What’s Up? with Merlene

A group of elementary school teachers from South Korea are studying English at Kentucky State University weekdays, but in the evenings, they’d like to get to know us.
What is the good of learning the American language without learning more about Americans?
“I wish some American families will invite them to lunch or to go to a shopping center, or on a picnic or to birthday parties,” said Kwang H. Suh, coordinator of the Office of Asian Affairs at Kentucky State. “It would be a couple of hours of being with families, learning about American cultures.”
Nineteen graduate students from Youngsan University — a private university in Busan (also known as Pusan), South Kyongsang (also known as South Gyeongsang) South Korea — arrived at Bluegrass Airport on Sunday evening and Monday morning to start a rigorous study of English. They will teach English as a second language in their local schools when they return home.
Suh, who was born in North Korea but grew up in South Korea, said the purpose of their visit is to explore ways to help students learn English faster.
Suh has encouraged several Asian governments to send students to Kentucky State, most of them during the academic year. He is expecting about 30 students from China in August, and he has welcomed students from Taiwan and Japan as well.

Kwang H. Suh - Photo by Matt Goins

The 12 women and seven men from Korea will be immersed in our culture, surrounded by our language every day. They will have an opportunity to see and hear English used in context.
To hone their skills, Suh said, the visitors will be in class all day. “The Korean government is spending lots of money to send them over here to learn the language and the culture,” Suh said. “Their schedule is tight.”
They also will practice language and teaching skills with children in the Summer in the Son program at The Frankfort Christian Academy for two weeks.
With the academic portion of study taken care of, the visitors only need interaction with Kentuckians, and that interaction doesn’t have to be elaborate.
Individuals or a family can invite the visitors to their homes for a couple of hours in the evenings, or they can meet the visitors for lunch on campus. The visitors speak English, but not as well as natives, of course. You can invite one or two or all of them. There will be no overnight stays. Suh hopes Kentuckians will meet with them a couple of times between now and the end of the program on July 24.
“Each would learn more about the other’s culture, which would give the students a better understanding of America to convey to their children and Americans a better understanding of South Korea,” said Suh, who has lived in America for more than 20 years.
On weekends, the South Koreans, who Suh said range in age from 25 to 40, with most in their 30s, will travel around the region. They will go to Louisville, where they will attend a church service, and visit Churchill Downs and the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. They will also go to My Old Kentucky Home in Bardstown and Mammoth Cave National Park. Their final field trip will be to Chicago.
The entire trip, including excursions, costs $2,575, which is paid by the South Korean government.
To make an appointment to interact with one of the Korean students, call (502) 597-6671. Officials will pair you with one or more visitors for lunch or for an evening excursion or conversation.

