What's Up? with Merlene

It isn’t easy for Linda Leavell to do what she does, especially with arthritic fingers and hands.
Still, she and other members of Eldercrafters managed to make about 15 bed rolls and a few pillows from plastic shopping bags that were to be distributed to the homeless. The mats averaged about 36 inches wide and six feet long and each had an attached strap for easy carrying.
The group of craftswomen started the project before Christmas and ended a couple of weeks ago, said Ann Greene, president of Eldercrafters.
“People donated the plastic bags and we had them everywhere,” Greene said. “We had thousands of them.”

Linda Leavell crochets strips of plastic bags into a bedroll

The women, who range in age from at least 60 to 96, soon discovered crocheting plastic is not as easy as manipulating yarn on aging fingers. Those who couldn’t crochet cut the strips, tied them together and then rolled them into balls like yarn.
“It is really hard to do,” said Leavell, who has served as the group’s office manager for 16 years. “It hurts your hands.”
The mats were given to the Community Action Council’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program for distribution to those in need.
The women probably won’t be crocheting plastic again any time soon. But be assured, they’re not just sitting around, not even Margaret White, who is the most senior member at 96.
The group is scheduled to be at a Derby party Thursday, some wearing hats they made themselves.
A couple of weeks ago, they traveled to Dayton to tour the Patterson Homestead, early home of founders of the National Cash Register Company, and later attended the La Comedia Dinner Theatre.
In past months, they have toured the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, the National Underground Railroad Museum in Maysville, and the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville.
And on Tuesdays, they bowl. They pay for the outings themselves.
Founded in the early 1980s by Audrey Grevious and Helen Mason, Eldercrafters is now a satellite program site of the Lexington Senior Center. Members must be at least 60 and residents of Fayette County. Recently the program, which is funded by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government department of social services, was united with Community Action’s Elder Nutrition Program giving them more accessible room at the Black & Williams Center and lunch for a small donation.

Ann Greene with pillow and bedroll the Eldercrafters created

In addition to traveling, the women volunteer their crafting skills for community projects, such as making pillow case dresses for a program at the Lyric Theatre & Cultural Arts Center, and sewing quilts or crocheting Afghans for nursing home residents. They have also made hats and blankets for babies at the Shriners Hospital, and they prepare and paint ceramic pieces for themselves.
Greene, who joined the group nearly 20 years ago, said she has served as president for 14 years, after being appointed by Grevious.
“We try to gear our service to the community,” she said. “This group was formed so ladies of color could have some place to go.”
Leavell said she looked forward to retirement so she could join the group. Her mother and two aunts, former members, often came home with items they had made.

Linda Leavell, Nellie Jones, Ramona Powell and Mary Brown with bedrolls they have created

“I couldn’t wait to go and do some of that stuff,” she said.
Ramona Powell joined in 1993 and has become one of the women who comes up with crafts to make and then teaches the group.
Olivia Cooper comes to socialize to volunteer in activities that benefit the community. If it weren’t for the crafters, she said, “I would be home watching television and that is not good.”
A chorus of voices agreed.
“This is an outing for us,” Greene said.

Want to join?
Eldercrafters meets from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. at the Black & Williams Center, 498 Georgetown St. Call (859) 252-1288 for more information.

