One to One with Bill Goodman:
Pat Smith
aired September 1 and 3, 2006
When Comair Flight 5191 crashed on takeoff from Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport on August 27, 2006, it abruptly ended the stories of 49 lives. One to One tells one of those stories in this edition.
Patrick Smith of Lexington boarded Flight 5191 on his way to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where he and other volunteers from Habitat for Humanity had been building homes for people still struggling with the devastating effects of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. As a veteran volunteer project leader, Smith was helping to organize supplies and logistics for a joint project between the Mississippi and Kentucky Habitat chapters. The late-August visit would have been his eighth trip to the area.
Two weeks before, Smith had talked to One to One host Bill Goodman about his 20-year involvement with Habitat for Humanity. The organization uses donated materials and labor to build homes year-round for those who otherwise would not be able to afford them, with the prospective homeowners contributing “sweat equity”—their own labor—and then paying back the cost through a low-cost mortgage. Habitat also has mounted several large projects in recent years to help rebuild areas devastated by natural disasters.
Pat Smith’s experience as a Habitat volunteer included hands-on construction projects in Ghana, South Africa, Mexico, and areas of Sri Lanka and India hit hard by the 2004 tsunami, as well as three years’ service as president of the Lexington chapter. He was named Habitat for Humanity International’s Volunteer of the Year in 2003 and was a member of the boards of directors of both the international organization and its Lexington affiliate. He was also co-owner of Versa Tech Automation in Lexington.
After the crash of Flight 5191, the Lexington Habitat chapter established an endowment fund in Smith’s name. Donations may be made to the Pat Smith Habitat for Humanity Endowment Fund in care of Lexington Habitat for Humanity.