The subject line of the e-mail simply said “Mayor of Lynch.”
Since it was in my personal account, I assumed, correctly, that it was for my husband, a Lynch native. Like any dutiful wife, I read it.
I was amazed.
My husband has always told me Lynch is no ordinary town and the residents aren’t ordinary folk. The e-mail backed him up.
The Rev. Ronnie “Deke” Hampton, pastor of Greater Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Lynch and mayor of that small coal town, was asking for help.
In the e-mail sent on June 24, Hampton said the city owed more than $100,000 to the IRS and more than $100,000 more to other vendors the city dealt with.
“As a young man growing up in Lynch I got to observe how people came to the aid of those who were in need,” Hampton wrote. “I watched men work other men’s fields and gardens who were disabled. I watched women put their homes on hold to take care of a sick neighbor’s home. I watched families who didn’t have anything sacrifice to give to other families who had even less.”
Hampton was asking anyone who had any ties to Lynch to send money to help the city recover from financial woes stemming from a bad economy, an aging population and allegations of criminal misconduct.
“I hesitated coming to you in this way, but Lynch, after giving so much to so many, is in need of your help,” he wrote. “Our citizens have responded with sacrifices and donations but this project is beyond our capabilities. I have pledged and given the first $500. I thank those of you who have given even before this request. No amount is too small and certainly no amount is too large!… As a native son and child of God, I promise you that these funds will not be misappropriated and will be used entirely for the rescuing and restoring of our city…”
From a small town of about 800 people, which sends out some 300 water bills each month, hundreds of people got that e-mail. Addresses were culled together from social groups, business affiliations, friends and relatives.
Many of those people responded quickly with checks that amounted to $2,602 in less than a day, Hampton said.
The $2 came from an anonymous donor who included a letter, written with an unsure hand, that simply said the writer had been touched by the city’s plight. A $2 bill was included.
“That is the widow’s mite,” Hampton said. “I knew it would be enough to get us over.”
Maybe, but there appears to be a few more dollars coming soon. Cheryl Blanton Feigel, 5th District Urban County Council member, said she’s going to contribute.
A native of Lynch, Feigel left there to attend the University of Kentucky in 1967 and has served as the mayor of a small town in Texas. She sees the plea from both sides.
The e-mail was a sign of the mayor’s “desperation,” Feigel said. “He feels total responsibility now. He is the man in charge.”
Lynch, she said, has struggled for a while, with its population aging and subsisting on disability or Social Security, and because of the slowed economy.
“I was so impressed with his letter, the way he handled it and spoke about our connection to Lynch,” she said. The people “were all so close, I remember that. That is something we don’t have any more. Now you may not know your neighbor.”
Porter G. Peeples, executive director and CEO of the Lexington Fayette County Urban League, said he was going to send money, too.
“Lynch is where I was born and raised,” he said. “Anything that I might think I am today, Lynch and the people of Lynch contributed to that. My devotion to that community says I want to give back and help Lynch get back on its feet.”
That sentiment will be shared by a lot of former residents, Peeples said, and the e-mail will gain traction.
“We cannot let it totally collapse around the elderly who are left there. It is an obligation, a commitment, a must-do. It is not optional.”
What is the draw, though? What is it about that little community at the base of Black Mountain that sticks with former residents no matter how far they have traveled?
“Our roots are strong,” said Meg Stewart-Cranfill of Lexington, whose father was once mayor of Lynch. “I’ve been away since 1980 and I still call that home. If I say I’m going home this weekend, I mean Lynch.”
Stewart-Cranfill, said she matched Hampton’s personal gift of $500 a couple of weeks ago and she said her sister sent a check last week.
Rena Vicini, retired from UK Athletics, said Lynch’s closeness grew out of its geographical location.
“We were tucked at the foot of that beautiful mountain,” she said. “We were our own little entity there.”
Everyone’s father worked for the same coal company and everyone shared in the glory days of the Lynch High School football teams.
“If you are under the age of 30 or 40, you probably don’t have that sense,” Vicini said. “It is a phenomena.”
Vicini said she wants to learn more about the problems Lynch is having before contributing. She wants to know what future plans are and how things will be handled from here. “I’m not going to give money that I need in these economic times as a token gesture,” Vicini said. When she gets more details, she’ll decide then.
“I will never turn my back on that town,” she said.
Hampton, who took office on May 24, said the state police and other agencies are investigating where the money went and why few bills had been paid for several months.
Kelly Maggard, the former city clerk, has been suspended indefinitely without pay, and an independent accountant has conducted a forensic audit.
Hampton said the city owes the IRS $109,000 in back taxes and the city has discovered another $118,000 in unpaid bills. For example, he said, Kentucky Utilities hasn’t been paid since November and is owed $36,000.
Money that had been paid toward child support never reach its destination, and vendors never received payment for their services. There was no diesel fuel for police cars and city vehicles. Weed-eaters, he said, were broken but there was no money for repairs.
“Things had been let go for so long,” Hampton said. “Now do you see why I’m begging?”
Hampton said the state police investigation is nearing an end and indictments are expected soon.
Slowly, though, he said, the city is trying to recover.
The city takes in about $28,000 a month, $24,000 of which is budgeted.
A city work truck has been repaired, as well as a chain saw and some of those weed-eaters.
“We are not going down the drain,” Hampton said. “We are down to the solid rock, now, but we are building up from here.”
“This is Lynch,” Hampton said. “This is not a birth place. This is home.”

