City, county plan to explore merger
A firm believer that less can indeed be more, Richard Small is glad to hear that a dialogue on reduced government appears to have begun among elected leaders.
Next week, when Marion City Council and Crittenden Fiscal Court gather for their regular monthly meetings, the two government bodies will broach a topic that some like Small have believed for years just makes sense – a unified city-county government.
"It's worth exploring," Small said Monday, citing the redundancy of overlapping services as reason enough for exploring a more efficient way of governing Crittenden County.
Last month, Marion Mayor Mickey Alexander and Crittenden County Judge-Executive Fred Brown met with officials from Kentucky's Department of Local Government (DLG) to look at the options for combining city and county government into one legislative body. What came of that meeting was the notion that the plan has merit, but requires a long, internal examination before moving forward.
It's an idea that has come of age, according to Small, who for many of his years as an entrepreneur, businessman and resident of the city and county has seen the two governments butt heads. Despite the past, he believes unification discussion is a result of the cooperative relationship currently enjoyed between the fiscal court and city council.
"I really think the city and county, in my 73 years, work together now better than ever," he said.
What Mayor Alexander plans to do on Monday, and Judge Brown the following day, is to present to their respective boards the idea of an exploratory committee on consolidation. Once the names of a yet-to-be-specified number of city- and county-appointed representatives are agreed upon, the group could begin its fact-finding mission.
"I plan to ask the magistrates to come up with names from their districts to serve on the committee," Brown said Monday.
The informal group would have no decision-making power and would consist of volunteers charged with seeking necessary information so that each governing body could make an informed decision on whether to move forward with the lengthy process of placing a unified city-county government on the ballot. The exploratory committee would meet independent of both the city council and fiscal court.
"There's going to be a lot of opposition," Small, a Marion resident, said of even the earliest stages of consideration. "I might not even like it, but I'd just like to say we looked into it."
Marion City Administrator Mark Bryant agrees that creation of the group is sure to raise eyebrows, but suggests that the committee is for fact-finding only, similar to an ad-hoc committee created earlier this year by the Crittenden County Board of Education to research the idea of a four-day school calendar.
Once the unification committee is prepared to present its findings, the fiscal court and city council would then decide whether to move forward with the necessary steps to put the measure to a vote. The first step would be formation of a formal, advisory committee that would be open to public scrutiny along the way.
"I'm for exploring it," said another staunch supporter, Richard Cruce. "You're doggone right I am."
Cruce, a former city councilman and fiscal court candidate who like Small pays property taxes to both the city and county, said eliminating overlapping services such as policing and reducing the number of paid positions within government is sure to lower municipal costs.
However, Rural residents who have chosen to sacrifice services in order to live outside the taxing and governance of the City of Marion will likely make the largest contingency of those in opposition to unification, City Administrator Mark Bryant said.
Creation of a unified government would be virtually unprecedented in Kentucky.
According to DLG, of the state's 120 counties, only Louisville-Jefferson County and Lexington-Fayette County have formally combined city and county governments into one legislative body. Though some rural areas in the state have gotten as far placing the issue on the ballot, no other joint government exists in the state.
November 2010 would be the earliest the measure could be voted upon in Crittenden County if the existing legislative bodies are in agreement to merge. A simple majority of registered voters would rule on the referendum.

CCHS outperforms neighbor districts on ACT
The ACT test results from last year's high school juniors are in and Crittenden County students are neck-and-neck with the state average.
The scores from last spring's test were released last Thursday, with a statewide composite score of 18.3, just a 10th of a point better than the 18.2 compiled by the 82 Crittenden County High School juniors taking the test. CCHS students tested better than all surrounding public school systems except Webster County.
“The ACT is an important test for all students,” said Tonya Driver, assessment coordinator for the local school district. “Colleges set benchmark scores as minimum requirements. The scores in this report are a reflection of the performance of all juniors, as all juniors were required to take the test.”
The ACT test measures pupils' English, reading, math and science skills. Scores are measured on a 1 to 36 scale.
CCHS students from the Class of 2009 fared best in reading and science with average scores of 18.6 in each area, besting surrounding districts in reading and tying with Webster County for the best score in science. Meantime, Crittenden students scored a 17.8 and 17.2 in math and English, respectively, ranking among the top scores from surrounding districts.
Last year was the first time the state required all juniors in public schools to take the test, which encompassed nearly 43,000 students. Those students have the option to take the test again this year as seniors in the hope of improving their scores.
Last year's average composite score for 2008 college-bound seniors was 20.9 across the state and 20.6 in Crittenden County. According to Kentucky's Department of Education, the average composite ACT score in Kentucky has improved one full point since KERA took effect. In 1990, the composite score was 19.9. During that time the national average has only increased a half-point to 21.1.
“Kentucky’s ACT gains have outpaced the nation’s over the past five years,” Kentucky Education Commissioner Jon E. Draud said last week in a press release. “This is a reflection of the commitment shown by educators, legislators, parents and students to improving the high school experience. We must continue this momentum, closing achievement gaps and provide the support all students need to be successful in this critical measure.”
