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SUNDAY,SUNDAY, October 7, 2012 October 7, 2012 www.paducahsun.comwww.paducahsun.com Vol.Vol. 116116 No.No. 281281

JODY NORWOOD The Sun

Joe Whipple, owner of Whipple’s Food Market in  La Center, accepts his last check Saturday from Paulette Petty. Joe and his wife, Leah, sold the grocery, which will reopen under new ownership Monday. Petty was the last customer Saturday and was also the last cus-tomer in 1974 when the store moved.

A dispatch call about an appar-ently suicidal man led to a shoot-ing Saturday morning that criti-cally injured the man.

McCracken County Sheriff Jon Hayden said emergency services

received a call at 10:58 a.m. from a doctor saying a resident on Ori-ole Lane was suicidal and had overdosed on drugs. Sgt. Jared Ri-vera was dispatched for a welfare check, Hayden said, arriving only minutes after the call. Hayden said Rivera could not make con-

tact with anyone by knocking on the front door, so he went around the back of the house.

At that point, Hayden said a ci-vilian doing a ride-along with Ri-vera spotted the resident looking out a window with a handgun, alternating between tapping the

glass and pointing a gun at the squad car. Rivera ran to the car, Hayden said, and backed it down the driveway to get some distance from the possible threat. At that time, Hayden said the resident came out of the house with a sword and a handgun, pointing it

toward Rivera and his ride-along partner. Rivera shot the man, Hayden said.

Hayden said the suspect’s iden-tity will not be released until an investigation is completed by Ken-

Sheriff: Man shot after suicide callBY CORIANNE EGANcegan@paducahsun.com

Please see SHOOTING | 8A

LA CENTER — The real Mr. Whipple has left the building.

After 53 years in the grocery business, Joe and Leah Whipple have retired from their family-owned La Center store. Whipple’s Food Market closed Saturday and will reopen under new ownership Monday as Greg’s Supermarket.

The store received accidental attention in the 1960s with the

Procter & Gamble advertising campaign for its Charmin toilet paper. “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” became the hook for fi ctitious grocer George Whipple through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. But Joe Whipple said Procter & Gamble didn’t know about the grocery.

“When they came out with that commercial, we were the only Whipple store they had heard of,” he said. “It’s our name, it’s not

like we made it up.”“The tale is some of the big wigs

from the paper company came down and told Joe’s dad and uncle they couldn’t call the store Whipple’s,” Leah Whipple said.

Joe Whipple said he also ex-changed phone calls and photos with Dick Wilson, the late actor who portrayed the commercial and advertising Mr. Whipple. Joe

One last squeeze for Whipple’s Food MarketBY JODY NORWOOD

jnorwood@paducahsun.com

In June, two North Dakota teens walked into a Grand Forks McDon-ald’s. Within minutes, one of the boys began foaming at the mouth, hyperventilating and smashing his head against the ground. He was taken home, and died only hours later.

Only days before that, another Grand Forks teen had overdosed on the same drug. It was identifi ed as 2C-1, or “smiles,” a hallucinogen that comes in both powder and tab-let form. Police initially thought the designer drug was confi ned to North Dakota and Minnesota, but Los An-geles detectives are also looking into whether it could be linked to the death of Los Angeles actor Johnny Lewis in late September.

Although the 2C-1 drug has not made its way into western Kentucky, Paducah police drug division Sgt. Will Wilbert said the battle against new drugs is often a tedious one.

“We talk a lot to the public, or to people we arrest, and ask what they are doing and what they have been in contact with,” Gilbert said. “But really the worst way to fi nd out we have a problem is by having over-doses pop up.”

Gilbert said the area is dealing

Synthetic drugs pose ongoing problems

BY CORIANNE EGANcegan@paducahsun.com

“When they came out with that commercial, we were the only Whipple store they had heard of.

It’s our name, it’s not like we made it up.”

Joe WhippleWhipple’s Food Market

Please see NEW DRUGS | 5A

Please see WHIPPLE | 5A

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Jadan Harris (left), Sarah Warner, Steele Harris and Erin Warner, all from Paducah, cringe as they stick their hands into a pumpkin on Saturday afternoon at the 2012 Farmers’ Market Festival. The event was hosted by the Paducah Renaissance Alli-ance and held at Second and Monroe streets.

Despite the drought that devastated local crops over the summer, the Farmer’s Market in Paducah has proven to be a lasting attraction for vendors and customers alike.

“It hasn’t been a real good year, but we’ll come back and try again next year,” said Danny

Garrett, owner of Garrett Farms in Paducah. “That’s just the way farming is.”

Garrett was one of several vendors who came to the mar-ket pavilion on Water Street for the annual Downtown Farmer’s Market Festival Saturday.

Visitors were treated to live bluegrass music from a local band, Homemade Jam, as well

as face painting, fall crafts, and science experiments involving pumpkins.

Master gardeners provided free activities for children, while food volunteers passed out autumn-theme recipes to attendees.

The food volunteers buy pro-duce from vendors to make their dishes, then create reci-pes to give customers an idea

of what to look for during their visit to the market.

But the volunteers and cus-tomers have had less food to work with this year because of the hot, dry summer.

Farmers say the lack of rain didn’t hurt their crops as much

Paducah Farmer’s Market weathers droughtBY LAUREL BLACKlblack@paducahsun.com

Please see FARMER’S MARKET | 5A

Details 5A

The LineupMonday

West Kentucky Songwriters Chapter, Nashville Songwriters As-sociation International, 6-8 p.m. Curris Center, Murray State Univer-sity. 293-7252.

Ledbetter Masonic Lodge 952 F&AM, 7 p.m.; meal at 6:15.

Graves County Genealogical Society, 7 p.m., Graves County Li-brary. Refreshments. David Cissell, 247-4010.

 Paducah Masonic Lodge No. 127

F&AM, 7:30 p.m., 24th and Jack-son streets; meal at 6. 443-3127.

