BY JACOB BLAIR

The Trimble Banner

Despite the heavy winds, threat of rain Saturday evening and a venue change to inside Bedford Elementary School, the teams at Relay for Life fought to keep the event on track Saturday night.

This year’s Relay for Life helped raise $37,294.16 for the American Cancer Society, according to event

organizer Michelle Griffith. Last-minute and forgotten donations have until Aug. 1 to be counted into the total, which is currently just under $200 shy of the 2017 amount raised.

The event also had to contend with Mother Nature’s mighty gale from the get go, Griffith said.

“We got straight-line winds out of nowhere as the caregivers were finishing their lap,” she said. “We

started asking people to pick up an auction item and get it inside the school. All the tents were blowing down, and the stakes were coming up out of the ground.

“Everyone there was grabbing something and helping disas-semble,” said Griffith. “It hap-pened so fast and unexpected. We were able to get everything moved inside in about 10 minutes. And we carried on.”

High school selects athletic directorFollowing the retirement of athletic director Frank Ragland, the school has tapped Mike Isley to be his successor.

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No deaths.

DEATHS Page 5 INSIDECalendar........................3

Church Directory.............5

Classif ieds... . . . . . . . . .9-11

Perspectives ....................4

Public Records .................2

Sports ..............................6

NEWS AT A GLANCE

June 12 (actual)..........17.9 ft.

June 13 (forecast) .......24.5 ft.

June 14 (forecast) .......26.3 ft.

June 15 (forecast) .......26.8 ft.

OHIO RIVER LEVELS

at Markland Dam station Provided by the National Weather Service

Trimble BannerThe

12 pagesVol. 136, No. 8 THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2018 BEDFORD, KY. 75 cents

ESSAYS, Page 7

Photo submitted

The high winds held off just long enough for the cancer survivor and caretaker laps to take place before seeking refuge inside the school to continue the Trimble County Relay for Life Saturday. For more photos, see Page 6.

HONOR FLIGHT, Page 12

SCHOOLS, Page 12

With the middle school and high schools already under one roof, coupled with the high school princi-pal not returning next year, the dis-trict has decided to take the next step and con-solidate the two schools under one administration.

JACOB BLAIR/The Trimble Banner

coupon?

School board consolidates middle, high school admins

Fisher travels to D.C. as part of WWII veterans honor flight

Taylor is 1 of 6 area ‘Good Neighbor’ essay contest winners

Despite winds, Relay still draws crowd

BY TIM HENDRICK

Landmark News Service

Carroll County youth Baily Blackburn, Kinley Huesman, Brayden Lair and Taylor Lair were recognized as “Great Neighbors” by Tractor Supply Company during the “Follow Us to the Fair” tour stop at the Carroll County Fair, June 2. Morgan Bohannon of Henry County and Trace Taylor of Trimble County also were recognized as “Great Neighbors” at the ceremony.

This is the second year Tractor Supply has recog-nized more than 100 4-H and FFA members as “Great Neighbors” at the 24 “Follow Us to the Fair” stops across the country, according to its website.

Youth living near the stops were encouraged to

Trace Taylor

BY CHARLES LISTON

Special to the Banner

The Bedford Rotary Club is soliciting nominations for the annual “Citizen of the Year” award, from Trimble County residents. This award is given to an individual who has demonstrated non-paying “service above self” activities benefiting various Trimble County programs and organizations.

Please consider sending in a nomination for someone whose recent dedication to volunteer service for our com-munity you know about. Nominations need to be submit-ted by July 30. You may send your written nomination to: Bedford Rotary Club, P.O. Box 62, Bedford, KY 40006.

Bedford Rotary Club seeks ‘Citizen of the Year’ nominations

KELLI OAKLEY/Honor Flight Bluegrass

Retired U.S. Army Col. Glenn Fisher gets a photo taken with his “guardian” for the trip, Heather French Henry.

BY JACOB BLAIR

The Trimble Banner

Sixty-two veterans from Kentucky and nearby areas hopped on a chartered flight to visit Washington D.C. last week. Retired U.S. Army Col. Glenn Fisher was one of those on the most recent mission for Honor Flight Bluegrass.

“We want to do something really unique, special, and so we decided to have an all World War II vet-eran flight,” said Jeff Thoke, vice chair of Honor Flight Bluegrass. “We had a goal of 60 veterans and we actually flew 62, from ages 89 to 100. So we were successful in finding our World War II veterans. Glenn helped us. It was a team effort trying to locate veterans from across Kentucky to fly on this special flight.”

