The Bluegrass and Beyond

COVINGTON — I was on the road at daybreak Thursday, driving to another one of those conferences where Kentuckians talk about how to solve our many problems.

We seem to have a lot of these conferences, although this one was better than most. Perhaps that’s because it was hosted by the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, a unique resource that provides leaders with good data to help make decisions.

As I drove up Interstate 75, one radio headline after another punctuated the nation’s deepening economic crisis, and I thought about how that would frame the day’s discussions.

It made me think of a former colleague’s story about interviewing an old man in rural Georgia and asking him what it was like to live through the Great Depression. “We didn’t notice the Depression much,” he told her, “because it came right in the middle of hard times.”

This conference dealt with all of the usual issues, and the data didn’t paint a flattering portrait of Kentucky: We’re too fat and too sick. We smoke more and go to school less than people in almost any other state. More than one-third of our babies are born to unmarried women, most of whom are poor and likely to stay that way. We think destroying our land is good economic development. The gap between our rich and poor is growing faster than in all but five other states. At the current rate of growth, our per-capita income won’t catch up with the rest of the country’s for 150 years.

Kentucky has rarely had the ability to throw a lot of money at its problems, and if the buzz I’m hearing is true, we’ll have even less when state officials announce their latest tax revenue projections Friday.

So what do we do? Hunker down and wait for better times? Or do we use this crisis as an opportunity to make tough choices and take bold action?

It seems nothing focuses thinking like a crisis, and I was intrigued by some of the ideas I heard Thursday. Although these ideas would require a lot of political will, they wouldn’t cost a lot of money. In fact, many of them would save money in the long run, while making life in Kentucky much better. Among the ideas:

■ Follow the example of Ohio and other states and pass tough laws to rein in businesses such as payday lenders, rent-to-own merchants and check-cashers that prey on Kentucky’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

■ Enact laws and tax policies that promote the creation and growth of “micro-enterprises” — small businesses that allow families to support themselves and local economies.

■ Follow the lead of 34 other states and create a state earned-income tax credit for poor Kentuckians, similar to the federal tax credit in effect since the 1960s.

“What we know at the federal level is that it’s the most effective anti-poverty strategy out there to raise low-income folks to middle class and keep them there,” said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates. “It is a very minimal cost to the state. … Ninety percent of those refunds are spent in the communities where those people work and live.”

■ Raise the age for compulsory school attendance from 16 to 18. Kentucky has one of the nation’s highest percentages of people age 16-18 who are neither in school nor working. “If you’re 16 years old and not in school and not working, you’re lost,” Brooks said.

■ Put fewer non-violent criminals in prison, especially young adult offenders. Brooks noted that it costs $4,000 a year to educate a teenager in Kentucky, and $60,000 a year to keep one in prison.

■ Follow the example of Lexington and other cities and enact a statewide ban against smoking in public places. It would send a bold message throughout Kentucky — and around the world. More than that, it would make Kentuckians healthier and save a fortune in future medical costs, said Dr. Melissa Walton-Shirley, a cardiologist from Glasgow.

■ Give Kentucky high school graduates a passport along with a diploma, encouraging them to travel and learn more about the world, said Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp.

And there were many more ideas that legislators should consider when they return to Frankfort in January, regardless of the economic outlook.

“There isn’t one answer,” Kimel said. “There are many, many answers. It requires a commitment to relentless innovation and relentless experimentation,” because we never know which ideas and strategies will work.

There’s never a better time to act than now.

Plans to build the nine-mile Legacy Trail for cyclists and pedestrians between downtown Lexington and the Kentucky Horse Park have hit a roadblock.

The city’s Board of Adjustment failed to approve a land swap between Vulcan Materials Co. and the University of Kentucky that trail organizers say is essential.

Vulcan wants to swap the university some land surface next to UK’s farm complex north of I-75 between Newtown and Georgetown roads, in return for the right to mine limestone under some of the university land in the future.

