For more information:
• Gary Akers Gallery, Union, KY, (859) 384-3464

Producer: Charlee Heaton
Videographer: John Breslin
Audio: Gary Mosley
Editor: Otis Ballard

Egg-cellent Art

Painter Gary Akers

Eastern Kentucky native Gary Akers is an artist whose works are praised both for their beauty and for their richness of detail. And that level of detail is all the more remarkable considering the medium he works in. Akers specializes in landscapes painted in egg tempera, an egg-based paint that must be painstakingly applied, with each work built up of hundreds of layers. Yet Akers is also pretty prolific: A coffee-table book called Kentucky: Land of Beauty, published in 1998, gathers together more than 100 of his paintings of Kentucky rural scenes and landmarks, from covered bridges to Churchill Downs.

Akers now splits his time between a farm outside Union, in Boone County, and a summer home on an island off the coast of Maine. In this profile, the artist demonstrates a little of his technique and talks about where his ideas come from. We also meet his daughter, Ashley, who has “graduated” from occasional subject of her dad’s paintings to become an artist in her own right. No eggs here, though: Ashley’s growing reputation is being made in watercolors.

Watch This Story (10:42)

Producer, videographer: Dave Shuffett
Editor: Dan Taulbee

A Voice from the Greatest Generation

Bomber pilot Ralph Waldrop

Ralph Waldrop knows the B-26 bomber and its cousins intimately: The Mayfield resident flew 65 combat missions, plus another 40 supply runs, in such planes during World War II.

Like many other WWII veterans, Waldrop didn’t talk much about his experiences in the years after the war. Ultimately, though, he decided that sharing the past is preferable to letting us forget it—even though the stories are often painful to tell. On this visit with the former ace pilot, host Dave Shuffett hears some of those harrowing and heroic stories, and Waldrop himself climbs back into the cockpit for the first time in more than 50 years.

Watch This Story (9:10)

For more information:
• Kentucky Music Educators Association, P.O. Box 1058, Richmond, KY 40476, (859) 626-5635

Producer: George Rasmussen

Sing On!

Kentucky All-State Chorus

To close out this program on a more peaceful note, settle back for a performance of the traditional song “Oh, Shenandoah” by the Kentucky Youth Chorus. The group represents the musical talent of high schools throughout Kentucky, with members chosen through a demanding audition process overseen by the Kentucky Music Educators Association. This segment, taped at the organization’s annual conference in Louisville, is an excerpt from the 2000 KET production Sing On, Sing On.

KET also taped performances by the 2001 versions of the all-state chorus and orchestra for Making All-State Music, which aired in May 2001.

Watch This Story (3:55)