About 130 campers with epilepsy and Down ­syndrome are enjoying a week of feeling relatively normal in Scottsville, and campers with muscular dystrophy will have the same opportunity next week.
Some of the money raised during last year’s Children’s Charity Celebrity Golf Classic will see to that.
On Monday, the ­Children’s Charity Fund of the Bluegrass, the host of the annual golf classic fund-raiser, handed checks totaling $320,000 to 23 charities that focus on children.
Catherine Nash, vice president of development for The Center for Courageous Kids, a camp in Western Kentucky for chronically or seriously ill children, accepted a check for $5,000, which will partially pay expenses for a week at summer camp for five children.
This was the first year that the center has received a grant from Children’s Charity, mainly because the camp has been operational only since ­February 2008.
Founded by Elizabeth Turner Campbell, an heir of Cal Turner Sr., who founded the Dollar General Corporation, the camp in Scottsville is one of only six in the United States that are completely free to the patients and their families or caregivers. Campbell, who was born in Scottsville, had a son who died of cancer at age 17.
Nash said Campbell had helped to found a similar camp in Florida with actor Paul Newman and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and wanted children in Kentucky and Tennessee to have access to the same service.
“We started out thinking we would serve Kentucky and Tennessee,” Nash said. “But we were very, very wrong.”
Since opening, the center, which sits on 168 acres about 24 miles southeast of ­Bowling Green, has served more than 2,800 campers with 54 diseases and coming from 19 states.
This year, the center will host about 4,000 campers ages 7 to 15 during the summer and for weekend retreats with their families throughout the year.
Campers with asthma, cancer, blood-related disorders, cystic fibrosis, ­diabetes, epilepsy, heart/cardiovascular disease, hemophilia, HIV/AIDS, kidney disease, rheumatic disease, sickle cell anemia, spina bifida and transplants are eligible to attend this camp.
“We also host their physicians and nurses, too, who come here with their patients,” Nash said. “It changes the relationship when they fish together or sing at campfires together.”
When the patients and their families visit, there is no cost for them at all. Plus, “we never bill their insurance and we never bill Medicaid,” Nash said. “As soon as they cross our gate, they pay nothing.”
The cost averages about $2,000, which could include the treatment and care the campers might need — whether it’s over-the-counter painkillers or chemotherapy.
“The grant from the Children’s Charity Fund of the Bluegrass is allowing us to let Kentucky children from the Bluegrass area know what normal is like,” Nash said.
That is what drives the volunteers who work with the Children’s Charity. Organizers said Monday that they want people to know that the two-day golf tournament, hosted by former major league baseball player and Gold Glove winner Doug Flynn, is a means to that end. Although fun, it serves a purpose.
Other charities that received grants of varying amounts were Baby Health Services; Big Brothers/Big Sisters of the Bluegrass; Blue Grass Council Boy Scouts; Camp KYSOC; Cardinal Hill; The Nest at the Center for Women, Children and Families; Child Development Centers of the Bluegrass; Children’s Advocacy Center; Explorium of Lexington; Central Kentucky FCA; God’s Pantry Food Bank; Growing Together Preschool; Jarrett’s Joy Cart; KORE Academy; Larry Gilbert Foundation; Lexington Children’s ­Theatre; Lexington Hearing and Speech Center; The Makenna Foundation; Manchester Center; Ronald McDonald House; Visually Impaired Preschool Services; and Lexington Young Life.
This year, the tournament will again include play on two courses as the centerpiece of its weeklong festival. The 29th annual golf classic will be held June 26-27 at ­Greenbrier Golf and Country Club and ­Andover Golf and Country Club.
Those of us who don’t golf, and shouldn’t get in the way of others who do, can buy a $100 golf ball that, along with 250 other numbered balls, will be dropped from a helicopter on June 27 at 10:30 a.m. at Greenbrier. As part of the Landrum & Shouse Copter Drop, if the ball rolls into a hole, you’ll win $10,000. Otherwise, the closest ball will earn its owner $7,500.
Knowing where the money will go next year, it sounds worth it.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took Barack Obama to task for his deft and deadly skills in ridding himself of a persistent and pesky housefly that refused to move on to less dangerous territory.
During an interview last week, Obama killed the pest with a swift bare-handed swat that has now been replayed a thousand times.
I was impressed. PETA was not.
PETA sent the president a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a catch-and-release device for insects. I’m sure we’d all like to review the salary of the person assigned to carry that around for the president.
Mind you, if a fly is pestering me in my house, I will try to shoo it out a nearby door, or open a screen to free it from a window. But if those attempts fail, the bug will meet its maker a couple of days ahead of schedule.
I am not ashamed to say I have killed my share of flies. Knowing where they live their first few days of life and where they have fed, I will not let them land on my food or in my kitchen without a fight.
Within three or four days, the female housefly can lay as many as 500 tiny white eggs in manure or a warm, moist pile of garbage, on which the larvae or maggots feed when they emerge. After feasting for four to 10 days, the maggots enter the pupa stage and are transformed into adult flies. Fifteen to 30 days after they become flies, their life cycle ends. Sooner than that if they land on my food.
There can be as many as 10 generations produced from spring to fall in moderate climates and more than 20 in tropical regions.
That Obama fly has not been missed.
So, I applaud the president’s prowess. He probably saved Americans from killing a few thousand other flies.
The method of execution I prefer is the long-handled plastic swatter with ample air holes to permit quicker, guillotine-like action.
My father used that instrument, telling me to strike from behind because flies take off backward.
In exploring other methods on the Web, I discovered that isn’t quite true. The little boogers, or “suckers” as Obama calls them, are smart enough to dodge impending blows from all angles.
So we humans, who have much larger brains, have to outthink them.
On his Web site, www.chrisglass.com, Chris Glass of Cincinnati said his father taught him a unique fly-killing method, how to kill a fly without a flyswatter:
1. Position your hands a few inches above the fly as if you were about to clap.
2. Clap.
3. Wash hands.
Because the fly senses your intentions, he will attempt to escape when he feels the rush of air as your hands are about to meet. But, with his exit covered from both sides, when your hands meet, the fly is squished in between.
“Sadly I don’t have any statistics or info other than my dad taught me this trick back when I was a teenager (mid-80s),” Glass wrote in an e-mail. “It does NOT, however, always work, but it will increase your chances.”
I’ll pass.
On Thursday, the British Broadcasting Company News Magazine — yes, this fly-killing thing has gone worldwide — issued 10 ways to best kill a fly:
■ Do it early in the morning.
■ Approach from behind (which we’ve already discussed).
■ Aim ahead rather than at
■ The Barack method, the hand slap
■ Holed implements
■ Chopsticks
■ The hand-clap method
■ A bug zapper or fly strip
■ Rolled newspaper (after reading my column, of course)
■ Any catch and release method.
Obviously, the life of the common housefly is not held sacred by a majority of folks.
Mosquitoes should be added to the list of enigmatic pests with which we are forced to share the Earth. I am quite confident I have killed many more of them than I have flies and have never once considered releasing one back into the wild.
If a mosquito buzzes near me, it will die near me.
I don’t even want to discuss what I’d do to a roach.
PETA said it doesn’t condemn Obama for killing the fly. “Human beings don’t often think before they act,” PETA said on an Internet posting.
“We support compassion for all animals, even the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic ones,” the post said.
So do I, as long as they don’t try to share my living space or my meal, and don’t eye me as the main course on their dinner menu.