KDE spokeswoman Lisa Gross says the data helps schools and students determine what subject areas could use improvement. Gross says the test may steer some students toward college based on their scores.

Ison earns choice spot in Farm Bureau competition
Did you hear the joke about the preacher, the lawyer, the teacher and the businessman?
Truth is, it's not a knee-slapper at all. In fact, Rob Ison is very serious about being selected to represent Crittenden County in the finals of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Discussion Meet. Ison, a Baptist minister, will join an attorney from Lexington, a heavy equipment dealer from Winchester and an agriculture teacher from Campbellsville in the annual competition.
"It sounds like a joke, doesn't it?" Ison said Monday, explaining the contest set for Dec. 3-6 during the annual Kentucky Farm Bureau meeting in Louisville. But this contest "includes a lot of different professions with a hand in agriculture."
Ison, the full-time pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Marion, tends about 40 head of cattle on a farm owned by John Ed Thomas, one of his parishioners. An experienced speaker behind the pulpit, Ison will go toe-to-toe with Rob Cole, the lawyer; Holly Davis, the teacher; and John M. Hendricks, the businessman, in the discussion contest. Each of the contestants survived a round-robin competition earlier in the year that included dozens of representatives of local Farm Bureau boards from across the state.
The Discussion Meet is administered by Kentucky Farm Bureau and is open to young farmers ages 18-35. It gives participants an opportunity to analyze agricultural problems and suggest solutions in a simulated committee meeting where discussion and active participation are expected from each contestant. Performance is evaluated on an exchange of ideas and information on a predetermined topic. According to a news release from Kentucky Farm Bureau, judges look for the contestant who offers constructive criticism, cooperation and communication, while analyzing agricultural problems and developing solutions.
"You're trying to involve each other in the discussion," Ison explains of the contest's difference from a debate. "Sometimes the one who may not have had the best arguments wins because they helped facilitate the discussion."
Ison was not initially selected by the local board, but entered his own name in the contest as a Farm Bureau member from Crittenden County. Thus far, he has picked up his own expenses involved with the competition. Crittenden County Farm Bureau, however, will pick up the tab at the annual meeting.
The winner at the December meet will received an expense-paid trip to San Antonio for the national competition and the choice of a Kawasaki Mule or ATV from Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and $500 cash. At stake at the January 2009 national contest in Texas is a nicely equipped 2009 Dodge Ram 2500 and paid registration to the 2009 American Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Rancher Leadership Conference in Sacramento, Calif.
Ison didn't grow up on a farm. In fact, he's never even owned a piece of farmland. But his roots with Farm Bureau go back two decades to his native Morgan County, Ky.
As a teenager, he entered a local Farm Bureau competition open to anyone with an interest in a scholarship and trip to Washington, D.C. Members of the Morgan County Farm Bureau took notice of his interest and helped usher him to success that got him recognized around the state, including a prized photo with U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 1991 that appeared around the state.
"How I got started was simply some folks who took me under their wing," Ison said of his earliest exposure to farming.
Around the same time, he began purchasing and tending cattle and became the youngest member ever on the Morgan County Farm Bureau board.
"I enrolled in an ag class, and the rest is history," Ison said.
Today, he gets up before daybreak to spend some time at his church office before heading off to the farm at first light. He'll spend an hour or so each morning and evening seeing to the livestock.
With his exposure and background with Farm Bureau, his notion of the organization may be a bit different than the average person.
"When I say Farm Bureau, I think about farmers," said Ison, pointing out that most people think about an insurance company.
Indeed, American Farm Bureau Federation was started in 1919 as a collective voice of agriculture at a national level. Insurance to the general public was added years down the road to increase the membership and strength of the organization.
"Farm Bureau does so much good stuff," Ison said.
And the common misconception of Farm Bureau as solely an insurance company is one of the four topics for which Ison and his competitors in December will need to be prepared. One of the following four topics will be randomly selected during the competition and the four contestants will have about 12 hours to prepare for their center-stage discussion before a throng of Farm Bureau membership:
n How do we correct the misconceptions of Farm Bureau?
n How can the aging infrastructure of the United States support the transportation of agricultural commodities in the future?
n How do land grant universities remain in the forefront of an ever-changing agricultural environment?
n How can Farm Bureau better utilize the talents of young leaders in the organization?
"All we know at this point is we'll have to do one of them," Ison said. "They don't want you to come in there with everything figured out."
Ison, who moved to Marion four years ago to take his current ministry at Emmanuel Baptist Church, lives on Cruce Lane in Marion with his wife Jenny and two children.

Outlaws converging for festival
A gang of outlaws is planning to overtake Marion during the annual Heritage Days Festival next week.
A three-act comedy, "A New Gang Comes to Town," will be performed by the Heritage Festival Players of Elizabethtown, Ill. The event will be the feature attraction at next week's Heritage Days. The street play kicks off at 6 p.m., Sept. 20 behind the courthouse.
The play is set in Crittenden County during the 1860s and based loosely on the outlaws of Cave In Rock, including James Ford and Samuel Mason. In fact, the main character's name is Mason Samuel, a play on the real outlaw's name.