 Experimental Aircraft Associa-

tion, Big Rivers Chapter, 7 p.m., McCracken County Extension Of-fice, 2705 Olivet Church Road. Wilma Newberry, 744-3841.

PFC James M Yancey Detach-ment 1390, Marine Corps League, 7 p.m., VFW Post 1191, 1727 Washington St., Paducah. Call 994-2129, 898-7727, or 556-4469.

Wickliffe Masonic Lodge, 7:30 p.m., Meal, 6:30 p.m.

■ ■ ■

Items for the Lineup must be received in writing five days in advance. Mail to: Lineup, The Paducah Sun, P.O. Box 2300, Paducah, KY 42002-2300; fax the newsroom at 442-7859; or email news@paducahsun.com. An-nouncements are published day of event. Information: 575-8677.

2A • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Local paducahsun.com

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■ Descendants of Jacob Courtney and Polly Sherfield will have a family reunion on Saturday beginning with a potluck at 2 p.m. at the Melber Community Center, 11763 Ky. 339 North, Melber. For information con-tact Larry Courtney at 856-3283.

■ Southside Boys will have a reunion from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Calvary Baptist Church, Clements and Powell streets. Lunch will be served at noon. Information: 898-7618 or 442-6559.

■ Reidland Alumni Association is hosting an “All School Reunion” on Oct. 20 at Reidland High School. Registration will begin at 4 p.m. Res-ervations: 898-3152 or 898-3289.

■ Vasseur family reunion will be Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the American Legion Building, Ky. 95, Calvert City. Potluck dinner. Informa-tion: 270-353-9577.

■ Clark Elementary School SBDM — 3:20 p.m. Monday, guidance office.

■ Reidland Middle School SBDM — 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, library.

■ Sharpe Elementary School SBDM — 3:45 p.m. Thursday, library.

Reunions

In Our Schools

Saturday’s lotteryKentucky

Pick 3-midday: 9-8-4Pick 3-evening: 1-4-0Pick 4-midday: 8-3-3-1Pick 4-evening: 9-3-9-8Cash Ball: 10-23-30-32 CB 3 Cash Ball Kicker: 1-4-2-2-25 Card Cash: JH-KS-5C-8H-6SPowerball: 15-26-34-36-59 PB 35

IllinoisMy 3-midday: 0-8-5My 3-evening: 3-9-0Pick 3-midday: 2-0-5Pick 3-evening: 3-4-4Pick 4-midday: 6-9-4-9Pick 4-evening: 8-4-6-1Lucky Day Lotto: 3-6-29-31-33Lotto: 14-22-32-44-46-51

A beautiful day around the region

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Andrew Clark of Aurora carves an intricate bear sculpture with his chainsaw Saturday afternoon at The Hitching Post & Old Country Store in Aurora as part of the 35th annual Aurora Country Festival. Clark has been carving for 10 years and prefers to work with soft wood such as pine and cedar. Each carving starts with a single log and takes hours to complete, he said.

Photos by BOBBY MAYBERRY and ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Members of the Williamson County Motor Patrol participate in the Kim Shrine Appreciation Day Parade in Cairo, Ill., on Saturday, top left. The Kim Shrine Club, and other Shriners, raise money for the 22 Shriners Hospitals for Children. Alan Haley from Murray stirs kettle corn that he makes with his wife, Tina, on Saturday afternoon at the 35th annual Aurora Country Festival, top right. Haley and his wife have been making their kettle corn for six years and traveling locally to festivals to sell it. Larry Baldwin, Paul Lambert and Ronny Woods, members of the Cairo Men’s Choir, sing at the Toll House Jam on Saturday at Fort Defiance Park in Cairo, Ill., bottom right. Pedro Martinez (right) holds his 1-year-old daughter, Kathy, during a pony ride Saturday afternoon at the 35th annual Aurora Country Festival. The festival continues from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. today and is hosted by the Jonathan-Aurora Action Committee.

paducahsun.com Local/Region The Paducah Sun • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • 3A

JODY NORWOOD The Sun

State Rep. Mike Cherry addresses the crowd Saturday at Smithland’s 25th an-nual Octoberfest. Cherry announced in November he would not seek re-election.

SMITHLAND — Mike Cherry’s constituents and supporters recognized the longtime state repre-sentative on Saturday at Smithland’s 25th annual Octoberfest.

Cherry, of Princeton, announced in November he would not seek re-elec-tion in the Fourth Dis-trict, which encompasses Caldwell, Crittenden, Liv-ingston and part of Mc-Cracken counties. He will be one of four western Kentucky lawmakers not returning to their seats.

Cherry, who was elected state representative seven times, said he was unsure

of what comes next. He said he will continue to maintain partial owner-ship of Capitol Cinemas in Princeton, as well as other business interests.

“I may still be involved to some degree in state gov-ernment issues, but I have no plans for anything on a full-time basis,” Cherry said. “Just in the last 14 years I’ve been in the legis-lature, I’ve seen increased animosity, increased parti-sanship. It’s disheartening.”

He will retire as chair-man of the House State Government Committee.

Dianne O’Brien, who helped organize the event, said Saturday’s “pow wow” was to recognize commu-

nity leaders and Livings-ton County’s history. State Sen. Dorsey Ridley and several other elected of-fi cials from western Ken-tucky attended.

“If we don’t save our buildings and talk about the stories, no one will get it,” O’Brien said. “That’s what the pow wow does. It’s our job to transmit that heritage.”

O’Brien thanked Cherry and his wife, Princeton mayor Gale Cherry, for their work in preserving historical sites and mark-ers in Livingston County.

Call Jody Norwood, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8658.

Cherry recognized during Smithland’s Octoberfest

BY JODY NORWOODjnorwood@paducahsun.com

DANVILLE — In the days before hundreds of media descend upon Danville to cover the vice-presidential debate at Centre College, students at the liberal arts school were busy testing the technology that will be used during the event.

The team that installed the technology wanted to test it before the big day, and asked students to attempt to “break the network.”

Assistant information technology director David

Frey said students were asked to call people, pow-er up wireless devices and plug in Internet connec-tions at each station.