Sonora Louise Smart Dodd wanted to celebrate her father, William Jackson Smart, who had reared six children, one a ­newborn, after his wife died in ­childbirth in 1898.
Lexington’s fifth annual Fatherhood Celebration this Saturday is a continuation of Dodd’s celebration of her father, who was the spiritual and emotional head of her family, as well as the provider. He was an active participant rather than an observer.
Dodd was 16 and the eldest of the children, and she definitely played a significant role in keeping the household together on a farm near Spokane, Wash. But she wanted to honor men along with women who were attempting the hardest job of all: parenting.
The story goes that after listening to a Mother’s Day message in church, Dodd, then married and a new mother, wanted fathers to be recognized as well. Dodd proposed the idea in 1909.
She spoke with ministers and officials at the YMCA, soliciting their help in getting recognition for fathers. The ministers chose June 19, 1910, for the nation’s first Father’s Day celebration, at the YMCA in Spokane.
Having a woman credited with the national observance of the man’s role in a family is fine by David Cozart, coordinator of the Lexington event.
“The woman has always stood in the gap,” Cozart said.
In this case, ­however, he said, the woman is ­acknowledging and ­recognizing the man’s role.
“If there is the mutual ­appreciation of both agents in the family, then we wouldn’t have any family issues at all,” he said.
In addition to Dodd, two others, Harry C. Meeks of Chicago and Grace Golden Clayton of Fairmont, W.Va., also sought special ­recognition of a father’s ­contributions to the family.
But most people credit Dodd with decades of ­advocacy in getting Father’s Day observed nationally.
Dodd’s father, who died in 1919, was able to see the beginnings of his daughter’s national push. Although the idea wasn’t welcomed ­nationwide early on, ­eventually it was embraced. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day, and, in 1972, Richard Nixon established that day permanently.
Dodd died six years later at age 96. A monument in her honor sits in front of the building where the first observance was held.
The annual recognition of fathers is her lasting legacy.
Lexington’s celebration will begin at 8 a.m. ­Saturday with a men’s prayer ­breakfast at the O’Rear ­Shelter in Douglass Park.
Cozart said the fatherhood movement locally is not only a celebration of Father’s Day and fatherhood but also an evolution into manhood.
Organizers added a prayer breakfast this year, he said, to bring in the element of fellowship with other men. “Iron sharpens iron,” Cozart said.
Last year, between 500 and 600 people attended the celebration.
After the prayer ­breakfast, there will be the annual march from the YMCA on Loudon Avenue to Douglass Park for food, music, free family photos and family activities. There also will be information to help men be the economic and emotional providers for their families.
Everyone is welcome, but especially men.
Just as black men have a vivid model to emulate in President Barack Obama, they also need local multi-generational and multi-faceted models, men who can lead others by their own experiences.
Some of those men will participate in the celebration Saturday, willing to give a hand up. “If we have various levels to pull one another upward, inevitably the community rises after that,” Cozart said.