Although Vulcan operates a quarry nearby, there are no immediate plans to mine underground. The surface area UK would get from Vulcan is where the trail would go.

Without that land swap, the Legacy Trail can’t be built — at least not before the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, said Steve Austin of the Bluegrass Community Foundation’s Legacy Center.

The seven-member Board of Adjustment voted 2-2 on Oct. 31 to reject the land swap, with one member abstaining and two absent. The two board members who voted against it were concerned that underground mining could endanger the Royal Springs Aquifer, the water supply for Georgetown.

Because of the tie vote, the issue will be brought up again at the board’s meeting at 1 p.m. Dec. 12 in the council chambers.

But officials charged with protecting the aquifer see no problem with the land swap, so long as they have the right to review and object to any specific plans for underground mining.

“Our biggest concern … is where they make their entry point” for mining, said Billy Jenkins, general manager of Georgetown Municipal Water and Sewer Service and chairman of the Royal Springs Water Supply Protection Committee. “I told the committee that, with the plans we’ve seen, we’re OK right now, but we don’t want to give up our rights.”

In fact, Jenkins said, he hopes the Legacy Trail will be built and that some of the educational signs planned for trail side will explain the Royal Springs Aquifer. “We don’t get enough information out to the public about their water supply,” he said.

Urban County Councilman Jay McChord, one of the Legacy Trail’s organizers, is urging citizens who support it to attend the board’s Dec. 12 meeting to make their feelings known. “If the board says no, they will have killed the trail,” he said.

Lexington faith leaders meet to plan emergency response

In what might be the first meeting of its kind in Lexington, every religious leader in town has been invited to a gathering at 11 a.m. Thursday at Second Presbyterian Church on Main Street.

One purpose of the meeting is to discuss creating a clergy communications network that could be ready to respond to a local emergency. Joanne Hale of the Church World Service in Florida will be there to offer disaster-preparedness training.

Beyond that, said the Rev. Christopher Skidmore of the Kentucky Council of Churches, “We’re not going into it with any kind of agenda. Whatever the religious leaders want to come out of it will come out of it.”

Skidmore said only 40 of the 400 religious leaders who were invited have confirmed they will attend, but he is hoping many more will come. So far, it’s a diverse group. “Our first respondents were from the Muslim community,” he said.

Time has been set aside for private midday prayers, and the lunch caterer will adhere to kosher and halal dietary requirements.

The meeting was prompted by remarks Mayor Jim Newberry made several months ago to the Downtown Christian Unity Task Force. “He made mention of some of the desires he has for a community that is more united and connected,” Skidmore said.

For example, if Lexington were to experience another disaster such as the 2006 crash of Comair Flight 5191, it would be helpful for the city to have a single point of contact to alert the faith community, and for members of the clergy of all faiths to be trained in disaster counseling.

“We are just creating the space in which they can do whatever they wish to do together,” Skidmore said. “I think we’ll find that we agree on far more than we disagree on.”

DANVILLE — It’s a long way from the Italian island of Murano — the center of Venetian glassblowing for 1,000 years — to the converted railroad shed beside the tracks at the edge of Centre College’s campus.

But that shed has been producing some fine art glass for two decades — and especially for the past week.

That’s because this month, Lino Tagliapietra, one of the world’s greatest glassblowers, is making his fourth trip to Danville to pass along six decades of expertise to art students at Centre.

If you want to watch, he will have public demonstrations Monday and Tuesday.

It was cold and rainy outside last Tuesday, but it was toasty in the glass studio of Centre’s Jones Visual Arts Center — better known as the Art Barn. The glass furnaces were glowing 2,200-degree orange as students watched Tagliapietra turn rods of colored glass into intricately patterned vessels.

With a calm demeanor and a deft touch, the 74-year-old master made a blob of molten glass almost dance at the end of his hollow steel rod. The glass was blown, rolled, pinched, twisted and snipped as Tagliapietra padded around the studio in Venetian slippers. All the while, he and his assistants kept the glass pliable with quick dips into the furnace or a skillfully applied blowtorch.