“This is great,” he said at one point to those who came ready to cause trou-ble. “We actually have a problem right now.”

Frey said the activities were like a stress test for the system, which techs have been working on for weeks. The problem re-ported early on involved interference with outgo-ing calls. Techs were able

to fi x it almost immedi-ately.

IT director Art Moore told The Advocate-Mes-senger that no major problems were found during the test — only a few minor programming issues that were eas-ily fi xed. He said offi cials were pleased with the fi ndings of the test. The debate is Thursday.

Shane Wilson, the school’s network services coordinator, said it re-ally helps to fi nd potential problems early.

Centre College students help test technology for VP debate

Associated Press

HEBRON — After near-ly a decade of dreaming, planning and working, of-fi cials have dedicated the fi rst section of a multi-use trail surrounding the Cin-cinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Steve Wilmhoff, who worked with his friend, Da-vid Zimmer, to get the project going, said that is fulfi lling to see their dream realized.

“It’s very exciting to look down this road and see all these people and the kids riding and walking this trail,” Wilmhoff said. “Hopefully this is just the beginning.”

The CVG Trail is adjacent to the new 2.7-mile Aero Parkway.

“The ultimate goal would be a trail all the way around the airport, which would be about 22 miles,” Wilmhoff said. “We have permission from the Federal Aviation Administration and the state for the fi rst two phas-es of the trail, but the rest of the route is undefi ned.”

When Wilmhoff and Zimmer fi rst began to dis-cuss the trail, it was more a dream than anything else, but they began checking what it would take to make it possible.

“The fi rst phone call we made was to Chuck Mel-ville, who was chief of po-lice at the airport at that time, and we knew if he had trouble with the idea we were stuck,” Wilmhoff said.

They got his support, and then asked the Kenton County Airport Board for its support.

Richard Crist, who was board chairman at the time nearly 10 years ago, re-members it clearly.

“We hear a lot of ideas about things to do that in-volve the airport and they are not always such great ideas,” Crist said. “This one seemed very promising.”

The idea starting gaining more community support along the way until a group that became the Friends of the CVG Trail formed and lobbied local elected offi cials

to move forward with work.“Everyone we talked to

liked the idea,” Wilmhoff said. “There really isn’t a downside to it, but even though there is no land acquisition involved there are costs and that was a roadblock.”

However, construction planned for Aero Parkway meant the trail got a boost too.

“These days you have to build a multi-modem com-ponent in any road that has federal funding,” Boone County Planning Com-mission Director Kevin Costello said. “It could be something like the wide sidewalks that were includ-ed on Mall Road or a multi-purpose use like you have on Aero Parkway.”

Zimmer says he hopes having a section of the trail open helps attract more in-terest and support for the next phase of the project.

“Now that it’s done, and because of where it’s locat-ed, I think it’s going to get used quite a bit and people will see what an asset it is,” Zimmer said.

Portion of trail near airport opensAssociated Press

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. — A Middle Tennessee hospital is participating in a study of a gene therapy drug to see if it can help patients with congestive heart failure.

Cardiologist Dinesh Gup-ta at the Harton Regional Medical Center is partici-pating with local resident Steve Thomas, who suffers from an advanced form of the disease.

Gupta said the study is double-blind, which means not even he knows whether

Thomas is in the group that receives medicine or in the control group, which gets a placebo.

Thomas said he’s glad to help with the study regard-less of whether it helps him

or someone else.Nurse Celina Trussell

said it would be several years before enough data is collected for federal offi -cials to consider approving the drug.

Tennessee hospital conducting medical trialsAssociated Press

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Jim PaxtonEditor & Publisher

Duke ConoverExecutive Editor

Paducah City Manager Jeff Pederson succeeded in getting the Paducah City Commission and McCracken County Fiscal Court together around the same table to discuss the proposed Olivet Church Road expansion, and the meeting appears to have achieved its purpose. Both entities passed resolutions to proceed on the project at the end of last Tuesday’s joint meeting.

The two governing boards were previously divided over the project. Or at least part of it.

Both bodies supported widening Olivet Church Road from Cairo Road, near exit 3 on Interstate 24, to Hinkleville Road west of Kentucky Oaks Mall. The project is designed to relieve traffic congestion along Hinkleville Road between exit 4 and James Sanders Boulevard on the east side of the mall by rerouting mall traffic from the north. City and county commissioners agree that relief is badly needed.

But the city, which has taken the lead in the project, also wants to

create an access road between Olivet Church Road and New Holt Road west of the mall. The county had opposed that idea, fearing it might create other problems, and that opposition threatened state funding for

the entire project.The Kentucky Transportation

Cabinet has allocated $6.5 million for the improvements. However, work was supposed to begin on the project earlier this year, and there was a growing likelihood the funding would be lost if the city and county did not resolve their seven-month stalemate on the proposal.

The fiscal court and county commission met for over an hour

in executive session Tuesday, and when they emerged they appeared to have reached a consensus.

One sticking point remains. The city has yet to reach agreement with one property owner whose property the access road would divide. The owner wants $1 million for the right-of-way for a parcel appraised at $175,000. Negotiations continue.

The rationale for adding the access road sounds logical. But the project is important, with or without the access road, for improving the flow of traffic through the heavily congested mall area.

It’s good that the commissioners were able to resolve their differences. The community is well served when elected officials meet face to face to seek common ground.

WASHINGTON — The presi-dential campaign, hitherto a plod through a torrent of words tedious beyond words, began to dance in Denver. There a mas-terfully prepared Mitt Romney completed a trifecta of tasks and unveiled an issue that, because it illustrates contemporary liber-alism’s repellant essence, can constitute his campaign’s closing argument.

Barack Obama, knight of the peevish countenance, illustrated William F. Buckley’s axiom that liberals who celebrate toler-ance of other views always seem amazed that there are other views. Obama, who is not known as a martyr to the work ethic and who might use a teleprompter when ordering lunch, seemed uncomfortable with a format that allowed fl uidity of discourse.