If a key component of retirement involves relaxation, no one told ­Bettye Simpson.
Simpson arrives at the site of Knowledge is Power, a program she founded and runs, at 7:30 a.m. during the summer months and leaves at 5 p.m. on good days.
In between, she picks up and delivers children, teaches math, reading, some science and Bible study in the mornings, and then takes children to area museums, the public library or an outdoor activity in the afternoons.
Simpson wants the dozen or so 8- to 12-year-olds to learn the concepts she was taught decades ago that have served her well.
“It is a long day, but it is needed,” Simpson said. “What I’m trying to do is make sure every child graduates and goes to college or a trade school. These kids that we serve are at a vulnerable age. They need to be exposed to different things.”
Simpson is one of 350 senior citizens in Fayette and Jessamine counties who have willingly added “reaching out” to their definition of retirement by joining the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and working to improve the lives of their neighbors.
RSVP offers seniors a variety of part-time, unpaid services throughout their communities, such as tutoring, teaching adult education and technology, and leading museum tours.
“They are really out there everywhere,” said Charlie Lanter, who manages the volunteer programs at the Community Action Council, including RSVP. “All you have to be is 55 and older. There are no other restrictions.”
Volunteers work at various non-profits in the area, particularly those focused on adult respite care, Lanter said. RSVP volunteers are many of the docents who guide us through area museums and at cultural heritage sites. KIP has about six volunteers but could use 10, he said. And several help prepare taxes.
“They are an extremely dedicated bunch,” he said. “A lot of them will tell you it’s their job even though they are not getting paid. They call their supervisor their boss.”
RSVP gives the volunteers a lot of room to live their lives. They can work as much or as little as they need to, and there are plenty of programs willing to work around their schedules. Volunteers receive supplemental accident insurance and mileage reimbursement.
Some adult respite centers are for profit, but most sites where volunteers are placed are non-profits, Lanter said.
Potential volunteers are interviewed and then placed where both parties will benefit.
RSVP, part of the National Senior Service Corps along with Foster Grandparents Program and Senior Companions, is partly funded through the Corporation for National & Community Service, partly through donations and partly through the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government.
Simpson, 63, who worked as a social worker or day care manager for 30 years, said KIP exists because of the generosity of God; her church, Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church; and Drs. Linda Larkin and Michael Scott.
Larkin and Scott, who attend Mt. Calvary, donate space above their dental offices at 624 North Broadway for the program, pay the utilities and often donate snacks for the group.
Mt. Calvary donates the use of a van, and God — well, he plays the biggest role.
“I don’t get anything but what God gives,” she said. “I had to take credit for what is God’s work.”
In the beginning three years ago, Simpson worked the long days with her husband at her side. He died in October, which made the work harder. But she has no plans to stop. “Somebody has to do it,” she said. “The kids are getting worse and worse.”
With Mt. Calvary, she is working on another program that will include parents and guardians and will address parenting, job opportunities and training.
This year, she has recruited students from the University of Kentucky School of Music to give voice lessons; for the new Saturday sessions, dance and drama will be taught; and the students will plant a community garden at Mt. Calvary. Plus, the children will learn etiquette and how to set a table.
“I’m just trying to teach them what I learned in the ’60s,” she said. “Old school.”
That is some retirement.