Leave it to local historian Yvonne Giles to uncover information the rest of us were mistaken about.
Giles, who has been instrumental in recovering and preserving the history of Lexington, particularly black Lexington, said we have been misspelling Dewees, as in Deweese Street in downtown Lexington, since 1907.
The street was named for Farmer Dewees, who grew up in Midway before moving to Lexington, she said.
“In 1907, someone added the ‘e’ to the spelling of his name,” Giles said. “In 1919, the city council voted to return it to the correct spelling without the ‘e,’ but that didn’t happen for some reason.”
Dewees bought a house on Short Street, just off Back Street, the previous name of Deweese Street. The house was called White Cottage and was later purchased in 1889 by the Women’s Guild of Christ Church and transformed into the Protestant Infirmary.
Located where Hurst Office Supplies now stands, the cottage was torn down in 1940.
That is the kind of inside information walkers will get on the “Back to Dewees to Third: Historical Tour of the Old East End,” sponsored by the Lyric Theatre & Cultural Arts Center, as part of its education and outreach programs. The two-mile tour will be conducted by Giles.
Rasheedah El-Amin, acting director of the Lyric, said she was a bit confused by the tour title until Giles explained that Deweese Street was formerly called Back Street.
“I had never heard that,” she said.
Giles will share the histories of the standing buildings and biographies of the residents and businessmen who made the East End a diverse and vibrant community. Fortunately, enough of the old structures are still standing as the area is revitalized.
Walkers will learn the history of the area’s development and picture how the East End looked from 1780 through the 1960s.
This Saturday’s tour is the second of three such tours scheduled. The third tour is slated for June 8. If either tour is canceled due to rain, it will be held the following Saturday.
El-Amin took the first of the three tours, which was conducted in April. She said the Lyric is sponsoring the tours to give people a better idea of not only the Lyric’s history but of all the history surrounding it.
The tour will start at the Lyric, on the corner of East Third Street and Elm Tree Lane, and participants will walk to the Polk-Dalton Clinic where Giles, executive director of the Isaac Scott Hathaway Museum, will talk about the clinic’s namesakes.
Then the group will walk to Deweese, where she will point out its history. One example of the interesting history is this: “Deweese was always black,” she said, “and East Third was always white.”
The tour will then return to East Third, where Giles will point out the history of the buildings down to Midland Avenue, where Isaac and Lucy Murphy had their home.
Included in that history will be the connection between the Luigart family, grocers of German descent, and the Murphy home. She will also shed light on the Flad family, who were bakers of French and Italian descent.
Also included will be information about the first black agricultural extension service agent, Atlas C. Burnette, and William H. Ballard, the first black pharmacist in Kentucky, who owned Ballard’s Pharmacy on Deweese.
“I won’t wear anybody out,” Giles said, jokingly. “We will walk a little and stop and talk. It is a saunter. I will point out bits of history and sometimes people will share their stories. I love when that happens.”

IF YOU GO
What: “Back to Dewees to Third: Historical Tour of the Old East End,” a walking tour sponsored by the Lyric Theatre & Cultural Arts Center and conducted by Yvonne Giles, local historian
When: 1-3 p.m. May 4 and June 8. Rain dates are the following Saturdays.
Where: Tours start at the Lyric Theatre, 300 E. Third St.
Tickets: $10. Visit
Lexingtonlyric.com, or call (859) 280-2218, or purchase at the Lyric box office.

In February and March, Abigail Carter’s wheelchair accessible van was in the shop for needed repairs.
“I made a joke about it, saying I gave up my van for Lent,” she said.
But losing the services of her van was no joke. Carter, 35, uses a wheelchair and needs that specially equipped van to be as close to independent as those of us who don’t use wheelchairs.

Abigail Carter – Photo by Charles Bertram

Since 2007, shortly after she moved to Wilmore to attend Asbury Seminary, one thing after another has failed on that van. First it was the air conditioner, and then either the accessibility equipment or the van itself took turns breaking down.
“While I am thankful to have a van, it is an added stress to my life as well,” she said. “I don’t make a lot of money.”
Carter thinks the 2003 Kia van just wasn’t built to accommodate accessibility equipment such as a ramp and accessories.
Still, when it works, the van has opened new doors for her. It allowed more independence for her than when she owned a car and had to take her chair apart to put it in the back seat.
So when she was told of a contest that awards three vans built to accommodate the needs of each winner, Carter gave it a try.
The National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association, a not-for-profit trade association founded in 1989, launched a Local Hero contest that began in March and concludes in May, National Mobility Awareness Month. The purpose of the contest, which is in its second year, is to highlight the stories of individuals in communities throughout the country who are affected by mobility issues.
Individuals, caregivers, friends and families can submit entries through May 11, although nationwide voting is already under way.
After May 15, when voting ends, the entries that are in the top five percent of vote getters will be reviewed by a panel of judges who will then announce three winners by the end of May. Last year, 1,700 entries garnered 1.2 million votes.
The judges will be looking for the most inspirational stories of people demonstrating how they are overcoming challenges to live an active, mobile lifestyle despite their physical challenges.
As of last week, 33 Kentuckians had submitted entries, including two more from Lexington and others from Richmond, Mount Sterling, Paris and Winchester in this area. Check the website for specific information on each of those entries.
None had as many votes as Carter, who had more than 21,000 late last week.
Carter submitted a video online in March that features clients and co-workers at Lexington Rescue Mission, where she is director of outreach, talking about how much she is appreciated there.
“She has such a heart for everyone who walks in the door,” said Natalie Cunningham, public relations coordinator at the mission. “Her main thing is that absolutely everybody is treated with dignity and respect. Everyone who walks in is in crisis and needs to be listened to in the same way.”
Cunningham said Carter may be more sensitive to others because she understands what it means to struggle in life. “And clients understand that,” she said.
While living in Florida, Carter suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury at age 8 when she was playing with a gun that belonged to her father, a police officer, and it went off. There is some feeling in her legs, but she can’t walk at all, she said. “I’ve been in a chair for 28 years,” Carter said.
While earning her master’s degree in counseling at Asbury, Carter completed her practicum at the mission and accepted a job there in 2011.
“She makes time for her clients,” Cunningham said. “They are a part of her life.”