“Glass is an all-natural material … fire, sand and water combined together,” Tagliapietra said during an interview between classes. “I feel it is a very big medium. I think it is probably one of the most beautiful mediums in our life.”

Tagliapietra was born on Murano, near Venice, and apprenticed to a famous glass studio when he was 11. By 21, he had achieved the rank of maestro. He worked as a master glassblower and designer for some of Italy’s best studios. But he wanted more.

In the 1960s, he began adding his own concepts to the centuries-old methods of Venetian glassmaking. By the 1970s, he was collaborating with other artists, creating techniques, patterns and designs, and passing his knowledge on to students around the world.

One of them was Stephen Rolfe Powell, a 1974 Centre alum who discovered hot glass as a graduate student in ceramics. Powell returned to Centre to teach in 1983 and built the hot-glass studio two years later with help from Corning Glass in Harrodsburg and Philips Lighting in Danville. Powell has since become one of Kentucky’s most-honored teachers — and artists. His large, colorful glass vessels have earned him an international reputation.

Tagliapietra and Powell became close friends, and they have worked together all over the world. Powell persuaded the master to visit Danville for the first time in 2000 by promising to take him to the Kentucky Derby. “I pulled out every stop I knew to get good seats,” Powell said.

Tagliapietra returned to Centre in 2004, when he received an honorary degree along with then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “He started working in a factory at 11 and never studied, never got his degrees,” Powell said. “So him getting the doctoral degree was really cool. It was a pretty touching moment.”

The master returned to Danville in 2006, and he is spending nine days here this month. Powell planned Saturday to take him to his first American football game: Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt.

“I feel very grateful to Centre College,” Tagliapietra said. “For me it is very important to come back here to spend time with Stephen and the kids. I respect Stephen as a teacher and a man. I feel he is a true gentleman.”

Sitting on temporary bleachers in the small studio, Centre students watched closely as Tagliapietra and his assistants worked. A few advanced students helped here and there.

“I don’t think I could have imagined when I came to Centre that the best glassblower in the world would be here,” said Michael Garton, a junior art major from Louisville, who took careful notes.

Garton is primarily a painter, but he’s attracted to hot glass. “There’s so much you can do with color and transparency that you can’t do with any other medium,” he said. What is he learning by watching the master? “Mostly that there’s a long way to go,” he said, smiling.

Tagliapietra lives on Murano but works at a studio near Seattle for three months each year. He has a dozen assistants there — each an accomplished artist in his or her own right.

One of the four assistants who accompanied him to Danville was 2002 Centre graduate D.H. McNabb, 28. He met Tagliapietra during his first visit here. Working for the master for the past five years has been “absolutely amazing,” McNabb said.

“Lino understands the history of where he came from … all of the tradition of glass,” McNabb said. “Then he came over here and was able to see the innovative approach of the Americans … and that opened him up to more exploration. That stopped him from being restrained by his techniques and helped him to invent new ones.”

When Tagliapietra is working in Seattle, he goes at it hard, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. “It’s hard work, but a lot of love,” McNabb said. “I’m just in awe of him.”

After 63 years of glassblowing, Tagliapietra said he is still learning, experimenting and growing as an artist.

“Every time I do one piece, or one series, I try to test myself,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday. It’s important what you do today and tomorrow.”

If you go

Lino Tagliapietra glass-blowing demonstrations

The master artist will blow glass at Centre College’s Jones Visual Arts Center on Beatty Avenue in Danville at the following times: 8-11 a.m. and noon-3 p.m. Nov. 17 and 8 a.m.-noon Nov. 18.

The observation gallery is small, so space is limited.

For more information, and to see examples of Tagliapietra’s work, go to www.linotagliapietra.com. For more info about Centre’s glass program, go to www.centre.edu.

Here’s a piece Lino Tagliapietra made last Tuesday morning, from start to finish. Click on each photo to enlarge it:

John Stempel insists that the title of his new book, Common Sense and Foreign Policy, is not an oxymoron, even if it seems like it lately.