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The Knowledge is Power program needs helping gassing up the van, founder Bettye Simpson said. The seven-week session, which ends July 31, will require about $240 for gas. You can call Simpson at (859) 255-9723 or (859) 351-2295 if you’d like to donate or to enroll your child in the summer camp.
Interested in RSVP? Call (859) 233-4600.

Rusty DePass, a former chairman of the Richland County Republican Party in Columbia, S.C., read a Facebook posting recently about a gorilla that had briefly escaped from the Columbia zoo, injuring one person.

Minutes later, DePass posted this: “I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless.”

He told reporters his reference to Michelle Obama was just a joke, a jab at her statements that man had descended from apes. No one has been able to find those comments, however.

DePass has apologized and the comment has since been deleted along with his Facebook page.

As clueless as that may seem, an aide for a Republican lawmaker in Tennessee makes DePass look brilliant.

Sherri Goforth, a legislative aide for Republican Tenn. Sen. Diane Black sent an e-mail on May 28, showing our first 43 presidents in portrait style and the 44^th, Barack Obama, as white eyes on a black background.

Goforth thought she was sending the e-mail to a list of people who would appreciate the racist implications. Instead, she sent it to a few others.

Black said Goforth sent the e-mail from her state computer and that it’s a violation of state policy. After consulting state human resources staff, Black reprimanded Goforth verbally and placed a written reprimand in her file. But Goforth, a 20-year employee, gets to keep her job.

When a blogger, “Nashville is Talking,” asked Goforth about the email, she said, “I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button. I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

The blogger gave her two chances to say how remorseful she was about sending the racist e-mail, but she again repeated she was sorry she sent it to the wrong people.

At least she didn’t make up a reason, like she thought the comic white eyeballs, prevalent in a lot of racist literature about black people, looked just like her president.

If show host David Letterman’s joke about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter wasn’t appropriate, wasn’t a joke —which it wasn’t — then these two examples shouldn’t be considered funny either.

Every year about this time, after high school graduations and before college classes begin, I get a phone call from a frightened and anxious parent who has suddenly noticed his or her child hasn’t done a thing to ease the transition to higher ­education.
The parents had never attended college themselves and didn’t have a clue as to what to do. They had left everything up to their child, who needed more guidance than he or she had asked for from school counselors.
FAFSAs (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) had not been filled out, dormitory rooms had not been reserved, freshman orientation dates had not been selected.
Granted, it should never come down to that. High school counselors are doing great work in directing students step by step in preparation for entering college. But the message is not always heard, for whatever reason.
Knowing that, Kathryn Beane of Atlanta, the daughter of a counselor at a private school, set out to make a documentary/movie that would give students and parents the basic information about entering college and do it in an entertaining way.
I think she succeeded.
Getting Into College: The Movie, a 70-minute feature film produced, written and directed by Beane, walks the viewer through the sometimes intimidating process of selecting a college, applying to colleges, and then finding the money to pay for it all. And it uses high school characters to comically and youthfully relay the information so that boredom does not set in.
“I was shocked there was nothing around in this format,” Beane said.
The film was completed in late 2006 and premiered in 2007, and then it pretty much sat on a shelf.
Beane said she is not a marketing person and the agent who had an exclusive to peddle the film, didn’t. Not much was done, and only a few people got to see the film or learn from it.
Tony Frierson, owner of Frierson Media, signed on in January to market the film, bringing energy and aggressive marketing to the project.
Frierson is a Lexington native who grew up in the Green Acres subdivision, graduated from Bryan Station High School and attended Eastern Kentucky University. He moved to Atlanta in 1989.
Since getting on board, Frierson has contracted with a distributor to put the film on various cable companies’ “on demand” programming list. In Lexington, the film can be seen on Insight for $4 through August.
A more comprehensive two-disc DVD set is available online for $24.85. That offer includes the entertaining movie and a second disc featuring more than two hours of interviews with deans of admissions, financial aid professions and college counselors from the University of Virginia, Duke University, Northwestern University and Georgetown University, among others.
That disc is a more behind-the-scenes view of what colleges are looking for.
“We’re trying to get this film into the hands of as many high school kids and parents as possible,” Frierson said. “There are a lot of families in rural communities and in the inner cities where no one has ever gone to college. What this movie does is go above and beyond the technical information. It offers inspiration.”
The film highlights four main characters: Jake, who is the first in his family to attend college; Michele, who is fixated on one college that has rejected her application; Marcus, whose parents might not be able to afford to send him to college; and Beth, who is paralyzed by the numerous offers she has received.
The protagonist is Ryan, the student all others gravitate to because he knows the ins and outs of getting into college. His mother is the school’s guidance counselor.
Beane said her mother’s role in the film was crucial in getting the facts correct.
While many counselors do their jobs well, many are overburdened with a large number of students and with other issues that students deal with in high school, she said. So informing students of their college options isn’t as complete as it should be.
Beane said she had often heard her mother talking with parents at home about college. “If my mom wasn’t around, sometimes I’d ask if it was something I could help them with,” she said. Sort of like the Ryan character.
Getting Into College probably could help those overwhelmed guidance counselors and definitely should be made available in school and public libraries as well.
If there is a student on the edge, trying to decide whether to go to college, “I think this movie will push them on over,” Frierson said. “It is done in the language of the young people. It’s hip.”