BY JACOB BLAIR

The Trimble Banner

Two years ago, citing declining enrollment, the Trimble County Board of Education decided to uproot the middle school from its home at 116 Wentworth Ave. and move it to the portion of the high school that previously housed Bedford Elementary.

Last week, the board voted during its June 6 regular meeting to fully consolidate the administration of two schools under one name, Trimble County Junior and Senior High School.

The decision to consolidate the administrations follows an announcement made last Monday by Principal Michael Slider to the high school’s faculty that he will not return for the next academic year, said Superintendent Steve Miracle.

“With Mr. Slider coming forward and saying that he was leaving the district, just like with any position

Fisher, a 91-year-old Bedford resident, who previously trav-eled to D.C. on a flight sev-eral years ago, remarked at how impressive the trip was for the largest World War II-contingent honor flight in the United States this year. The trip also coincided with the 74th anni-versary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France.

“It was something that you had fought for and that so many people died for, and it was just so impressive,” Fisher said. “It makes a lasting memory. It real-ly touched my heart, especially the little children that would meet us and give us letters.

“...It’s something that you’ll never ever forget.”

During the trip, stops included the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport, home of Space Shuttle Discovery and the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, the World War II Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Marine Corps Memorial and Lincoln Memorial.

Out of all the memorials, Fisher said the favorite was the World War II Memorial in the heart of the National Mall.

“It was just simply fascinat-ing. It told about the hard time they had getting it through Congress and what a hard time they had doing it, but it was just simply fascinating,” Fisher said. “It just made your heart thump when you get to see something like that.”

“...That was our first stop on the second day. The weather was so nice and we got to meet our senator (Mitch McConnell) and congressman (Thomas Massie) there, got to shake hands and howdy with them, so that’s always good.”

Fisher was 15 at the time he signed up for the military in February 1942.

“How many 15-year-olds are willing to go off to war?” Thoke said.

The inspiration for Fisher came from his father’s Army service during World War I. He tried enlisting the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, but was initially unsuccessful.

“You have certain things that you think about and I always thought about Army,” he said. “I always wanted to be in the Army.

“That just swelled up in me and the next day, which is Monday, I went down and vol-unteered for the Army. They said, ‘How old are you?’ I told them I was 18.”

With two years of training, Fisher went overseas to Europe, landing on Omaha Beach at Normandy as a 17-year-old, a month after the D-Day inva-sion.

“It was late in the afternoon, it started raining, lightning, thunder, weapons exploding, everybody’s a little confused,” he said. “...They say, ‘Were you scared?’ Yes, I was. I was scared a lot of times. But the Lord watched over me. He still watches over me every day.”

Arlington

Last week’s trip was also the first time that Fisher had vis-ited Arlington and got to watch two Changing of the Guard cer-emonies.

“That was fascinating to me. One of my last assignments in the military was, I was com-mandant of the Kentucky Military Academy, which is sta-tioned at Fort Knox,” Fisher said. “Anything military, like the precision of the weapons

and everything, that just brings back memories for me.”

He also addressed the magni-tude of not just Arlington, but the other memorials that honor America’s fallen heroes.

“It’s such a wonderful, won-derful thing to see the things that we fought so hard for, so many died and paid the supreme sacrifice,” Fisher said. “I tell people that we have 34 names on our monument down here and that’s for a small coun-ty, that’s a lot of people. But when you talk about the thou-sands and thousands and thou-sands of those in the Arlington Cemetery and the Vietnam Wall and everything, your heart just cries out for their mothers and fathers, wives and children.”

Guardians

As part of the honor flight trips, there is a guardian assigned to each veteran. Some guardians are grandchildren of the veterans while others are volunteers who wanted to rec-ognize them for their service. Fisher’s guardian was Heather French Henry, who won the Miss America title in September 1999.

“She has personality plus,”

he said. “She is the most gra-cious lady I have ever met in my life. She is a super, super lady.”

Area veterans

Fisher wasn’t the only one from nearby counties that went on last week’s flight. Shelby Bickers, 95 of Carrollton, was coaxed into going from Fisher’s recommendation.

“We were in the Masonic Lodge together and I had one of these (forms) and I said, you know, you really need to go on this,” Fisher said.

Bickers replied that he might go later on, so Fisher spoke to Bickers’ son, who helped encourage the veteran to attend the trip.

“He went and oh, he was so happy,” Fisher said. “Every time I’d see him, he’d say, ‘Oh I’m so glad you talked me into it.’”

William “Bill” McCubbin and Charles Randall of Madison, Ind. were also on the honor flight, Thoke said.