In fact, the veteran U.S. diplomat, senior professor and former director of the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama can repair some of the damage wrought by the Bush Administration’s so-called neoconservatives.

“What will definitely be gone is American unilateralism — the idea that we’re so powerful we can do whatever we want,” said Stempel, who is among 220 authors who will be signing books Saturday at the Kentucky Book Fair in the Frankfort Convention Center. “The neoconservatives will be anathema — as they deserve to be.”

John D. Stempel

At a recent signing party for the book (The Clark Group, $29.95), Stempel discussed what he thinks is needed to repair America’s relationships around the world. Mainly, he said, leaders must stop the “with us or against us” bluster of the Bush years and return to traditional principles of international cooperation and diplomacy — “the art of letting the other fellow have it your way.”

Stempel’s book is a concise tutorial on foreign policy, filled with common sense. He even seems to have discovered a secret that few writers like to admit: The shorter the book, the more likely people are to read it.

Stempel defines common sense in foreign policy as “creating balanced and moderate policies and carrying them out in a competent and consistent manner to maximize their effectiveness.”

In Stempel’s view, American foreign policy ran off the road after Sept. 11, 2001, because radical Islamic terrorism was a threat our top leaders didn’t understand and weren’t prepared to confront.

Stempel, whose 23-year U.S. Foreign Service career included five years in Iran before and during the 1979 Islamic revolution, said the neoconservatives brushed aside people in government who had expertise in Middle East politics and culture and made decisions based on ideology. The result: We bungled the job in Afghanistan, let Osama bin Laden escape and started an unnecessary war in Iraq that fueled terrorism.

But Stempel, a self-described “radical moderate” who served both Democratic and Republican administrations, notes that arrogant cluelessness is bipartisan. Remember Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs? Johnson’s Vietnam? Carter’s Iran hostage crisis?

In addition to radical Islamic terrorism, Stempel notes that the world is full of challenges and potential crises, including North Korea and the relationship between India and Pakistan.

So what should we do?

America is the world’s acknowledged military superpower. But, Stempel notes, nobody likes a bully. By flaunting its power, the United States has made itself unpopular with friends and foes alike. Obama’s current popularity overseas offers a window to start repairing the damage.

The U.S. government would have far more influence if officials worked harder to understand the motivations and dynamics of other cultures. “We especially need moderate allies in the Islamic world to refute and tamp down radicals,” he said.

He notes that, when Europe and Japan faced terrorist threats in the 1960s and 1970s, they brought them to heel through international cooperation, good intelligence and police work, not by declaring a “war” on terrorism.

“We currently treat terrorism as a concrete enemy, not as the tactic it truly is,” Stempel writes. “We emphasize the military response out of proportion to the necessary police and political efforts that would bring in more allied help. We are too focused on the ‘American Empire’ concept.”

Stempel thinks we should pay more attention to international public opinion and seek to understand the motivations of other governments, cultures and religions rather than just dismissing them as irrational or evil. “Awareness of the new and complex is essential for effective common sense,” Stempel writes.

And he suggests we follow the advice of former Baltimore Oriole manager Earl Weaver: “It’s what you learn after you think you know everything that really counts.”

The Daily Yonder, a Texas-based Web site that covers rural news and issues, has an interesting look at the 372 counties nationwide that switched from one party to the other in the presidential election, compared with 2004.  Fayette was among the 327 counties that voted in 2004 to re-elect President Bush but went for Barrack Obama this year.  Click here to see the map and read the analysis.

Kentucky’s potential for success in a global economy might not be obvious to people who have lived here all of their lives.

Pearse Lyons, an Irishman who heads the animal nutrition company Alltech, says he sees it. And he is convinced it can be achieved if Kentucky invests in education, focuses on scientific innovation and markets its brand.

