Growing up near the Hanging Fork of the Dix River in Lincoln County, Byron Garrison Crawford got to listen to some of the best storytellers in Central Kentucky. As an adult, he himself became one of Kentucky’s most popular storytellers, thanks to a regular column in the Courier-Journal in Louisville, the state’s largest newspaper, and the statewide reach of Kentucky Life, which he hosted from its debut in September 1995 through the summer of 1999.

While still a student at Stanford High School, Byron got a job reading the news for the local radio station. He went on to study speech and broadcasting at Murray State University, then worked as a radio and television news reporter in Cincinnati and Louisville before joining the Courier-Journal in 1979.

Byron has been writing his “Kentucky Column” three times a week ever since. He also makes periodic guest appearances on KET’s Kentucky Afield, produced by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, where he tells still more stories about his native state. Yet he isn’t worried about a shortage of material anytime soon.

“I’ve been doing stories about Kentuckians now for more than 20 years, either on television or in the newspaper, and I keep wondering, ‘When am I going to run out?,’” Byron says. “But you never run out, because characters somehow replace themselves. Nature has a way of replacing its interesting people, and Kentucky just has an abundant resource of interesting people and places.”

Byron hosted Seasons 1-5 of Kentucky Life.

Dave Shuffett
Current series host