Abigail Carter _ Photo by Charles Bertram

She takes them out for coffee or for plays, Cunningham said. “She wants everyone to experience a normal life.”
Carter said a new van would change not only her life, but the lives of those around her.
“We have so many people around us who live in hopelessness,” she said. “To win something means there is hope. I really feel like it is hope that God hears us. God hears your prayers.”
The mission tries to meet the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of hurting people, Carter said, adding her role is to “ensure those three are met efficiently and adequately with the most love and the most respect.”
Isolation, she said, “is probably the biggest thing people struggle with and when we don’t have a vehicle, isolation is huge. I missed not going to church during Lent.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see Carter get a sparkling new handicap-accessible van. I’m going to help her out. You might want to, too.

How to help
To give Abigail Carter a chance to win a van, go to mobilityawarenessmonth.com/local-heroes. You can vote once daily per computer or Smartphone. You can get updates at “Help Abigail Win a Van” on Facebook.

I first met Scott Tyrone Ferguson in 2002 when my older son played basketball at Bryan Station High School.
Ferguson was the assistant coach, and his assignment was to be barbed wire. You can’t slide on barbed wire, my grandmother often said, and none of the athletes were about to slide on their grades or their behavior while that ex-soldier was around.
My husband and I were relieved to meet him.
We had run interference for our son, who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but we knew the older he got, the less he would listen to us.

Scott Ferguson. Photo by Pablo Alcala

We knew “Coach Ferg” and other assistant coaches would serve as a good stand-in for us whenever they were near our son. And they did.
What I didn’t know, however, and should have, is Ferguson’s heartfelt empathy and compassion for troubled youth at the Fayette County Regional Juvenile Detention Center, where he teaches math. Nor did I know that in addition to that mission, he had an unspoken desire to achieve as much as he could in the field of education, just so the youth around him would know it could be done.
Later this week, Ferguson will be defending his dissertation in the Doctor of Education program in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, and, if successful, will be awarded a Doctor of Education degree in December.
At that point, he will become the first black man to receive a doctorate degree at EKU.
Not bad for a former public school student who was as gifted in skipping classes as he was in mathematics.
“I always loved school, but I found reasons to take vacations,” said Ferguson, 50, who was born in Clark County and moved to Lexington with his family when he was around 9 years old.
Those “vacations” started in middle school, where he had become bored with the lack of a challenging curriculum. In seventh grade, he spent a semester at the back of the class, where he was told to sit and not bother anyone.
“The only reason I would go back to school was because my mom was threatened with court,” he said.
In high school he enjoyed the advanced math classes, but struggled with writing.
“I would give you two or three sentences, and I’m done,” he said.
Still he graduated but had no ambitions to go any further. Instead, he became a loan shark at ages 19 and 20.
While he never smoked, took drugs or even drank alcohol, Ferguson said he was a delinquent.
“It was wrong to loan money for interest rates higher than what the government allows,” he said.
So he headed for an Army recruitment center and enlisted.
He asked to work in the supplies area, but because of his test scores, he was urged to concentrate on dental hygiene and forensic sciences. He was sent to Fort Sam Houston in Texas.
He spent 22 years in the Army before retiring in 2007, and all along the way, people were telling him to go to college. When he was transferred near Lexington, he started taking community college classes and later moved to EKU.
With the urging of others, he earned master’s degrees in both public administration and education. And now he may soon have a doctorate, even though he had contemplated dropping out after his mother died in 2011.
For his dissertation, Ferguson examined the connection between effective teachers and better classroom management and positive student behavior. Specifically, he looked at those, like himself, who teach in juvenile detention centers and youth development centers in Kentucky.
Effective teachers believe they can teach any student, he said. By contrast, ineffective teachers are of little benefit to students and may encourage negative behavior in classrooms.
He thinks that is what happened in his youth. With a more challenging curriculum, direction and teachers, he may not have traveled the circuitous route to his doctorate.
Be that as it may, Ferguson wants other young people to avoid his missteps. Some of those missteps can lead those young people to prison. Studies have suggested there are more black men in prison than attending college. While those have been refuted by Howard University professor Ivory A. Toldson, that experience is all too often the one shown in the media.
Ferguson is one of those black students we hear too little about. And he’s doing his best to make more success stories by redirecting kids, just as adults tried to redirect him.
“When I was a young guy, Jack Givens was my big brother in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program,” Ferguson said. “He was willing to spend time with me when he was a basketball player at UK.
“When he went professional, he stayed in touch with me. Any time I called, Jack was responsive.”
He said he also recalled seeing his mother use cardboard to cover holes in her own shoes, just so she could buy him a new pair.
“The feeling that I get when I help people is that I am paying back a debt,” he said. “White, black or Hispanic, people have really stuck by me. I took that to heart.”

