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Kentucky by Heart: Sharing some tidbits from the ‘what’s going on in my neighborhood’ department


By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

I’ve had several personal Kentucky “tidbits” floating around in my head for a while, and this week seems like a good time to share a few of them.

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Steve’s uncle, Howard Johnston (Photo courtesy Point of Beginning magazine)

I am so proud of my Uncle Howard Johnston, who lives in Falmouth, for having February 3, 2021, proclaimed as Howard Johnston Day in Pendleton County. He is a long-time land surveyor (licensed since 1967) and the oldest elected official in the county, serving as its county surveyor.

Recently the surveyors’ magazine, Point of Beginning, profiled Uncle Howard in an article titled, “Howard Johnston, Living Legend.” The story told of Howard’s birth on February 3, 1929 in Campbell County “in a log cabin on a 100-acre farm to a tenant farmer and school teacher.” It also told of marrying Alta Mae Fryer, my mom’s twin sister, in 1950 and integrating her and their three children into the surveying work and tobacco farming they also did. It also told of Howard doing survey jobs “cross many cities and state boundaries, including Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois and Indiana — and he’s completed well over 2,000 surveys.”

Uncle Howard is a storyteller extraordinaire and has an amazing memory regarding the events, the land, and the people in Campbell and Pendleton counties through his lifetime. Whenever I need some information on those subjects, I call him or head to Falmouth to pick his brain.

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The latest season of the ‘Mike bed’ at Steve’s home (Photo provided)

As mentioned previously, my wife, Suzanne, and I like to garden on our one-acre lot in Woodford County. And while I do the growing of mostly wildflowers, she is a whiz at arranging blooms and foliage into attractive floral arrangements that adorn our home.

A few weeks back, we entered the Woodford County Fair Flower Show for the first time, mainly for the experience. We were elated when out of our five entrants, we won a blue ribbon for our rudbeckia specimen and a red one for our hydrangea.

Now confident, we plan to enter a dozen or more flowers in next year’s fair.

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Having spent about four decades as either a full or part-time educator, much of it teaching the subject of social studies, I’ve always thought I needed a better understanding of our U.S. Constitution. So, this year I decided to do a 100-hour study of the important document. And knowing that materials on the subject can have a political bias, leaning to the left or right in slant, I’ve made a concerted effort to read and watch videos of a variety of sources. I’ve already covered over 50 hours and may add another 100 hours after reaching my first goal. There is so much to learn and it can’t be absorbed in sound bites.

Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of seven books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and six in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #5,” was released in 2019. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly KyForward and NKyTribune columnist and a former member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)

I have a sneaking feeling that many people who throw around the words, “U.S. Constitution,” may receive their education about it from the relatively passive pursuance of watching television, radio, or following Facebook posts. I’d rather not be wholeheartedly guilty of such if I can help it.

A quick online search for materials got me started, and here are a few of the books I’m using: The U.S. Constitution, by Ray Raphael, How to Read the Constitution and Why, by Kim Wehle, The Constitution & the Declaration of Independence, by “The Founding Fathers” & Paul B. Skousen, and The American Republic: Primary Sources, edited by Bruce Frohnen. Videos I’ve used, among others, are ones from Khan Academy and Hillsdale College. I also plan to read, for enrichment, iconic Kentucky author Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. If you have some good resources to share on the matter, would appreciate you emailing me at sflairty2001@yahoo.com.

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The first thing I do every morning after getting out of bed is to peer out the bedroom window to see the flower bed dedicated to my brother, Mike, who died in 2018 from pancreatic cancer. I miss him continually. He was a year and a half younger than me, but I often looked to him for advice; he was always there for me. In an interesting kind of way, just focusing on “The Mike Bed” brings solace. The Mike Bed originated, as I have mentioned previously in this column, after I took a bale of straw mixed with wildflowers, a gift from Mike and his wife as he lay dying and I sowed it on a small plot in our side yard. Also growing in the bed is a Kentucky coffee tree, formerly our state tree. The tree reminds me of how our father fostered our love of Kentucky. Seldom does a day go by that I don’t visit and tend the beautiful bed as a way of showing respect to my family.

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From the “what’s going on in my neighborhood” department, it’s so frustrating not to have someone to talk about… I have such good neighbors. Hoping the same for you, too.


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