His vanity — remember, he gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod whose menu included two of his speeches — perhaps blinds him to the need to prepare. And to the fact that it is not lese-majeste to require him to defend his campaign ads’ dubious asser-tions with explanations longer than the ads. And to the ample evidence, such as his futile advo-cacy for Democratic candidates and Obamacare, that his sup-posed rhetorical gifts are fi g-ments of acolytes’ imaginations.

Luck is not always the residue of design, and Romney was lucky that the fi rst debate concerned the economy, a subject that to him is a hanging curve ball and to Obama is a dancing knuckle-ball. The topic helped Romney accomplish three things.

First, recent polls showing him losing were on the verge of be-coming self-fulfi lling prophesies by discouraging his supporters and inspiriting Obama’s. Rom-ney, unleashing his inner wonk about economic matters, proba-bly stabilized public opinion and prevented a rush to judgment as early voting accelerates.

Second, Romney needed to

be seen tutoring Obama on such elementary distinctions as that between reducing tax rates (while simultaneously reducing, by means testing, the value of deductions) and reducing rev-enues, revenues being a function of economic growth, which the rate reductions could stimulate.

Third, Romney needed to rivet the attention of the electorate, in which self-identifi ed conserva-tives outnumber self-identifi ed liberals two-to-one, on this choice:

America can be the society it was when it had a spring in its step, a society in which markets — the voluntary collaboration of creative individuals — al-locate opportunity. Or America can remain today’s depressed and anxious society of unprec-edented stagnation in the fourth year of a faux recovery — a bleak society in which government incompetently allocates resourc-es in pursuit of its perishable certitudes and on behalf of the politically connected.

Late in the debate, when Romney for a third time referred to Obamacare’s creation of “an unelected board, appointed board, who are going to decide what kind of [medical] treatment you ought to have,” Obama said, “No, it isn’t.” Oh?

The Independent Payment Advisory Board perfectly illus-trates liberalism’s itch to remove choices from individuals, and from their elected representa-tives, and to repose the power to choose in supposed experts lib-erated from democratic account-ability. Beginning in 2014, IPAB

would consist of 15 unelected technocrats whose recommenda-tions for reducing Medicare costs must be enacted by Congress by Aug. 15 of each year. If Congress does not enact them, or other measures achieving the same level of cost containment, IPAB’s proposals automatically are transformed from recommenda-tions into law. Without being approved by Congress. Without being signed by the president.

These facts refute Obama’s Denver assurance that IPAB “can’t make decisions about what treatments are given.” It can and will by controlling pay-ments to doctors and hospitals. Hence the emptiness of Obam-acare’s language that IPAB’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”

By Obamacare’s terms, Congress can repeal IPAB only during a seven-month win-dow in 2017, and then only by three-fi fths majorities in both chambers. After that, the law precludes Congress from ever altering IPAB proposals.

Because IPAB effectively makes law, thereby traducing the separation of powers, and entrenches IPAB in a manner that derogates the powers of future Congresses, it has been well described by a Cato Institute study as “the most anti-consti-tutional measure ever to pass Congress.” But unless and until the Supreme Court — an unreli-able guardian — overturns it, IPAB is a harbinger of the “shock and awe statism” (Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ phrase) that is liberalism’s prescription for curing the problems supposedly caused by insuffi cient statism.

Before Denver, Obama’s cam-paign was a protracted exercise in excuse abuse, and the promise that he will stay on the statist course he doggedly defends de-spite evidence of its futility. After Denver, Romney’s campaign should advertise that promise.

EDITOR:My career in economic development began in 1987 and

brought me to Paducah as CEO of the Greater Paducah Economic Development Council from 1996 — 2000. Since 2000 I have sustained a successful consulting business. With my 25 years of experience in economic development, I can say with certainty that merger of Paducah and McCracken County is the most positive step we can take to turn around our less-than-stellar record of recruiting new investment and jobs.

In the early stages of site selection, companies analyze a complex matrix of workforce data, transportation arter-ies, start-up costs, operational costs and countless other criteria to narrow to a short list of sites to consider. These are the tangible components of site selection and vary greatly by project. To point to a specifi c data point as a “make or break” criterion — like the “density” argument the “no” side is touting — is ridiculous.

Harder to quantify are intangible components of site selection — essentially the impressions site selectors form regarding the vibrancy of the community and its ability to solve problems and nurture businesses.

In 2010 I was hired to survey the most successful site selection consultants in the U.S. to provide feedback to economic developers. In response to the question, “How do communities mess up deals?” consultants consistently referenced the importance of speaking with one voice, providing easy and effi cient processes for interfacing with government, and approaching situations from a business standpoint.

Before investing countless millions of dollars, company offi cials have to have a high level of confi dence in their potential governmental partners. Merger provides this and more. Throughout the recession the private sec-

tor has been retooling in order to thrive in the future. Shouldn’t Paducah and McCracken County do the same thing?

KRISTIN R. WILLIAMSPaducah

Edwin J. Paxton, Editor & Publisher, 1900-1961

Editorial

Letters

4A • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Opinion paducahsun.com

Election letters deadlineLetters to the editor pertaining to candidates in the Nov.

6 general election must be received by The Paducah Sun editorial department no later than noon Friday, Oct. 19.

To be considered for publication, letters must be signed and have a complete address and daytime telephone number. All are subject to editing for clarity and brev-ity. Writers are asked to limit letters to a maximum of 300 words. All hand-delivered letters must be directed to Linda Cocke.

City-county merger a positive steptoward turning around local economy

EDITOR:I have a copy of a directive put out by the Clinton

administration a few years back strongly suggesting go-ing ahead and making questionable loans in the housing business. It helped kill the economy but bought lots of votes for the Dems’ party.

Now we all know that Bill Clinton is a paragon of virtue, the epitome of honesty and integrity. The type of politi-cian bred by the so-called Democrat Party is a disgrace.

Any party whose platform cannot conform to the spirit and letter of our Constitution should not exist. Neither should it ever be supported by the people of our country.