Scott Ferguson tutored Anthony Cox, age 13 at the Carnegie Center in Lexington. Photo by Pablo Alcala

Ferguson often returns to the juvenile center in the evenings to tutor the students there. And he recently began tutoring at the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning.
When he was at Bryan Station, he tutored all comers, not just members of the team.
“I am strict about academics,” he said. “If I can show them my stupid ways, maybe someone could learn from that.
“When someone says, ‘This is what I used to do,’ that should automatically indicate that they have grown.”

A lot of white people have said to me recently that Republican Sen. Rand Paul should get kudos for visiting Howard University and talking with a majority black audience.
The number of folks telling me that made me think something was wrong with me. I didn’t see Paul’s visit that way.
Why wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, a U.S. senator talk to a group of young, intelligent, black college students? Aren’t they Americans?
Did Paul simply deserve credit for talking with a group that may not agree with him? President Barack Obama does that frequently. Obama spoke with a group of CEOs who have serious disagreements with his efforts to raise their taxes. He has addressed Congress and received a “You lie!,” for his efforts.
I didn’t quite understand why I should applaud Paul’s visit anymore than I should gush over my husband picking up a broom now and again.
In his talk, Paul said today’s Republican Party is essentially the same party Abraham Lincoln belonged to. Today’s Republicans are the same as those of the 19th century who helped end slavery.
In essence, he said to those students that they should understand that when today’s Republicans reach out to them, black people should joyfully clasp the hand that brought them freedom 150 years ago.
Democrats, Paul said, were the bad guys back then, and that’s true. A majority of black voters once were Republicans. My father was a Republican. But black voters began leaving that party when integration fell out of favor with the party of Lincoln.
Paul knows that.
In the 1950s and 1960s, southern Democrats, who were demanding the right to remain segregationists, were rebuffed by northern Democrats for that stance. Those Democrats then fled to the Republican Party, where they found a welcoming home.
They were lured by that party’s “Southern strategy,” which was in direct opposition to federal policies regarding civil rights. So those segregationists became Republicans, changing how that party was perceived by black people, who voted overwhelmingly for Democrats during the past election.
Paul knows that.
So when Paul decided to give those bright students a history lesson that left decades of issues out of the discussion, I began to wonder why our senator had gone there in the first place.
He said he was there to try to get them to look at Republicans differently. Republicans really need to reach out to minorities, he said. That’s true. But I don’t think that’s why he was there.
And then it came to me.
Yesterday, while speaking at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Paul said he is considering a presidential campaign in 2016. Such a move had been rumored, but now Paul has put it out there for all to see.
“I want to be part of the national debate,” Paul said. “Whether I run or not, being considered is something that allows me to have, I think, a larger microphone. We’re considering it.”
That’s why he went to Howard. His talk wasn’t to persuade black students to give Republicans a second look. His talk at Howard was to give white students a chance to see him as magnanimous.
He had to have known that black people remember the longstanding racist and homophobic beliefs that his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, used to publish in his newsletters.
He had to have known that those black students would remember his recorded statements that businesses should be allowed to discriminate.
He wasn’t there for black people. He was there to win some of the white votes that Obama had snagged from soccer moms disenchanted with the Republican desire to dictate what happens in their vaginas. He was there to convince those white people that he isn’t such a bad fellow, really, and that they “should pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
He went to Howard because he is planning to run for president. How better to get the “larger microphone” than to go where other conservatives fear to tread?
That’s why I can’t give Paul credit for talking to black people. He wasn’t really talking to them.

