People and Places

Speaking about her parents recalls a certain type of emotion in Barbara Cecil.

It’s of their love, generosity, continuous support and their goal to always provide what’s best for their children.

For Cecil, realizing how much her parents, JT and Tootsie Cecil, sacrificed for her didn’t set in until she was older.

After they both passed away from Alzheimer’s disease, she kept searching for a way to honor their legacy.

Lift-off time was 10:06 a.m. on a bright May morning in Dean Watts Park when Morehead State University launched a high-altitude balloon to conduct scientific experiments in the sky high above Nelson County and beyond.

In perhaps the first-ever high altitude balloon launch of this sort from Nelson County, eight students from Nelson County High School and the Nelson County Area Technology Center (Kentucky Tech) were right in the thick of things to help send along their own payload of experiments for the nearly 16-mile-high flight.

Sixty-eight seniors in caps and gowns of blue and white will walk across the stage for their diplomas Sunday evening. They will represent more than the transition from one phase of life to the next, from childhood to adulthood, from reliance on teachers and parents to self-reliance.

They will represent 100 years of seniors making the very same transitions.

Bernheim has more visitors now than you can ‘shake a stick at.’

The reason for that is international artist Patrick Dougherty who is creating a willow stick sculpture on the grounds adjacent to the Visitor’s Center at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest.

Dougherty, a resident of Chapel Hill, N.C., has created more than 200 installations around the globe. He arrived at Bernheim after completing an installation in France. Other locations include Denmark, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Scotland, Hawaii, Washington, New York and Japan.