Lyons is barnstorming the state this week to deliver that message in a series of public lectures. He began Monday in Glasgow, then drove to Murray and Owensboro. He plans to make six more speeches around the state Tuesday and Wednesday.

Dr. Pearse Lyons

Lyons, who started Alltech in Jessamine County 28 years ago, said Kentucky has some of the same advantages that helped launch Ireland’s economy in the 1980s. Both places have about 4 million residents, and their governments and universities are small enough to be accessible.

Lyons thinks Kentucky needs more public-private partnerships to invest in education and innovation. He hopes other companies will join Alltech in funding Margin of Excellence scholarships at the universities of Kentucky and Louisville to attract and retain the bright minds who will create tomorrow’s technology.

Earning a Ph.D. degree often requires a student to study for five years while living on a $20,000 annual university stipend. After graduation, first jobs don’t pay much.

“Who in their right mind would do that?” Lyons asked during a telephone interview on the road between Glasgow and Murray. “Why does Ph.D. have to stand for Poor, Hungry and Driven?”

The Margin of Excellence scholarship provides a $40,000 annual stipend on top of the university money for up to five years, plus an additional $10,000 for published research and another $10,000 if the student stays in Kentucky for three years after graduation.

“We’ve stepped up and done the first one,” which went to UK animal nutrition student Anne Koontz, Lyons said. “We’ve got a couple of people to step up and do the second and third. What we need is like-minded business people and businesses to step up and say, ‘Let’s create the single best Ph.D. program in the world.’”

Lyons, whose company operates in 113 countries, said such scholarships could be an inexpensive way for companies to do critical research. “You couldn’t hire a technician for $40,000 a year,” he said. “And here you’re going to get the brightest and the smartest focusing on your problem. It’s a no-brainer.”

Technology could allow Kentucky to keep building on traditional strengths, such as agriculture and energy. For example, the horse industry could fund a Ph.D. student interested in figuring out how to capture methane from manure. Coal companies could fund students to study ways to create clean-coal technology by capturing carbon dioxide.

Despite the economic slump, Lyons thinks this is a good time for companies to invest in the future. For example, he said, Alltech has secured government grants to help build a bio-refinery in Springfield that will create energy from renewable cellulose, such as corn cobs, switch grass and kudzu.

“Let’s focus on the problems of Kentucky,” he said. “Let’s focus on making those problems opportunities.”

Good marketing is vital, he said, for a state as well as a company. Lyons thinks Alltech’s sponsorship of the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games will be good for marketing his company — and Kentucky. “It’s an incredible opportunity to show Kentucky to the world,” he said.

In some ways, Kentucky has a better image abroad than it does in the United States, thanks to such exports as Thoroughbred horses, bourbon whiskey, bluegrass music and what Lyons calls the “super brands” of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Muhammad Ali.

Good marketing sometimes just means taking advantage of small opportunities. Last Friday night, Lyons was back in Dublin for a black-tie dinner to receive the Foundation Day Medal from his alma mater, University College Dublin. But he didn’t go home alone.

That same evening, Alltech sponsored a recital at the Royal Irish Academy of Music by Everett McCorvey and Tedrin Blair Lindsay of UK Opera Theater, along with four UK students who have won the school’s Alltech-sponsored vocal competition.

After the recital, McCorvey said, he secretly arranged to hurry over to Lyons’ event so he could close the dinner by performing a special arrangement of My Old Kentucky Home with University College’s Choral Scholars.

After the performance, Lyons said, “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

And it exposed 600 influential people in Ireland to a brand: Kentucky.

IF YOU GO
Lyons’ lectures

Herald-Leader reporter Beverly Fortune reports on changes developer Dudley Webb has made in the design for his proposed CentrePointe tower in downtown Lexington. The development — on the leveled block bounded by Main, Upper, Vine and Limestone streets — would house luxury condos, a four-star hotel, offices and shops.

What do you think?

FRANKFORT — As the architect and his dog approached the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial on a recent afternoon, a workman stopped and walked over, his face brightening.