When my daughter was of middle school age, she said she wanted to be a veterinarian. She loved animals and wanted to be able to make them feel better.
With that in mind, I called around trying to locate an animal clinic willing to take her on as a volunteer. What better way for her to see if that was truly what she wanted to do?
Remmele Animal Clinic agreed and, for a few hours each day that summer, she answered phones, watched minor surgical procedures and cleaned cages.
A similar learning experience for middle school students contemplating careers in the health field is being offered through a partnership between the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board and the Bluegrass Healthcare Consortium.
The Medical Career and Science Institute, a one-week summer camp at Spencerian College in Lexington, is accepting applications from students in grades six through eight who think they may want a career in health care or allied health. This is the second year for the camp.
The purpose, said Donna Mason, project manager for health care at the Bluegrass Workforce Investment Board, is to expose students early so they can sign up for the necessary coursework in high school.
The students’ typical day will start with breakfast at 8:30 a.m., followed by a pre-test to determine how much they know about that day’s subject matter. One day could be anatomy, which would take them into a lab where they would get a hands-on experience with skulls, skeletons and bones of various types.
“One day they will get CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training,” Mason said, “and they will be certified that day.”
One trip is scheduled to the Sullivan University College of Pharmacy in Louisville and another to the Minimally Invasive Surgery Lab at the University of Kentucky’s Outreach Center for Science and Health Career Opportunities.
There will be classes in algebra, anatomy, physiology, trigonometry and chemistry, as well as hands-on experience in phlebotomy, radiology, First Responder Training, and the mechanics of the electrocardiogram, or EKG.
On June 21, students and their families will attend a graduation ceremony at which students present a project they have worked on. Each will be given a stethoscope.
“Health care is one of the four key industry drivers for economic development,” Mason said. “The camp is supported by all the hospitals in the area and that is why we can host it free of charge. We are trying to develop a pipeline of students to go into health care.”
Students in the 17 counties served by the Bluegrass Area Development District are eligible to apply, she said. The capacity is 24 students.
An application must be accompanied by two letters of reference, a 300-word essay and a school transcript.
Students who attended last year are eligible for the advanced summer camp this year.
Mason said the hope is to generate so much interest that next year more week-long camps will be held at more locations.
“The students don’t know all those jobs that are in the field or the jobs that will evolve down the road,” Mason said. “There is always a need for nurses and for technicians in allied health.
“Down the road, we’d like for the students to graduate from high school with an associates degree,” she said.

If  you go
The Medical Career and Science Institute summer camp for middle school students
When: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. June 17-21. Application deadline is April 26.
Where: Spencerian College, 1575 Winchester Rd.
Information: Visit Bgwib.com, or call (859) 269-8021, Ext. 316.