Todd Carr is president of Hardin County (Ill.) Main Street Inc., which sponsors the group's regular performance at the Hardin County Heritage Day event in August. This was the ninth year the group has performed at the Hardin County festival and the second time it has put on a show in Marion. The cast was here in 2001 when it performed a wild west show for Marion’s sesquicentennial celebration.
Next weekend’s script was locally conceived and written by members of the southern Illinois group, which is made up solely of volunteers. Most of them are associated with Hardin County Main Street Inc. The script has been slightly altered and localized for the Marion performance, Carr said.
"We try to incorporate some history from our area into the script," said Carr. "It contains things from the river pirate and outlaw days of the pioneer period."
Just over a dozen actors and actresses have speaking parts, but the cast includes more than 25 players.
"There will be gunfire, a courtroom scene, a bar fight and some dancing," Carr explained.
The play lasts about one hour. Admission will be free.
Carr said that setting the stage will be somewhat of a production itself. The group will have about two hours to create a mock pioneer town complete with an inn and tavern, sheriff's office, boarding house, general store and livery sable.
"There are some outlaws who have come to town and really stirred things up, and it's up to the townspeople and the sheriff to keep the peace," Carr said, providing a hint at the plot.
Carr, who doubles as director at the Rosiclare, Ill., hospital, said his group has been performing together since 2000. He plays a bumbling deputy in the production.
"A few hundred people come to see us when we perform at the Hardin County Heritage Day Festival," he said. "It's a pretty fun show."

Medical examiner finds no exact
cause of death for 12-year-old
The family of 12-year-old Jake Hodge is still coming to grips with the death of their son, nearly three months after the adolescent died in his sleep from a still-undetermined cause.
On Friday, Crittenden County Middle School students released balloons to commemorate what would have been Hodge's 13th birthday. His father and mother, Denis and Shannon Hodge, both school teachers and coaches, were there and his father spoke to his son's fellow classmates.
Students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades participated in a balloon launch and dedication of a newly landscaped area in front of CCMS in Hodge's memory. Many of the helium-filled balloons carried personal messages to Hodge.
"This is part of the healing," middle school guidance counselor Robyn Taylor told the students gathered on the school's front lawn. "We like to think of these balloons taking a flight to heaven just like Jake."
As the mostly blue and white balloons took to the air, the wind currents swept them in a southeasterly direction toward Caldwell County. Chris Hodge, Jake's grandmother, who stood in silence alongside her husband Keith as the balloons lifted away, said the children at her child care center, Tiny Tot Daycare, earlier released balloons in his memory.
An autopsy and an exhaustive pathological test revealed no clues as why the 12-year-old died in his sleep June 21.
"They just don't know," said his father, regarding the state medical examiner's report completed Aug. 18 by Dr. Deidre Schluckebier of the Western Kentucky Regional Medical Examiners office.
The six-page report indicates that Jake Hodge died from natural causes. There was no indication of traumatic injury or toxicologic abnormality, the report's summary and opinion stated. Schluckebier’s opinion, in the report, says that "While the mechanism of death is presumed to be sudden cardiac arrhythmia, no anatomic abnormalities of the heart are noted which would suggest a cause for this arrhythmia."
"That's where science ends and faith begins," said his father. He believes his son's life and death were part of a greater cause.
The Hodges say their family has been strengthened in its faith since the death of their only son. They also have a 15-year-old daughter, Jessi.
Hodge said that neither the immediate family nor paternal or maternal grandparents have any history of heart disorders that might provide a pointer toward what caused their seeminlgy healthy child to die unexpectedly. Each family member has undergone extensive medical examinations since Jake died in June.
The Hodges say they have been overwhelmed and comforted by the outpouring of sympathy and care shown by the community and beyond.
"We would like to thank everyone who has responded to us in such an overwhelming way. Many times, things people have done have left Shannon and me just shaking our heads and staring at each other," Denis said. "The love and support has in the same breath kept us in awe of the whole situation. We know we can never repay those people for the kindness, love, support and compassion they have shown us. But we do feel God has a plan."
A scholarship developed in Jake Hodge's memory has already raised more than $20,000. It will be available to students from Crittenden, Livingston and Caldwell counties. A Web site devoted to personal memorials has received more than 72 written comments and Jake's father is collaborating with others on a book that will be dedicated to his son's memory. The book will be titled, "The Legacy of Jake Hodge: It's Not What You Take, It's What You Leave Behind."
Hodge said a scholarship committee has been established to oversee the endowment. He is also working on an outreach program to help win more young people to Christ. Tax deductible contributions will be accepted at JakE
Hodge.com.
"One thing I will never regret is the time Jake and I spent together," his father said. "He was my son as well as my best friend. Our most fun moments were spent in the back yard playing trampoline basketball."
Because of that father and son relationship, Denis Hodge says he will also devote time to establishing an All-Pro Dad Chapter in Marion. It will include a breakfast for fathers and sons – or any parent and child – on Sept. 27 at the high school's multi-purpose room. The breakfast will be from 8 to 9:30 a.m. You can read more about the All-Pro Dad concept at allprodad.com.