This year's Spring Cleanup will begin on March 8 and end on April 14.

Registration will begin at 9 a.m., March 4 by calling 859-654-1000 and will last until all miles have been assigned. A cleanup date must be provided at the time of registration.

Permission slips will be needed for any children between the ages of 8 to 17. You may get these from the solid waste coordinator.

For questions or additional information please contact Fred Edwards at 859-654-1000.

By: Lovina Eicher

The school will have Friday and Monday off for a mid-winter break. Today is Valentine’s Day so the elementary classes are having their party.  Last night Joseph 10, Lovina, 8, and Kevin, 7 signed all their cards to their classmates.  This is Joseph’s last year in elementary school so this is his last Valentine’s party.

We headed out for the two-hour trip to Berne, Indiana on Saturday at around 7:15 a.m. We had set our hired van driver to be here around 6:30 a.m.  He got out of his van and somehow left his keys locked inside. His son brought a spare pair and we were on our way 45 minutes later.  Nine out of the 12 siblings were at Joe’s sister's house for the late family Christmas gathering.  There was more than enough food for the 10:30 a.m. carry-in brunch. Snacks were served later on in the day.  After we left the gathering on Saturday we drove in to the place we used to live before we moved to Michigan almost nine years ago.

Even when times are tough, many Americans budget a portion of their assets to go to charity. According to Giving USA, a research institute that publishes data and trends on charitable giving, Americans contributed more than $298.42 billion to charities in 2011.

While your heart may guide you to a particular charity, don’t just hand over your hard-earned money without getting some information. Though all charities purport to be doing good work, some organizations have less than stellar track records. Just as you would scrutinize a financial investment, so should you examine a charity to ensure your money makes the biggest impact possible.

The Kentucky Cancer Program (KCP) is encouraging everyone to Dress in Blue on Friday, March 1—or at special events throughout the month— as part of the fifth annual nationwide campaign to promote lifesaving colon cancer screening.

Madeline Abramson, Kentucky lieutenant governor’s wife, will serve as the Dress in Blue Day honorary chair for Kentucky.

Community partners, led by KCP District Cancer Councils, are sponsoring many special activities March 1 (national Dress in Blue Day) and throughout the month).  Included will be a special tour by a 20 ft. long inflatable giant colon, traveling throughout central and Eastern Ky. at some time during the month in every district.

Eleven major construction projects at six state universities, including dormitory renovations, new student centers, and athletic facility improvements will soon be underway thanks to the quick passage of a bill that allows the schools to issue bonds for project financing – all at no cost to Kentucky taxpayers.

Gov. Steve Beshear, joined by a bipartisan group of legislative leaders and state university presidents, signed House Bill 7 into law today. The law authorizes $363.3 million in agency bonds by Kentucky’s public universities for campus improvements supported by university revenues, according to a news release from the governor's office.

With Low Vision Awareness Month in February, the Kentucky Optometric Association is urging people with vision problems to have them checked.

“Low vision is not a normal part of getting older,” said Dr. John Musick, an optometrist in Nicholasville, Ky., who specializes in low vision and is one of only 50 diplomates in Low Vision in the Low Vision Section of the American Academy of Optometry. “Rather, most people develop low vision as a result of certain eye diseases, such as macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma and diabetes. It’s important to have an annual dilated eye exam to determine the cause of low vision, so any illness can be diagnosed and treated in a timely manner. We also can provide help for people to cope with low vision.”

The headstone above marks the resting place of William Munday, Co. D., 100 U.S. C. Inf., a Civil War veteran. His resting place is out Hayes Station Road up in what is known locally as Crowes Holler. It is supposed that his wife, Susan, rests beside it, but no stone marks her grave or any of the others in the cemetery there.

In the hidden valleys of Kentucky are many unmarked graves with the stories of their owners lost to history. Such it is with the friends and relatives of William Munday who share a cemetery of jumbled field stones. Munday's is the only grave marked by a headstone inscripted with "Win. Munday, Co. D., 100 U.S. C. Inf." Army records list him as William Munday, Company D., 100 United States Colored Infantry.

Possibly an ex-slave turned farmer born in Pendleton County, Munday enlisted for three years in the U.S. C. Inf. on May 23, 1864 by a Captain Berry at Covington. His first appearance is at the age of 20 in June of 1864 as a private on the Muster and Descriptive Roll of a detachment of U.S. Colored Recruits commanded by a Captain Mussey at Nashville, Tennessee. He then appears on the records of Co. D, 100 Reg't U.S. Col'd Inf. in Nashville, Tennessee from September 1864 to December 1865.