Gloria Compton was a teacher at Bryan Station High School for more than 30 years before retiring 21 years ago.
Throughout all those years, Bryan Station has been on the receiving end of negative comments and perceptions, she said. And in recent years, it has earned test scores that lag behind other public schools in the area.
“It’s been that way since I started teaching there in 1962,” she said. “Back then, they called it the farm school and made fun of the students because they drove tractors to school.”
Still, Compton said, “I would not trade my life at Bryan Station for anything. God put me there.”
The school was named for a settlement of 40 log cabins just north of Lexington. In August 1782, the settlers knew they would soon be attacked by about 300 Shawnee Indians and British Canadians. They also knew they would need water to counter the burning arrows that were sure to come.
So the settlers agreed to send the women and children to the spring to retrieve water, knowing the Indians would not attack women. All of them returned safely.
In 1932, during the 150th anniversary of that act, the Fayette County Board of Education announced the new county school would be called Bryan Station. The athletic teams were later named “Defenders.”
That sense of loyalty runs deep with many faculty and students who have since been associated with the school. It led Compton to follow through with the suggestion of another former teacher to start an alumni association that could help that school stand toe-to-toe with other public high schools in the city.
In 1990, Bryan Station alumni Doug Flynn, Vince Sayre and Compton solidified the idea during a basketball game.
Since then, the association has given more than $90,000 back to the school for academics and sports, and $30,000 in college scholarships to seniors.
The early members sold hamburgers and hot dogs in front of Krogers, she said. “We weren’t making much, but we were doing what we could.”
About 10 years ago they came up with the idea of a live and silent auction as a fundraiser as well as a golf scramble. About four years ago, a casino night was added to the auction event.
“We have been a blessing to the school,” said Compton, who is a past president of the alumni association and a current board member.
In 2006, the association started a Financial Request Committee so that school organizations and programs could request funding for a variety of needs.
“If you need help with something, let us know how we can help,” said the association’s co-chair, Tina Payne. “We try to help the school as much as we can fill in for the shortfall that maybe our students and parents can’t make up. We are trying to bring the school up to the level of other high schools wherever shortfalls are identified.”
To do that, the association will host the silent and live auction and casino night on April 20. The money raised is strictly for scholarships or other academic programs.
Auction items will include four nights in a cabin just outside of Pigeon Forge, Tenn.; a flight around Lexington with pilot Mike Proctor; a box at Keeneland Racetrack; and an advance directive planning and will preparation, among other items. Donations of auction items are still being accepted.
The night’s events, which will be held at the Oleika Shrine Center, 326 Southland Drive, will include appetizers, beverages and $500 casino start-up money.
Payne, who graduated in 1983, said that, as a student, she tired of having people sympathize when she told them she attended Bryan Station.
“They would say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’” she said. “I never felt that way myself. I thought the school was great and I know I was getting a good education. But I do still hear that stigma attached to Bryan Station, undeservedly so. It has always been a good school.”
Payne’s son, Michael Payne, is the assistant band director at the school, so that sense of loyalty carries over to the next generation.
Compton wants all those people, those who graduated from Bryan Station and those who care about the school, to make room on their schedule for casino night.
If you don’t want to attend, the association will accept donations.
“We will accept anything people want to give,” she said. “It all is going to help the school.”
Payne agreed, but added it will be a good night of entertainment.
“I can’t guarantee you will win, but I can guarantee you will have a good time,” she said.

IF YOU GO
What: A silent and live auction and casino night to benefit the Bryan Station High School Alumni Association.
When: 6-11 p.m. April 20.
Where: Oleika Shrine Center, 326 Southland Drive.
Cost: $10.
For information or to donate auction items: Call (859) 492-1439.

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive at least two phone calls from ex-offenders about how difficult it is for them to find employment.
Most talk about the skills they have acquired while incarcerated, or about the education they have that could more than qualify them for a job. Still, many employers simply do not welcome them, which is understandable if the pool of potential employees is filled with people without criminal convictions.
When I heard from Jessica Mohler about a new workshop being offered at the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, I immediately thought of those ex-offenders.
The Micro Entrepreneur Workshop, scheduled for noon April 12, will be a 90-minute session that gives important information to anyone hoping to start his or her own business.
Instead of resorting to criminal activity because a legal livelihood can’t be found, ex-offenders can use their skills and talent to start a business.
“This is the first time we ever held this workshop,” said Mohler, Carnegie marketing and communications director. “I was thinking it would fit nicely with the current economic climate and Lexington’s need for more small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
In addition to ex-offenders, Mohler envisions the session to be ideal for women who choose not to continue hitting their heads on an impenetrable ceiling in the corporate world, and who instead choose to use their talents their own way.
Plus, a lot of my retired friends have skills or hobbies that with guidance could easily become money-making ventures.
Such mom-and-pop-type businesses have become known as micro-enterprises. They have fewer than five employees and most have only one, the owner. Technology has helped this group to mushroom.
Astarré Gudiño, who will lead the workshop, said participants will learn about business plans and how research is essential before getting started. Potential new business owners should read the end-of-year reports for companies they would be competing with to see how good they are really doing.
“You don’t want to go in competition with a business that is failing,” she said.
Gudiño is the state administrator for NxLevel, a nationwide training network for entrepreneurs, and owns SmartStart, which helps small businesses get started or grow.  She has also taught a similar course at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah.
“Micro-entrepreneurship is taking your hobby or something you are good at and making it a business,” Gudiño said. “The ex-felons would be great candidates. They have that drive, the determination and the will to work for themselves.”
So do some retirees who, for example, are good at canning or knitting and want to make money from what they produce, she said. The workshop is for anyone who has a good skill or service that they can market or promote, but don’t know how to.
Participants will learn the benefits of virtual businesses as well as vertical businesses and the cost differences and will receive a list of important definitions and an easy-to-read guide for writing a business plan.
“It is a great hour and half of their lives and useful information that they can take with them,” Gudiño said.
Part of the Carnegie Center’s Gourmet Learning Series, the workshop is a partnership with Whole Foods Market, which furnishes the lunches served during the sessions.
While the workshop is a bit of a departure from classes normally offered at the center, Laura Whitaker, program director, said résumé-writing and job-seeking classes have been held there before.
“We do feel there is an interest out there for professional development,” she said. “The Carnegie Center is not only good for writers, but also for professions and for inspiring professions,” Whitaker said.
“We don’t want to be an intimidating environment. We are welcoming.”
“It is a ‘learn it today and use it tomorrow approach,’” Gudiño added.