The present administration has practiced taking from your hip pocket, or your neighbor’s, and buying your vote with the same. It is your freedom and Constitution the same as mine. Never in my 86 years have I seen any president arrogate to himself the authority this president has.

The Constitution does not give to any president the authority this man has assumed, and therein lies the problem. He wants to be the last word on any piece of leg-islation before Congress. The law does not delegate to the president, any president, the authority he has assumed.

He has pulled every string, twisted every arm and used every political maneuver at his disposal. He learned his trade in Chicago, and that is the way he and his Justice Department have attempted to run our country.

You are no fool, you can read, you can understand what you read and understand what you hear spoken. Surely

you, as a free American, will not go to the polls Nov. 6 and vote your constitutional freedoms away.

ELMER L. HENDERSONPaducah

Constitution does not give presidentthe authority Obama has assumed

EDITOR:When will everyone get sick and tired of the “union”?

When things don’t go their way, they start causing prob-lems. At times it’s violent.

It’s time to put an end to this organization. It’s nothing short of strong-arming and intimidation.

Companies need to stop hiring union instead of giving those jobs to people who will work for an honest wage and take pride in being blessed in just having a job.

When someone walks off the job, keep walking. There’s plenty of qualifi ed people willing to fi ll those positions, with a guarantee they won’t strike and will set a better example for our children. It’s way past the time to outlaw this mafi a style of modern-day conduct.

RICHARD HALSELLPaducah

Companies should give jobs to thosewho appreciate them, not unions

ACCORDCity, county did well

to resolve road stalemate

Romney completed trifecta in Denver

George Will

JODY NORWOOD | The Sun

Joe and Leah Whipple give the Charmin one last squeeze Saturday night. The two are re-tiring from Whipple’s Food Market in La Center, which received attention in the 1960s for the “Don’t squeeze the Charmin, Mr. Whipple” commercials.

paducahsun.com From Page One The Paducah Sun • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • 5A

Whipple said he still in-dulges requests to squeeze the toilet paper. Whipple said he’s had sightseers from other states coming to see the real Whipple’s store.

The store didn’t always have the famous name. Whipple’s grandfather, Andrew Clarence Whip-ple, opened the grocery in 1931. The store passed through the family until 1972 when Joe and his brother purchased it from his uncle.

He and wife, Leah, now sole owners, moved op-erations from an adjacent property into the current location in 1974.

The last customer at the original location was Pau-lette Petty of Paducah. On

Saturday, Whipple rang up Petty as his fi nal cus-

tomer before retiring.“It’s been all these years,

and we’ve been friends with the Whipples for a long time,” Petty said. “This is kind of exciting and fun for their retire-ment but a little sad for those of us who have al-ways come to Whipple’s.”

The store has been sold to Greg Godby, who also owns groceries in Bardwell and Clinton. Whipple said he will miss the store where he worked in one form or another since he was 12. In his 53 years, Whipple only quit once.

“I worked one week in a factory over in Cairo,” Whipple said. “My dad was disappointed because I told him I wanted a real job. I worked two days

and told him I wanted to quit and come back. Fi-nally I told him I had quit and I was coming back to work. That’s the only time, I learned my lesson. This is what I know.”

Whipple said the growth of competition had been one of the biggest changes during his time in the gro-cery business. The meth-od also has evolved, mov-ing from wooden cash drawers and adding ma-chines to computerized scanners. On Saturday, a sign hanging in the win-dow informed customers charge accounts would be closed out, a practice long discontinued at most re-tail stores.

Call Jody Norwood, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8658.

WHIPPLECONTINUED FROM 1A

with the usual suspects — methamphetamine, mari-juana and variants of co-caine — although offi cers have also seen a rise in her-oin and LSD use in the past month. Newer drugs, such as synthetic marijuana and bath salts, pop up from time to time, he said.

“People like to ex-periment,” Gilbert said. “There’s hybrid foods, now there are hybrid drugs. So many things are so close in nature — ecstasy and meth are only two molecules apart from one another — that it is easy to make something new.”

School systems also stay aware of the problem. Paducah Public Schools district security offi cer Rob-ert Bryant said the school system does impromptu drug searches and encour-ages teachers, parents and students to share informa-tion. Bryant said the district became concerned recently that more students were us-ing prescription pills found in medicine cabinets at home.

“We ended up not having a problem with it,” Bryant

said, “but we were defi nite-ly aware of it. If anything new shows up, we always follow the same protocol. We fi le a report, then we in-vestigate.”

Lori Blakeley, director of the Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force, which helps drug enforcement in 20 western Kentucky counties, said new designer drugs are released every day. Syn-thetic drugs, like synthetic marijuana, bath salts and even potpourri that is being smoked for a high are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, she said, which means they are much more dangerous.

“There is no telling how much of a chemical is in these things,” Blakeley said. “It is really important for us to stay on top of it. Going to schools, putting information up on our web-site, those are all ways that we try to get the word out and warn people.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Corianne Egan, a Paducah Sun staff writer, 270-575-8652 or follow @CoriEgan on Twitter.

as the record temperatures. “Extensive heat cooks from the top down,” said Ewin Ledbetter of E&G Farms in Smithland.

Ledbetter said plants generally suffer when tem-peratures hit 95 degrees and higher. “We had 17 to 18 days of triple digits,” he added.

The drought’s impact reached every aspect of farming, from shipping to feed prices. Even the cus-tomer base suffered be-cause of the weather. “A lot of the people who shop with us are elderly, and the heat got so bad that they couldn’t get out in it,” Gar-rett said.

Heat wasn’t a problem for visitors to Saturday’s festival, though.

Heather Lambert heard

about the event through so-cial media and decided to bring her two daughters for a day of crafts. “I have the day off, so it was something fun for them to do,” she said.

Lambert said she comes to the market regularly during the summer. She noticed that there wasn’t as big a selection of produce this year, but says she still prefers to visit the market and support local farms.

Farmers predict a rough road ahead, and say they’ll have to come up with new solutions to continue their business. “Lord help us if we have another one,” Led-better said of the drought. “We’re going to have to work smarter, that’s for sure.”

