Recent Articles

Graves County Schools registration dates, back to school nights schedule follows the jump.

Noted author and Calloway County native Bobbie Smith Bryant is the guest speaker at the quarterly meeting of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society Saturday, July 22nd at the Purchase Area Development District office, 1002 Medical Center Drive, Mayfield, Kentucky. Bryant will talk about the subject of her recent book Farming in the Black Patch, winner of a 2016 Kentucky History Award. The event is sponsored by a grant from the Kentucky Humanities Council.

The meeting begins at 10:30 AM. It is open to the public and free of charge.

The Graves County School District amended its policy for serving meals to students under the National School Lunch / School Breakfast Programs for the 2017-2018 school year.

All students will be served lunch/breakfast at no charge at these schools: Graves County Middle and High schools, Gateway Academy High School, and the elementary schools of Central, Fancy Farm, Farmington, Lowes, Sedalia, Symsonia, and Wingo.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 18, 2017) - Gov. Matt Bevin today announced Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC will invest $13.7 million to increase the output of its Calloway County facility, which produces additive compounds for numerous industries.

7/31/17 UPDATED: Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes won't be at the Picnic. She's going to her nephew's little league championship baseball game. (Best excuse this year)

Mark Wilson, co-chair of the political speaking for Fancy Farm Picnic 2017, sent out a speaker's list as of July 10th.

In this year without an election, the dais will be pretty empty.

Headliners of past years have either declined to come or haven't confirmed. Governor Matt Bevin and Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton are no shows. Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul haven't confirmed. With Senate Leader McConnell cancelling the first two weeks of the August Senate break to work on health care, it looks like they will be staying in DC.

First District Representative James Comer will be in Clinton at the Hickman County Extension Office on Thursday August 3rd at 9:00 a.m. for a town hall meeting.

Rep. Comer vowed to visit each one of the counties in his district by the end of the year.

The Hickman County Extension Office is located on James Phillips Drive on the campus of Hickman County High School.

Hickman County Judge Kenny Wilson presided over the program dedicating a new Farmer's Market in Rotary Park on Thursday, July 13, 2017. The open air market facility opened for business on Saturday July 15^th. The facility came about with the support of local and state support.

FRANKFORT (June 1, 2017) -- Allen Dossey, owner of Purple Toad Winery near Paducah, was named Winemaker of the Year at the recent Indy International Wine Competition at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Big Sandy Elder Abuse Council, the Kentucky River Council Against the Maltreatment of Elders (CAME) and the Purchase Elder Abuse Council each received Public Awareness Initiative awards of $500. The awards recognize the groups for showing a commitment to elder abuse prevention through public outreach during the past 12 months.

Editor's Note: Signs of elder abuse are included in this press release.

(Clinton, KY) - Fifth through ninth graders will get a chance to work with professional actors, dancers, singers and artists this summer as a unique arts program begins its third year.

MADD Camp will run from 9-2 at Hickman County High School in Clinton from Monday June 19^th to Friday June 23^rd.

This Memorial Day let us not forget those who gave their all for our freedom. These faces are just a few of the soldiers with Kentucky connections we have featured since we began the Journal.

To see if your soldier is featured on this site, go to search above and input his or her name.

Hickman County Times owner, publisher, editor, writer, photographer, duster in chief Gaye Bencini is a one woman journalism empire. Of course she is too modest to see it that way. Her self effacing humor comes through in her writing. For example, a Facebook apology recently:

"Dear HCHS Class of 2017, I fall to my knees and beg you to make sure all your folks know graduation Friday starts at 7 p.m. Even though it's been announced correctly in the Times for, say, three or four weeks, in this week's edition right over the bar code, a little bigger than a freckle, it says 8 p.m. and that's what your granny will see. If she comes at 8, she will possibly miss you getting your diploma, a once in a lifetime happening, and worse, she will want to stab Mrs. Gaye."

Twenty five former Garan employees gathered at the Hickman County Historical Society to reminisce about the old days. Janice Dean brought the longevity pins she earned over the years working at the garment factory. Dean earned 85 cents an hour when she started. Other workers also commented on their paychecks. Stella Johnson remembered making a $1 an hour.