“Are you Helm Roberts?” Steve Cunningham asked. “I thought that was you!”

The Frankfort contractor had installed the landscape watering system around the memorial in 1988, and he was making repairs in advance of Veterans Day ceremonies Tuesday that will mark the 20th anniversary of the memorial’s dedication.

Cunningham said he has always been proud of working on the unique memorial, which stands beside the Kentucky Library and Archives on a hill overlooking the Capitol. “It was an honor,” he said. “There are people here all the time from all over the country.”

Roberts, 77, of Lexington, has had a distinguished career as an architect and city planner. He was a key player in the 1960s master plan that removed the railroad tracks from downtown Lexington. He designed homes, retirement villages, more than 2,500 apartments and created master plans for subdivisions and more than 30 military bases.

“This memorial will be my legacy as an architect,” said Roberts, a native of Russell who earned degrees in architecture and planning from Miami University in Ohio. “Nobody remembers master plans or apartments.”

The memorial is a masterpiece of design and mathematics. It honors the 125,000 Kentuckians who served in Vietnam, and it makes an individual tribute each year to the 1,103 who died there. On sunny days, a 14.6-foot-tall gnomon — the column of a sundial — casts a shadow across a vast granite plaza. The shadow’s tip touches each fallen soldier’s name on the anniversary of the day he died.

Harnessing the sun

Roberts learned about celestial navigation in the Navy in the 1950s, when he flew Douglas AD Skyraiders in an attack squadron on the carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later, as an architect, he figured out how to plot the sun’s path while designing a ski resort in Colorado so the slopes would be shaded. The resort was never built, he said, “but it got me into using the sun.”

Roberts made his first big sundial when a city official asked him in 1974 to propose a landscape feature for Woodland Park. Roberts designed it so the shadow tip would touch important dates in Lexington history engraved on a plaza. The idea was rejected as too expensive, and two later proposals for large sundials elsewhere were never built.

But when a competition was held in 1987 to design a Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Roberts revisited his sundial idea. The memorial foundation chose his design unanimously.

“The first thing the executive director asked me after I won the competition was, “Will this thing really work?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ but I had no idea how complex it would be,” Roberts said.

Here’s how it works: The hours on the sundial plaza represent the years Kentuckians died in the Vietnam War, 1962-1975. The arrangement of names shows the pattern of losses as the war ebbed and flowed. The shadow falls on 1968, the year of the most casualties, between noon and 1 p.m. EST each day.

The 1,103 names are carved on 327 four-inch-thick granite slabs that are supported by more than 800 hidden concrete piers. Rainwater seeps through cracks between the slabs or runs down the plaza’s 2-percent slope, so it never pools.

Originally, there were 1,067 names on the memorial, but others were added as they were identified as Kentuckians. As MIAs were confirmed dead, their names were moved out to the plaza. However, there are nine names the sun’s shadow never touches, because of limits on the size of the site and the 89-foot by 71-foot plaza.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, the sun’s shadow will cross a small rectangle. That happens each Nov. 11 at 11:11 a.m., the date and time of the 1918 Armistice that ended World War I. The memorial also includes the famous verses from Ecclesiastes — “A time to be born, a time to die. A time for war, and a time for peace …”

Making the calculations

Roberts figured out the Woodland Park sundial using a slide rule. For this project, he used an IBM AT personal computer — state of the art in 1987, but primitive by today’s standards. He used a $5 shareware program to help plot where each name should be carved in the plaza.

To make the memorial concept work, Roberts had to calculate about 3,000 individual points to plot the curved lines the sun’s shadow would cast throughout the year. For each point, he put in the latitude and longitude and the date and time. The software then told him the sun’s position. Those calculations were put into a database to figure coordinates for a computer design program.

As Roberts tested his work with models, he discovered he had to make some adjustments for leap years and for the penumbra effect, which alters the appearance of shadows as they get longer.

“Everything it took to design this I learned from one teacher in high school — Mary Washington,” he said. She taught trigonometry and several kinds of geometry.