Call Laurel Black, a Paducah Sun staff writer, at 270-575-8641.

NEW DRUGS

CONTINUED FROM 1A

FARMER’S MARKET

CONTINUED FROM 1A

ALLIE DOUGLASS | The Sun

Bluegrass band Homemade Jam performs at the 2012 Farmers’ Market Festival while people shop, eat and en-joy the day on Saturday afternoon at Second and Monroe streets. Hosted by Paducah Renaissance Alliance, the festival included fun activities for people of all ages.

Jane Viterisi, C.Ph.T.

Victoria Seng, R.N., Ph.D.

baptistmiracles.tv

Western Baptist Hospital’s cancer care is among the best of the best. Of all nationally-accredited programs, only 5 percent meet the highest standards to earn the Outstanding Achievement Award. Western Baptist has won it the last two three-year cycles.

Why is that important? Ask a woman who’s had breast cancer.

Nursing professor and college administrator Victoria Seng, R.N., Ph.D., of Fulton and our own Jane Viterisi, a hospital pharmacy tech from Paducah, can tell you why. Five years after their cancer treatment at Western Baptist, they are cancer-free and enjoying life.

We believe you heal better closer to home.

6A • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Region paducahsun.com

ALTENBURG, Mo. — For-mer Cape Girardeau resi-dent and newspaper pho-tojournalist Ken Steinhoff presents a glimpse into the past in a new exhibit at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum in Altenburg, Mo. The retrospective, “Or-dinary People Doing Ordi-nary Things,” is on display until Nov. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.

“I like to photograph peo-ple who were unacknowl-edged by the paper except when they were born, when they got married, when they got a speeding ticket, and when they died. Some-body else could have the celebrity beat,” Steinhoff said.

While working in the Cape Girardeau area, Stein-hoff developed fi lm for the newspapers he worked for in his basement darkroom. Photos considered newspa-per worthy were selected. Discarded fi lm was rolled up, put into old coffee cans and placed into bags which he fi led underneath a desk.

After retirement in 2008, Steinhoff came back to Cape Girardeau and redis-covered the old fi lm. As he examined the frames he re-alized something that elud-

ed him 50 years ago: the ordinary and uninteresting photos were “the most pre-cious.”

Hidden in the bags was a treasure trove of images

from bygone days. The faces, places and mundane rituals of life that time has forgotten. From a Mis-sissippi River baptism in black and white from New

Madrid, Mo., to shots of Wittenburg, Mo., which was virtually wiped out by fl oods, to farmers standing in their coveralls outside a store talking.

Steinhoff contacted Carla Jordan, the director of the Lutheran Heritage Cen-ter and Museum of Perry County, and showed her his work.

“It started the conver-sation about the exhibit,” Jordan said. “Ken’s exper-tise in portraiture is amaz-ing. He doesn’t like to be called an artist. The exhibit is presented like an art ex-hibit.”

They had more than 400 photos to choose from for the exhibit. They ar-gued. Eventually they had a “picking party” and al-lowed some of the choices to be made by friends.

“It’s such an honor hav-ing the Steinhoff exhibit with us,” Jordan said. “The work is a powerful juxtapo-sition. And it was all work that had been discarded.”

Steinhoff’s family settled in Cape Girardeau, where he attended Trinity Lu-theran and Cape Girardeau Central High School.

While in high school he was the chief photographer for The Tiger, the school’s newspaper, and Girardot, the yearbook. He was also a reporter and photogra-pher for the Jackson Pio-neer, where he learned to set type, write stories and shoot pictures.

In 1965 he was a sum-mer intern at the Southeast Missourian.

Former Cape resident captures momentsBY REBECCA ALLEN

Associated Press

Associated Press

Ken Steinhoff shoots a self-portrait in the old Stylerite Barber Shop in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Steinhoff presents a glimpse into the past in a new exhibit at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum in Altenburg, Mo. The retro-spective, “Ordinary People Doing Ordinary Things,” is on display until Nov. 2.

Please see ORDINARY PEOPLE | 7A

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Th ank You From Th e Family OfCharles H. Williams

We express sincere gratitude for the many persons, friends and family who attended the visitation and home going services for Charles H. Williams, those who responded by sending resolutions, sympathy cards, cards of encouragement and comfort, prayers, fl owers, food, e-mail words of sympathy, and for the many words of comfort spoken by phone, Special Th anks to Reverend Dr. Martha E. Granger, Offi cers and Members of St. James C.M.E. Church; Reverend Frank Price and members of Burks Chapel A.M.E. Church; Reverend Carl A. Moore, Reverend Larry Black and Brother Gregg Robinson and members of Allen Temple A.M.E. Church, Woodstock, Georgia; Reverend Charles W. Russell; Brother Hugh Holland, Huntsville, Alabama; Reverend Charles Dunbar and Brother Eric Smith, God Sons; Sister Mary A. Pettus-Rowland, Family Friend and Special Friend of Mary Algee (Charles’s Mother) ; Friends from Hopkinsville, Ky; Graham Chapel C.M.E. Church, Savannah, TN, Family’s Home Church, named aft er Great Grandfather; Union A.M.E. Church, Little Rock, Arkansas; Kairos A.M.E. Church, Nashville, TN; Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. McReynolds, Oakley Full Gospel Baptist Church, Columbus, Ohio; W. C. Young Community Center President and Board of Directors; Brother Fairley Taylor and Stone Square Lodge #5 and the Masonic Family; Th e Pinochle Club; Veterans Administration Home Based Primary Care Unit; Help At Home, Metropolis, IL and Mrs. Judy Martin; Dr. Ted Davies and Western Baptist Cardiac Care Team and the excellent Funeral Service Ministry provided by the Pettus-Rowland Funeral Home and the service provided by the Maplelawn Park Cemetery. We thank God for His peace and Th ank You for being there to help us share in this challenging season of life.