What do Loretta Lynn, Lou Gehrig, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe and Secretariat have in common?

Besides all being famous, their lives were profiled in speeches and power point presentations by the five seventh grade finalists in the Young Historians Project.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a nifty interactive website for studying health outcomes state by state and county by county. We looked at some of the measures for our area. Marshall County stands out as the 8th healthiest in the state.

Adult Obesity: Adult obesity is defined in this study as adults who report a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or more.

Kentuckians report that 33% of adults are obese. In the Purchase, Livingston, Graves, Calloway are at 30%, Fulton at 32%, Carlisle 33%, Ballard, McCracken and Marshall at 34%, and Hickman at 35%

(Paducah, KY) May 9, 2017 -- Fifteen students from seven colleges have been selected for the first Baptist Health Paducah Pre-Med Academy summer program.

(Paducah, KY April 18, 2017) - Senator Rand Paul was in his comfort zone addressing doctors and nurses. Senator/Dr. Paul, dressed in a sports jacket over scrubs, addressing medical professionals in a health care town hall meeting at the Carson-Myre Heart Center Auditorium, Baptist Health Hospital.

...Now that the GOP controls the legislative and executive branches, what happened?

"We got weak kneed and said Ah, we can't repeal the whole thing. Let's repeal parts of it and replace it with more government stuff."

Insurance companies came in for a great deal of criticism. "I don't give a you know what for insurance companies. They made 6 billion dollars before Obamacare and then they made 12 billion under Obamacare."

(Bardwell KY - April 19, 2017) - First District Representative James Comer promised to hold a town hall meeting in every one of the 35 counties that make up his district. He visited his thirteenth this sunny Wednesday.

It wasn't a raucous crowd that greeted the Congressman in this small rural county for a morning session. Older, whiter, rural constituents listened quietly as Comer spoke at length on the three issues he is hearing most about: foreign affairs, tax reform and health care.

Those who sit in the halls of power and call garment making "low skilled labor" have obviously never made a shirt from a bolt of cloth...

It seems a cruel joke that while 350 workers in Clinton Kentucky lost their jobs, Garan still has an office on 5^th Avenue in the Big Apple.

It's also a cruel joke to use jobs, jobs, jobs for politicians to climb up the political ladder. But the promise will keep working as long as workers want to believe.

Governor Bevin is on the path to be a one term governor and

lose control of the Kentucky House of Representatives

Will Governor Bevin keep control of Kentucky politics and political power in Frankfort until 2019?

The answer is a "resounding YES!"

Right now, he has the best hand in the political poker game.

Bilingual Buddies, a company founded by Murray State students Edward Milan, Willis Holmes and Corie Fitch, won a spot in the business plan finals. Bilingual Buddies are interactive stuffed pets that teach children another language though interaction. With the special software app that has been developed, a child can speak to their pet in English, and it will repeat their words back to them in another language.

Three additional teams who work with the Kentucky Innovation Network office at Murray State placed in the finals. They are from Hopkinsville Community College and the University Of Kentucky Paducah School Of Engineering.

West Kentucky Community and Technical College is offering a presentation to discuss August's total solar eclipse. The public is invited to the free, one-hour presentation Monday, April 24 at 11 a.m. in Waller Hall 112.

Dr. Victor Taveras, WKCTC's assistant professor of physics and astronomy, will discuss the science behind the rare total solar eclipse that will occur Monday, August 21, 2017 - the first total solar eclipse visible from the southeastern United States in over 45 years.

Paducah Tilghman High School juniors Anna Grace McGee, Peyton Patel, Emery Wainscott, Taylor Willis, and Kaleb White have been chosen as scholars, and Jose Ricardo dos Remedios has been chosen as an alternate, for the 2017 Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program.

How St. Jerome Church became the focal point for the Fancy Farm community in west Kentucky will be the featured program for the Jackson Purchase Historical Society spring meeting at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, April 22 at the Fancy Farm Vineyard and Winery in Fancy Farm.