Oprah did it. Surely I can, too.
That was my thought when I finally joined the world of Twitter this week.
It wasn’t an unthinking proposition on my part to follow in her footsteps. Oprah does a lot of things I don’t, not the least of which is pay several thousand dollars for a purse.
But the young folk in the office have been keeping readers informed about details of trials and the like on Twitter for several months. I listened with an intent look on my face even though my brain had wandered off into the world of gardening long before they reached mid-explanation. Twitter was a universe I was too old to enter.
Then up pops Oprah on Twitter.
Last month Oprah Winfrey made a big deal of her first tweeting, as an entry is called. I missed the original program, but it was replayed on all the evening entertainment shows because anything Oprah sells.
Despite moving from one channel to another, there she was, smile on her face, the audience enthralled, actor Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore’s young husband, on a big screen, and Twitter Chief Executive Evan William’s nearby just in case Oprah needed his help.
From what I read, Twitter users found the experience “enlightening” and an “excellent tool to building relationships through communication, either personally or professionally.”
One woman, blogger Kaitlyn Wilkins, said Twitter is “an essential customer service tool,” which can quickly build up or tear down the reputation of businesses. She wrote of one dissatisfied customer with hundreds of followers on Twitter who became a more powerful turnoff than 10 people picketing at the front door of a business.
Within a couple of hours, more than 4,000 people knew about the beef that customer had with the customer service department.
If the business had signed up for Twitter and used Twitter search, it could have discovered how dissatisfied some customers were and moved to correct the situation.
“For a company that is not ‘listening’ to social media, this tree just fell in the forest, and nobody heard it,” Wilkins wrote.
Laura Walker, a teacher in the United Kingdom, wrote that she uses Twitter to connect with other professionals who can help her. “I know that within seconds I can access a stream of links, ideas, opinion and resources from a hand-picked selection of global professionals,” she wrote.
Wow. If it is that powerful and informative, I needed to be on it.
With the expected euphoria just a user profile away, I opened a Twitter account.
It took about 10 minutes to come up with a user name that hadn’t already been claimed. That’s my fault, not Twitter’s. I wanted something cute and clever and young-sounding. Merlene Davis wouldn’t do.
Finally, Twitter accepted “reportmerle.” I know. But it was the best I could come up with.
Then I had to find folks to follow.
I was stumped.
Whose comings and goings, thoughts and dreams, did I want to be notified of throughout the day?
Oprah’s, of course. We could get to be bff.
I noticed, however, that Oprah had nearly 1.5 million followers, more than our president but fewer than Kutcher who has more than 2 million. I signed up for both of them anyway, and I also signed on to follow “mrskutcher.”
I don’t think she’s going to notice me much.
I also signed up to follow President Obama, the Lexington Herald-leader, the Associated Press, CNN and comedian Stephen Colbert. Life can’t be all work.
Unfortunately, Colbert hadn’t entered an update since early May. Maybe it was because he’s been overseas with the troops.
So I started following the Ellen Degeneres Show. At least she remembers to tweet.
I’m also following teen sensation Miley Cyrus. I don’t know why. But it was interesting to read this entry: “my tweets were just on headline news — people twitter is NOT news. I just wanna live and learn.”
Now, however, the thrill is dying.
I’ve posted twice and both times it was about my in ability to get into tweeting or about Twitter’s inability to get into me.
I’ve discovered that no one can find me on Twitter and that I can’t even find my boss who tweets regularly.
I’ve asked the younger folks to help and they are befuddled.
Herald-leader columnist noted on his Facebook page that Twitter users aren’t really all that happy with the social networking group.
Purewire, Inc., an Atlanta firm that sells ways to protect businesses on the Web, evaluated Twitter usage and discovered 40 percent of us who sign up don’t tweet. Some 80 percent of Twitter users have fewer than 10 followers because we’re just not that interesting. Purewire put it in a nicer way than that, but that’s what it boils down to.
I’ve already had a slew of complaints because I have not added to my Facebook page for months and haven’t accepted friends for much longer than that.
I don’t think it is polite to accept new friends when I know I’m not going to give them anything interesting to read.
That lack of interest on my part should have been my clue to forego my venture into Twitter.
Besides, being one of Oprah’s 1.5 million groupies isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.