The next flight

Although it was just a week ago that Fisher and Thoke returned from the nation’s capi-

tal, the work is not done.“We owe so much to our World

War II veterans,” Thoke said. “Of the 16 million that served, there are 500,000 left. We need to honor these members of the greatest generation while we can. That’s one reason time is of the essence. We continue to look for World War II veterans. Glenn is trying to help us.”

Honor Flight Bluegrass look-ing for World War II veter-ans, Korean War veterans and Vietnam veterans for the next outbound flights, one on June 27 and another flight Sept. 12. World War II veterans will have first priority for the upcoming flights and thanks to donations received by the organization; veterans can go at no cost. The team flying out also has a doc-tor and medical staff should a need arise for providing care to veterans.

Thoke is also the World War II recruiter for the organiza-tion and if people know of any World War II veterans that have not been on an honor flight yet, who would like to do so, to call him at 502-645-5421. More information about the organiza-tion is also available online at honorflightbluegrass.org.

PAGE 12 THE TRIMBLE BANNER/THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2018

Schools(Continued from Page 1)

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Honor flight(Continued from Page 1)

KELLI OAKLEY/Honor Flight Bluegrass

Several of the veterans and guardians from last week’s Honor Flight Bluegrass trip are pictured at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, including Trimble County’s Glenn Fisher (front row, third from the left).

KELLI OAKLEY/Honor Flight Bluegrass

Retired U.S. Army Col. Glenn Fisher shakes hands and greets a group of people waiting for the World War II veterans’ arrival.

when somebody is leav-ing, retiring, whatever the case may be, we always go in and evaluate,” Miracle said. “OK, do we need to bring that position back? That’s a way of saving some money.

“Obviously in this case, with just over 500 stu-dents in the building as a whole, we don’t need to bring the position back,” Miracle said. “We can have a principal, assistant principal and we’ll have the two counselors posi-tions there.”

However, leaving a prin-cipal’s position vacant has extra hoops to go through versus other staff positions the district can simply choose to remain unfilled.

“If you have two sepa-rate site-based councils, then you have to have two separate principals,” he said. “Basically what the board voted on the other day was to allow us, as a district, to go through the process of consolidating those two councils so that we only have one council, then we’re only required to have one principal.

Otherwise, we can’t cut that position.”

In addition to Slider’s resignation, Trimble County Middle School Secretary Connie Johnson retired this year. With the district choosing to not fill either of those roles as part of the consolidation process, the salary cost savings would be just over $100,000, Miracle said.

Next steps

The district is await-ing a response from the Kentucky Department of Education for a new school number before they can go about cre-ating the new site-based decision making council, he said.

“We have 60 days from the time we get that num-ber, but we’re going to try and move much quicker than 60 days,” Miracle said.

As part of that process, the superintendent also serves as the hiring agent until a principal is for-mally hired.

Although there are several teaching posi-tions and athletics coach-ing opportunities cur-rently open, with some candidates already going

through the process, Miracle said he would wait until the principal is in place, and leave hiring decisions to them.

“What will happen the quickest is getting the principal in place and then as soon as the prin-cipal is in place, that’s going to be the hiring agent,” Miracle said. “I’m not going to remain the hiring person any longer than I have to.”

When it comes to the principal’s role, Miracle said at this time the posi-tion has not been opened to external hires and he is hopeful to have an offi-cial announcement next week.

Miracle added the dis-trict is also evaluating one of the guidance counselor roles, but not in terms of eliminating the role.

“We did have a coun-selor that has left and that will be something that’s up to determine, do we want to keep that kind of counseling posi-tion that has been, or do we want to do something different with that as far as academic counseling and career counseling,” he said.

Slider and Trimble County Middle School

Principal Tracy Poe have also been a preva-lent force in guiding the district toward the high school’s rollout of Summit Learning for core classes next year. Although Slider won’t be in the principal’s office next year, that roll-out is still on track and will be unaffected by the administrative consolida-tion, Miracle said.

With the consolida-tion, questions were raised again about hav-ing students in the sev-enth or eighth grade in the same classes, and Miracle echoed the same response from previous parent meetings, such as the graduate profile panel two months ago.

“It’s more of a commu-nity concern at this point than it is a concern for the students,” Miracle said. “We still will have some of that division where middle school students are, but we’re not going to stand in the way of a student that can or wants to be, or parent’s wants to be, in that (high school) class.”

Miracle wrote in his letter to readers that it will be business as usual, despite the administra-tive shuffle.

“As to the impact on students and parents, there will essentially be

no change from how we have currently been oper-ating,” said Miracle.