Mary Algee, Mother, Frances Williams, Wife, Renata Williams, Daughter

paducahsun.com Region The Paducah Sun • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • 7A

As an intern he worked on the copy desk as well as in sports, news and wed-ding coverage. The experi-ence resulted in the news-paper for Ohio University hiring him in 1967. Within three months he became the photo editor.

Steinhoff was pursuing a bachelor of fi ne arts, but “I neglected my studies more than a little. It was more fun to actually do than to study.”

His work with the school paper caught the attention of the local newspaper, The Athens Messenger. They contacted him to work for them.

The paper had a 9-by-17 blank page the photogra-phers had to fi ll.

In 1969, he did a spot on the owner of The Hill-top Restaurant in Athens, Ohio. She was referred to as Mom Pennell. Accord-ing to Steinhoff, she would talk about college students that visited her or service-men she would give mon-ey to for bus tickets.

The morning after the story ran, Steinhoff watched customers com-ing in, each giving Pennell a copy of the article. He said that’s when he realized he had the power to elevate ordinary individuals.

“I became hypersen-sitive to the events that

surround you,” Steinhoff said. “The ordinary people idea came from that.”

After a stint at the Gas-tonia Gazette in North Carolina, the Palm Beach Post became his home for the next 35 years where he did a variety of jobs. He retired in 2008.

A book on the Smelt-erville area of Cape Gi-rardeau is in the works for Steinhoff. He is tracking down people in the im-ages he found from 1966 of Smelterville. He has gone to reunions and circulated photos hop-ing to fi nd connections.

“I interviewed a wom-an that had a photo of her mother that had been passed around,” Steinhoff said.

“She said she did not have a picture of her and had almost forgot-ten her face. She told me she had the photo on the seat of the car next to her and looked at it and had to pull to the side of the road and let the tears fall.”

She told him his pho-

tograph had captured her soul.

Steinhoff will present an electronic component of his exhibit to a small group at a date to be de-termined later this month at the Immigrant Confer-ence at the Lutheran Heri-tage Center.

Jordan said that there would also be an 1850s folk art wood carving, from Herb Graupner’s collection, of the life of Je-sus on display.

The Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum was created to care for the log college seminary. It has expanded to a museum with a gallery and has 4,000 square feet of ar-chives. Families have free access to research geneal-ogy back to Germany.

“People come from all over the county and Ger-many to do research with us,” Jordan said.

The next exhibit will be the eighth annual Luther’s Indoor Walk Through the Woods. Forty Christmas trees will be displayed throughout the museum and galleries from Nov. 15 to Jan. 15.

“It’s unbelievably gor-geous,” Jordan said. “Magical inside the mu-seum.”

ORDINARY PEOPLECONTINUED FROM 6A “I became hypersensitive

to the events that surround you. The ordinary people idea

came from that.”

Ken SteinhoffPhotographer

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Coal country is hurting, and the people who live there want the whole na-tion to know it.

Thousands of miners have been laid off this year across Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, many with little hope of getting their jobs back as power plants and the coal mines that once fed them shut down. Now the families, friends and business operators who depend on those miners are planning a multi-state show of solidarity they hope will be heard in Washington, D.C., and beyond.

“No one really hears our voices down here and knows what’s going on,” says 28-year-old coal min-er’s wife Tracy Miller of Keokee, Va.

She’s working to change that.

If all goes as planned, huge crowds wearing min-ers’ stripes and fl uorescent “United for Coal” T-shirts will line up Oct. 13 along U.S. Highway 23 from Big Stone Gap, Va., through Paintsville, Ky., and toward Chillicothe, Ohio. They will stretch north on U.S. 119 from Pikeville, Ky., toward Williamson, W.Va.

Some call it “Hands Across Coal Country.” In Virginia, it’s a “Prayer Chain.” But everyone knows what it’s for: It’s to show the rest of America the people behind the head-lines from a faraway place.

“Hopefully it’s an inspir-ing and uplifting event for the people who were laid off,” says 32-year-old Shana Lucas, wife of a coal miner in Wise, Va. “It’s just a way as a community to say, ‘We can’t stop any-thing. We can’t do anything to prevent this from hap-pening to you, but we can stand up for you. We can form a line three states long to show you we care.’”

The industry was already enduring a seasonal down-turn after a warm winter that kept demand for coal low. It faces growing com-petition from cheap, abun-dant natural gas. And it was struggling with the Environ-mental Protection Agency’s crackdown on permitting for mountaintop removal mines and tougher clean-water standards.

Then old, ineffi cient power plants started shut-ting down, too, cutting off a traditional market for Ap-palachian steam coal.

Operators had to adjust, and that translated to lay-offs — 800 alone last month when Alpha Natural Re-sources shut down eight Ap-palachian mines. That means fewer working miners, spending less in stores, giving less to relatives in need and struggling to fi nd new jobs.

“I’m not a very political person,” says Miller, who’s planning to take her 5- and 10-year-old children to the demonstration. “I don’t want this prayer chain to turn into politics. But the EPA has absolutely de-stroyed our way of life.”

She and other organizers are expecting a huge turn-out from people who feel the same.

Jesse Bowling, tour-ism director for the city of Pikeville, says his town of 6,900 is hosting a free concert for the miners and preparing for a crowd of as many as 50,000.

“It’s to help them and show them we’re proud of them and we care about

them and we support them,” he says. “And we’ll continue to do so.”

Unlike many coal dem-onstrations, this one isn’t orchestrated by companies or trade associations. Unit-ed for Coal is a grass-roots initiative, promoted largely on Facebook by people who are directly affected.

“In Washington, that gets lost in translation some-times. These layoffs affect families — wives, mothers, grandmothers, kids, grand-kids,” says Jesse Salyer, the 52-year-old president of a Pikeville energy company that leases land and miner-al rights to coal operators. “It’s just a real miserable time here in the coalfi elds.

“Ninety-fi ve percent of the people doing this have not met each other, don’t know each other and are just doing this to — for at least one day — give some attention to the miners.”

The idea started with Al-len Gibson, a 60-year-old disabled surface miner from Elkhorn City, Ky.