Once the design was completed, Roberts made 327 full-size shop drawings so stoneworkers in Elberton, Ga. — where the 215 tons of granite was quarried, cut and finished — could carve the names in just the right spots.

Over the years, a few slabs have been replaced to correct misspelled names. The memorial represents an investment of more than $1 million, including donated labor and materials from many individuals and companies.

Honoring the service

Several times a year, Roberts takes school groups on tours of the memorial, giving them a lesson in history as well as science.

“I always point out that it wasn’t like a lot of wars, where it starts with a bang and ends at a point,” he said. “It started with one man killed here and then it gets very heavy in the late ’60s and then it doesn’t quit until 1975. It’s a pattern of how not to run a war.”

Roberts estimates he spent two working years of his life on the memorial, which, for him, was a labor of love.

He left the Navy before the Vietnam War started, but some of his fellow pilots served there. On the walls of his home office are photos of his old squadron members and the planes they flew. He points out one man who was shot down in Vietnam and spent time in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison.

“I figure I owe it to the guys on that memorial,” Roberts said. “In a way, they served for me.”

IF YOU GO

An hourlong ceremony honoring Kentucky’s veterans and marking the 20th anniversary of the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the memorial, 300 Coffee Tree Rd., Frankfort. Gov. Steve Beshear will be among the speakers.

Aside from the election of America’s first biracial president, what I found most inspiring Tuesday night were the speeches the candidates gave once the votes had been counted and the will of the people made clear.

And I wondered: How will Kentuckians respond?

John McCain’s concession speech was classy. After silencing the natural impulse of his supporters to boo Barack Obama, McCain spoke eloquently about what matters now:

“I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited,” the Republican nominee said.

“Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. … It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.”

Obama then called for unity among Americans — black and white, red and blue.

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our politics for so long,” said the Democrat, who went on to praise the GOP as “a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.”

“As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

Kentuckians voted overwhelmingly for McCain, and it will be interesting to see how they respond to change many did not want.

Obama’s historical reference made me think of how Lincoln was hated by so many fellow Kentuckians during his lifetime because his views against slavery were considered radically liberal.

My point is not that conservative Kentuckians should embrace Obama’s liberalism, but that they should move beyond ideology and fear of change to become influential voices in constructive dialogue about solving our nation’s problems.

Of course, Obama must live up to his words of inclusiveness and compromise. Politicians don’t always mean what they say. George W. Bush promised when elected to be “a uniter, not a divider,” and then became just the opposite.

If Obama and newly powerful Democratic leaders in Congress really do reach out in a spirit of compromise, how will Kentuckians respond?

America’s strength has never been in the purity of ideology. Real life doesn’t fit into neat, intellectual boxes. That is why 1960s liberalism failed as spectacularly as Bush conservatism. America’s strength is its ability to right the pendulum each time it swings too far to the left or right. Wisdom is about having principles, but knowing when to compromise with good people who disagree.

It will be tempting for Kentuckians to listen to the ideologues. They were already braying Wednesday on talk radio — gleeful to have an opponent in the White House who will boost their business model, and eager for the next opportunity to “take back America.” Just as dangerous are die-hard liberals who think they now have a mandate. What voters were really saying Tuesday is that government has a job to do, and they want it done.

Among “red” states in this election, few will be watched closer than Kentucky. It’s not just because of our historic aversion to change, or because of people like the 62-year-old Knott County man who told a reporter Tuesday that he was voting for McCain because “I just don’t like that colored fellow.” It’s because of Mitch McConnell. Kentucky’s senior senator now finds himself the nation’s most influential Republican. How will he use that power?

McConnell is a brilliant legislator, but he has often used his skill to further big-money special interests and gutter politics. He now has a unique opportunity to shape a different legacy, if he chooses to.

Before he became the Senate’s Republican leader in 2006, McConnell sat at an antique desk that once belonged to another Kentuckian. Henry Clay was a man of strong principles who nevertheless mastered the art of compromise, brokering deals among ideologues that held the nation together.