Moveable Feast, the non-profit organization that has been preparing, packing and delivering hot meals to hospice and HIV/AIDS patients for more than a decade, will soon box itself up for a move to a new permanent home.
For the first time, the organization will have a place of its own, directly across Fifth Street from Shiloh Baptist Church at 476 Silver Maple Way.
“The location is in the heart of the majority of clients that we serve,” executive director Terry Mullins said.
The former Nannie’s Soul Food restaurant has been gutted, he said, by ZKB Construction Company Services and Maintenance, which is providing the renovation work at cost. The building sold for $60,000, and renovations are expected to cost $105,000.
As we toured the shell of a building, I noticed that there was no give in the stairs and that the walls were sturdy.
“This building has good bones, and it is exactly where we wanted to be,” said Blake Eames, president of the Moveable Feast board. “We had an engineer come in and make sure it would hold what we have. We have some pretty heavy-duty equipment.”
The organization had lost hope of getting the building when its first attempt to buy it fell through last year. This year, they got another chance and jumped at it.
“The fact that we have a home of our own is huge,” Eames said. “Eleven years we’ve been borrowing space.”
The building was constructed in 1893 as a grocery store, Eames said, and it has endured subdivisions, makeovers and even a fire. “We are saving the bull’s-eyes (the architectural feature on window frames, doors and woodwork). It is important we salvage as much as we can.”
Board members met with neighbors to inform them of their plans and were well received. One of the neighbors joined the board.
“They asked us not to take down the awning,” board vice president Tony Burgett, said, “because that is a part of this building’s character.”
It will be retained and upgraded.
To keep costs down, Eames, an interior designer, has agreed to work as general contractor and to design the prep and cooking areas, storage and cooling areas, and the offices upstairs. Because the building had been subdivided into apartments on one side, an efficiency apartment will be retained in the plans for use as emergency shelter for a client.
The renovation is expected to be completed by June 20, and Moveable Feast hopes to be operating from its new home by July 1.
Until then, Mullins, two other employees and several volunteers will prepare and package about 120 meals a day, five days a week, in their Trent Boulevard facility. The meals are free to clients, who meet income eligibility, and to their caregivers and dependent children in Fayette County.
“The meals consist of a meat, starch, vegetable, salad and dessert,” Mullins said. “It is always five different components and bread. Our clients have to keep their weight on.”
The eight drivers a day, 40 a week, are not reimbursed for their travel. They deliver meals in their own cars about 5:30 p.m., and a cold lunch is provided for those who are financially strapped.
Attitudes have changed a lot since Michael Thompson founded Moveable Feast in 1998 to provide needed sustenance for HIV/AIDS patients who then were feared and shunned at best.
Although the hospice clients are terminally ill, “the AIDS patients are not necessarily the worst (prognosis), but they are the poorest,” Mullins said.
Operating costs are about $12,000 a month, he said, and that is funded by federal grants, city money, private donations and fund-raisers. The Belmont BBQ, one of the organization’s biggest fund-raisers, attracted 350 people last weekend, he said. The proceeds have not yet been calculated.
Mullins said the work could not be done without volunteers. He works about 60 hours a week, filling in wherever he is needed.
“I’ve been active in the gay and AIDS community for a long time,” Mullins said. “I saw the need and came on board here. I know most of the people I’m dealing with. It puts it on a more personal level.”
Interacting, no matter how briefly, with the clients can be emotionally stressful and just as rewarding. Sometimes the volunteer can be the lone source of help in a medical crisis or domestic dispute.
“It takes a special person to be able to go out there and to deal with that,” he said. “You may be the only person that that person will see all day long.
“It brings joy into both peoples’ lives,” Mullins said.
And now that volunteers don’t have to travel as far, the joy is even greater.