IF YOU GO
What: Micro Entrepreneur Workshop to learn how to start a small business
When: Noon-1:30 p.m. April 12.
Where: The Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, 251 W. Second St.
Cost: $45, lunch included.
Information and registration: Call (859) 254-4175. Deadline is April 10.

When news broke Tuesday that a recording had been uncovered of a campaign strategy session in Louisville conducted by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and his campaign aides, my first reaction was one of exasperation.
Here we go again.
On the audio, McConnell, the U.S. Senate minority leader, remains silent as his campaign aides reveal research they have conducted on potential Republican and Democratic opponents.
They laughed at remarks that actress and potential opponent Ashley Judd made in an interview about how depression affected her.
Silly me, I kept listening to hear McConnell say that such tactics were off limits.
Later, at a news conference at which he addressed the recording that was given to Mother Jones magazine by an unnamed source, I wanted to hear him apologize for the direction his campaign aides were mapping out.
Instead, McConnell came up with a vast left-wing conspiracy involving listening devices that he said were reflective of what his fellow Republican, Richard Nixon, had employed against Democrats. The best defense is a good offense, I guess.
On the recording, an aide can be heard talking about the wealth of information in the public domain about Judd’s struggles with depression.
“She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced,” he said.
Then laughter can be heard as he plays a recording of Judd discussing her behavior before she received treatment.
Using a person’s mental illness for your advantage “makes you look bad, small and unintelligent,” said Kelli Gunning, operations director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Lexington.
One in four people experiences mental illness in their lifetime, and depression is the most common disorder, caused by a variety of reasons, Gunning said.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with anyone’s stability,” she said.
We all should praise Judd for being courageous enough to write a book about her struggles and for being so open about it.
“She is addressing it and is aware of it,” Gunning said. “She is not in the closet. All power to her for coming out and talking about it and opening up so other people who are suffering won’t feel alone.”
Judd has talked about a visit she made in 2006 to the Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas, to visit her sister, singer Wynonna, who was being treated for an eating disorder.
While there, the counselors noticed how affected Judd was by her sister’s revelations. They approached her and suggested that she seek help as well.
In an interview with Glamour Magazine, Ashley Judd said she was treated for “co-dependence in my relationships; depression; blaming, raging, numbing, denying and minimizing my feelings. But because my addictions were behavioral, not chemical, I wouldn’t have known to seek treatment.
“At Shades of Hope, my behaviors were treated like addictions. And those behaviors were killing me spiritually, the same as someone who is sitting on a corner with a bottle in a brown paper bag.”
The stigma of mental illness won’t go away until we put that illness in the same category as diabetes or cancer, Gunning said.
McConnell should come out and say, “‘How can I help you,’” Gunning said. “‘What can I do to make this a health issue? Gee, Ashley, how can we improve our mental health issues?’”
I couldn’t agree more.
In a statement, Judd’s spokeswoman, Cara Tripicchio, said, “This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington, D.C. We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter.”
Because McConnell’s campaign was so willing to use depression to his advantage, Gunning said, too many viable political candidates might turn away out of fear of being ostracized.
Not State Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lex, however. On Facebook, Stein posted her personal and familial struggles with depression.
“As an elected official of 17 years,” Stein wrote, “it has been incumbent of me to constantly advise my constituents and others across the state that I have been treated for depression all of my adult life, just as my mother should have been.
“It’s a real disease, just like hypertension and diabetes.
“So set an example, Senator. Apologize to Ms. Judd for the jocular manner you treated depression,” Stein wrote.
Amen.
Instead of shifting the spotlight to hidden bugs or liberal conspiracies, apologize. Sincerely.
Gunning said McConnell also should apologize to his constituents whose suffering he has belittled. And to those people who might have been about to seek treatment, but were discouraged by the actions of his campaign.
Gunning pleaded with those people to seek help anyway.
“Please don’t let ill-informed, mal-intended people” interfere with your path to recovery, wholeness and wellness,” she said. “Know the facts, seek help and get support that we would like to see come from informed leadership such as Sen. McConnell.”
Step up and do what’s right, McConnell. Do what is right.