We are half-way through the 30-day session and many of our priority bills have made their way to the House to await action there.

This week, the Senate passed House Bill 7, a bill authorizing university bonding projects. Universities will use their own bonds at no cost to Kentucky’s General Fund to renovate or build 11 critically-needed buildings. Northern Kentucky University, for example, has laid out a plan for the renovation and expansion of the Albright Health Center and a residence hall. The universities must use their own funds to operate these buildings once they’re built. The Senate also added language that these projects could not be subsidized with tuition increases.

On Thursday, the Senate passed the bill that I sponsored, Senate Bill 6, in response to the overwhelming number of deaths resulting from heroin overdoses in Kentucky. The bill amends current law to state clearly that an overdose death from a Schedule I drug is a foreseeable event.  Schedule I drugs are by definition highly addictive and have no legitimate medical use. SB 6 applies criminal homicide liability to any individual in the chain of possession of those drugs related to the overdose death of the user. It also states that the illegal trafficking of these types of drugs is, by itself, sufficient to support a charge of criminal homicide in an overdose death. This allows authorities to bring these charges against anyone who supplied the lethal does, regardless of their position in the supply chain.

Although the Kentucky House of Representatives considers a wide variety of bills during any given week of a legislative session, there are times when broad themes emerge.  We had three last week, and they affected our universities, our farmers and our legal system.

For our universities, the highlight came on Thursday, when Governor Beshear signed the session’s first bill into law.  It gives many of our four-year public universities the ability to spend $363 million of their own money to build 11 projects, which are expected to support about 5,000 construction jobs.  This will not use any new state tax dollars or cause tuition to rise.

Most of the money will be used by the University of Kentucky, which will now spend $110 million to upgrade Commonwealth Stadium and $100 million for a new science building.  Two-thirds of the cost for that building will come from the school’s athletics department, the first time in Kentucky that athletics revenue has supported academics.

On Tuesday, I was proud to take part in a Capitol Rotunda ceremony that unveiled a new five-year plan for agriculture.  It notes both the successes farming has seen in recent years and the challenges the profession faces down the road.  A copy can be found online at www.kyagcouncil.org.

Dear Editor,

To All Falmouth Residents:

In a time of progress and change for our nation, it has never been more important to know that you can be self-sustaining and care for your family when needed. News of E.coli and listeria on food and tainted meat in our countries groceries makes for scary times. Being able to, without a doubt, know exactly what is in the food you are eating is becoming increasingly difficult.

Backyard chicken keeping is an answer for many. Backyard chickens allow for fresh, extremely local food production on a small, manageable scale. Our small agricultural city currently has an ordinance that disallows the keeping of domestic fowl unless they produce food, income, or kept as pets. At the present time our council is working to further restrict this by removing these stipulations. The reasons cited for banning these animals from within city limits are unfounded. They pose no greater health risk than cats and are not anywhere near the noise disturbance of dogs. Responsible pet ownership makes urban chickens not only efficient food producers, but sensible animals to allow within the city limits of Falmouth.

Five benefits that backyard chickens can provide that you may not know:

• A progressive community attitude: Falmouth can help lead Kentucky in the Urban Agriculture movement.

• Enriching educational opportunities - for children and adults alike.

• Sustainable lifestyles choices - promoting healthy citizens, neighborhoods, and soil.

• Homegrown food source - the ultimate "Local Food;" decreasing our effects on the environment by consuming products that are grown in our own geographical region, city, or neighborhood.

• Lessons in food production and safety - Eggs don't come from cartons!

Chicken keeping is a healthy, economical, and sustainable way to feed and enrich our families and our communities. Many towns and cities across our nation have already embraced backyard chickens. Highland Heights, Florence, Erlanger, and Cold Spring allow them, as does Manhattan, Chicago, Anne Arbor, and San Francisco. Falmouth could be on the forefront of the sustainable living movement and provide its residents with the option to take control of their food.

We must embrace change and do everything we can to provide our children a safe and healthy environment to grow up in.  We are not asking to allow chickens to run amuck in our town. In fact we know that this can only work if proper restrictions are put in place. We also do not wish to divide our town but we do want positive progress to change our community for the better. I urge you as citizens of Falmouth to create your own opinion based on facts and understand the value this has for the citizens of our community. We invite you to view the information we have presented to the Falmouth CityC ouncil as well as our recommendations for a proposed ordinance with proper restrictions on our website AmmermanEnt.com/chicken.pdf  and don’t forget to support our cause and make your voice heard by signing our petition through the link on Facebook.com/FalmouthCLUCK.

Monica Ammerman
CLUCK (Citizens for the
Legalization of Urban Chicken
Keeping)