An elderly woman who lives on $205 a month in Social Security income told him she’d always gotten by, thanks to support from fi ve sons who were coal miners. Now, four are unemployed.

“She wasn’t complain-ing that she couldn’t get the medicines she needed,” Gibson says. “She was wor-ried about her sons. She said, ‘If the coal jobs run out, they won’t have jobs, and they won’t be able to support their children.’

“This is not a Democrat or a Republican thing,” he says. “It’s a moral thing.”

But there is little doubt that United for Coal is also a political event. Posts on every state’s page are heavy with anti-Obama sentiment.

Gibson says state and fed-eral governments have failed the coalfi elds, and he blames politicians at every level for the failure to bring economic diversity to the region.

In coal country, thousands show their solidarity

BY VICKI SMITHAssociated Press

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LAUREL BLACK | The Sun

Officials stand outside a house Saturday on Oriole Lane in McCracken County. McCracken County Sheriff Jon Hayden said a deputy apparently shot a resident after the resident came out of the house waving a sword and aiming a handgun at the deputy and his ride-along partner early Saturday morning.

8A • Sunday, October 7, 2012 • The Paducah Sun Region/From Page One paducahsun.com

tucky State Police. He said he personally called KSP and requested the inves-tigation. State police said the resident’s injuries were critical Saturday night.

Trooper Ryan Dawson, who is leading the investi-gation for KSP, said it is not

abnormal for the state po-lice to investigate incidents that happen with other law enforcement agencies.

“We provide an impar-tial eye,” Dawson said. “It’s really for the protec-tion of the suspect and the sheriff’s department both. We can come in from an impartial place and put

the pieces together.”Dawson said it will be

several days before the fi ndings of the investiga-tion are released.

Contact Corianne Egan, a Paducah Sun staff writer, 270-575-8652 or follow @CoriEgan on Twitter.

SHOOTING

CONTINUED FROM 1A

MORRISTOWN, Tenn. — Jodie Hansen’s home is full of stories.

Currently those stories spill off the tables and onto chairs. They dominate the shelves in the living room and hang from the walls in the den. They blanket the piano and the kitchen ta-ble. Mostly, however, they neatly fi ll the nooks and crannies of Hansen’s home the way gathering them has fi lled the nooks and cran-nies of Hansen’s life.

“It’s my therapy,” she said.

A writer could spend a month transcribing the stories carefully laid out through Hansen’s home and not scratch the sur-face. There’s the massive array of bells, carefully cultivated by Hansen and her mother, that greet visi-tors in the foyer. There are antique books and ancient sailing knickknacks and old toys long forgotten by their original owners but res-cued by Hansen and given a place of honor in the mu-seum which is her home.

Many of these began as a relatively mundane accou-trement to someone else’s life. Whether a fl eeting fan-ciful object or something of everyday use, they were just things. However, by merely surviving the passage of time and being carried by fate into Hansen’s path, the objects have transformed. They are the personifi ca-tion of nostalgia.

It is as if Hansen’s home is full of mini-time ma-chines, each just waiting to take someone tripping down memory lane.

The story I have been asked to tell - the one out of the hundreds I could have chosen - is about Hansen’s collection of political mem-orabilia. Mostly presiden-tial in nature, the collec-tion is spread through the better part of four rooms in her home, covering the few spots that aren’t normally blanketed in a neatly orga-nized phalanx of the past.

The collection is gigantic - made up of another hun-dred stories - and at this point is just short of gain-ing a life of its own. It grows

and changes without Han-sen’s direct input, many items donated by friends and family who know just how much Hansen would value an antique Nixon-Agnew button.

The collection isn’t nor-mally on display. It can’t be. It belongs in a museum or in storage and cannot practically be contained by a single home.

She brought it out of stor-age and carefully laid it out to share with a few friends. Then as word began to spread about the collec-tion, more people wanted to see it. Her bridge club, for instance, and others interested in history and, perhaps fascinated by the extent one woman would go to collect it.

There is a meticulous and careful nature at work, preserving items that have eluded the capture of more renowned collections in museums large and small throughout the world. But that isn’t to say the political collection is all about his-tory with a capital “H.”

Items within the col-lection range from the original sheet music for President James Garfi eld’s funeral march to the mod-

ern cringe-inducing bum-per stickers complete with semi-offensive attacks that seemingly gained in popularity toward the end of President Bill Clinton’s term.

Hansen tells me again and again that she is not political. It is her way of saying the collection isn’t about ideology. She doesn’t wish to get caught up in the infl amed political passions of the day.

Woman has curator’s passion for collecting

BY JOHN GULLIONAssociated Press

Associated Press

Jodie Hansen holds a button supporting Wendell Willkie, who won the Republican presidential nomination in 1940 but failed to defeat President Franklin D. Roos-evelt, on Sept. 13 at her home in Morristown Tenn.

Pet owners urged to plan for emergency

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois emergency management officials say residents should think about their pets when planning for a disaster.

The Illinois Emergency Management Agency says that it will be working to increase awareness of pet disaster preparedness throughout October. IEMA Director Jona-thon Monken says pet owners should plan on at least a three-day supply of food and water, pet medicines, copies of important pet documents, a collar with ID tag, harness or leash and a crate or pet carrier in case of evacuation.

Also important: litter and litter boxes and toys, treats or other familiar items to help lessen your pet’s stress during the emergency.

Monken says if pet owners have a kit and a plan their pets will stay safe.

— Associated Press

Police investigating teen’s jail death

JACKSON, Tenn. — Police are investigating after a 17-year-old boy apparently committed suicide in his jail cell.

A statement from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office in reporting the death on Friday of 17-year-old Zachary I. Ligon, who was found hanging from a bed sheet. The statement says Ligon had been transferred Wednesday from juvenile court to adult court.

Ligon was incarcerated on charges of assault, bur-glary, unlawful possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment.

He had not been placed on suicide watch, and offi-cials say officers had observed him 15 minutes prior to his death.

— Associated Press

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