto pottery to add texture.

Watch This Story (6:15)

For more information:
• Kentucky Ridge State Forest, Kentucky Division of Forestry, 627 Comanche Trail, Frankfort, KY 40601, (502) 564-4496

Producer, videographer: Dave Shuffett
Editor: Wesley J. Akers

Southeast Scenery

Kentucky Ridge State Forest

Filling out this edition is some scenery from a large but little-known piece of public land: the Kentucky Ridge State Forest in Bell County. The 15,251-acre tract, Kentucky’s largest state forest, encompasses Pine Mountain State Resort Park, the Little Clear Creek Valley, and Chenoa Lake. It is managed for sustainable timber harvesting and is open for hunting, fishing, hiking, picnics, and primitive camping.

Watch This Story (1:37)

For more information:
• Headley-Whitney Museum, 4435 Old Frankfort Pike, Lexington, KY 40510, (859) 255-6653

On Location

Dave Shuffett hosts this edition from the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington. Named for the two good friends who created it, it features the jewelry and bibelots of designer George W. Headley III and a collection of dollhouses commissioned by Marylou Whitney for her daughter. You’ll find a longer visit to the museum in Kentucky Life Program 1212.