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive at least two phone calls from ex-offenders about how difficult it is for them to find employment.
Most talk about the skills they have acquired while incarcerated, or about the education they have that could more than qualify them for a job. Still, many employers simply do not welcome them, which is understandable if the pool of potential employees is filled with people without criminal convictions.
When I heard from Jessica Mohler about a new workshop being offered at the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, I immediately thought of those ex-offenders.
The Micro Entrepreneur Workshop, scheduled for noon April 12, will be a 90-minute session that gives important information to anyone hoping to start his or her own business.
Instead of resorting to criminal activity because a legal livelihood can’t be found, ex-offenders can use their skills and talent to start a business.
“This is the first time we ever held this workshop,” said Mohler, Carnegie marketing and communications director. “I was thinking it would fit nicely with the current economic climate and Lexington’s need for more small businesses and entrepreneurs.”
In addition to ex-offenders, Mohler envisions the session to be ideal for women who choose not to continue hitting their heads on an impenetrable ceiling in the corporate world, and who instead choose to use their talents their own way.
Plus, a lot of my retired friends have skills or hobbies that with guidance could easily become money-making ventures.
Such mom-and-pop-type businesses have become known as micro-enterprises. They have fewer than five employees and most have only one, the owner. Technology has helped this group to mushroom.
Astarré Gudiño, who will lead the workshop, said participants will learn about business plans and how research is essential before getting started. Potential new business owners should read the end-of-year reports for companies they would be competing with to see how good they are really doing.
“You don’t want to go in competition with a business that is failing,” she said.
Gudiño is the state administrator for NxLevel, a nationwide training network for entrepreneurs, and owns SmartStart, which helps small businesses get started or grow.  She has also taught a similar course at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah.
“Micro-entrepreneurship is taking your hobby or something you are good at and making it a business,” Gudiño said. “The ex-felons would be great candidates. They have that drive, the determination and the will to work for themselves.”
So do some retirees who, for example, are good at canning or knitting and want to make money from what they produce, she said. The workshop is for anyone who has a good skill or service that they can market or promote, but don’t know how to.
Participants will learn the benefits of virtual businesses as well as vertical businesses and the cost differences and will receive a list of important definitions and an easy-to-read guide for writing a business plan.
“It is a great hour and half of their lives and useful information that they can take with them,” Gudiño said.
Part of the Carnegie Center’s Gourmet Learning Series, the workshop is a partnership with Whole Foods Market, which furnishes the lunches served during the sessions.
While the workshop is a bit of a departure from classes normally offered at the center, Laura Whitaker, program director, said résumé-writing and job-seeking classes have been held there before.
“We do feel there is an interest out there for professional development,” she said. “The Carnegie Center is not only good for writers, but also for professions and for inspiring professions,” Whitaker said.
“We don’t want to be an intimidating environment. We are welcoming.”
“It is a ‘learn it today and use it tomorrow approach,’” Gudiño added.

IF YOU GO
What: Micro Entrepreneur Workshop to learn how to start a small business
When: Noon-1:30 p.m. April 12.
Where: The Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, 251 W. Second St.
Cost: $45, lunch included.
Information and registration: Call (859) 254-4175. Deadline is April 10.