Will McConnell become the Obama administration’s obstructionist-in-chief, seeking to score points for Republicans waiting for the next election? Or will he become the next Henry Clay, leading a loyal opposition, speaking up for Republican principles, curbing Democratic excess and forging compromises that return America to peace and prosperity?

As we move forward, most Americans want to embrace the mottos of both presidential campaigns: Country First. Yes We Can.

How will Kentuckians respond?

Here are slide shows from the semi-finals and finals performances of Lexington’s Lafayette High School and Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, along with music from each band’s finals performance Saturday night at Papa John Stadium in Louisville.

Lafayette earned its 15th first-place trophy at the competition in the largest-school division. Dunbar, which has won four times, placed second.  They both had terrific shows.

LOUISVILLE  - The results had been announced and the trophies presented. Lafayette Band director Chuck Smith and a few helpers had walked through the rows of 200 students, putting a medal around each neck. Everyone held ranks, more or less, amid an electric atmosphere of pure, pent-up joy.

Finally, Smith dismissed the band the way Lafayette directors have been doing for at least a half-century, by asking who they were.

“Lafayette Band!” was the thunderous reply. “Pride of the Bluegrass, Sir!”

With that, the practiced precision that had just won Lafayette the title of best marching band among Kentucky’s biggest high schools melted away in a jumping, hugging, shrieking mass of teenage pandemonium.

The victory Saturday night at Papa John’s Stadium was the 15th for Lafayette.  The only other band that has won the state championship contest since 1990 was the second-place finisher, its Lexington neighbor Paul Laurence Dunbar, which has won four, including the 2007 title.

“I thought it was our best show,” said Lafayette junior Katherine Sturgill. “It felt really good. You could feel the energy on the field.”

Freshman Sarah Scott said simply: “We rocked!”

I hadn’t been to a high school band contest in 30 years, since soon after I graduated after spending three years in the Lafayette Band. I left Louisville early Sunday morning thinking I was glad I hadn’t been a judge, because I thought every band had rocked.

I spent most of the day looking through a camera viewfinder trying to capture moments, so I didn’t see the big picture. But through my long lens, I got a closeup view of the energy, musicianship, showmanship that went into each performance. Standing on the sidelines, the sound was amazing.

Lafayette’s show was loosely built around Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” I also loved the music and choreography of Dunbar’s ninja-theme show. But each band I heard had a creative, exciting and highly polished show.

And each band had a uniformed corps of parents with ATVs and trailers to get props on and off the field, and to set up and remove the “percussion pit” down front - timpani, chimes, marimba and other special instruments. One band wheeled a harpsichord onto the field because its musical score included some Bach.

Fayette wasn’t the only county with more than one standout. Hardin County had the third- and fourth-place finishers in the largest-school division. Graves, Bourbon, Hardin, Davies, Madison, Calloway and Boyle counties had more than one band in the semi-finals; Fayette had five. Tates Creek, Bryan Station and Lexington Christian didn’t advance to the finals.

Bourbon County scored a coup in its division by beating one of Kentucky’s band dynasties, Adair County.  It wasn’t easy.  Adair County has a terrific band, which is why it has been chosen to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York in 2009. It also hasa powerful cheering section.

As Adair County was getting ready to take the field, I noticed a bunch of big guys front and center in the stands, yelling at the top of their lungs. Eric Graves, the head football coach, had brought his entire team to Louisville to cheer the band. At how many high schools would that happen?

“Adair County’s here, so we’re here,” said Graves, who was whistling and yelling as loud as any of them.

Aside from my alma mater, I have to say my favorite competitor Saturday was the third-place winner in the Class 2-A category, Shelby Valley High School of Pike County.  That band got more sound out of fewer people than I’ve ever seen.

The Shelby Valley Band had 24 people, if I counted them correctly, including a drum major and a two-person color guard.  About half its members formed the drum line. There were only nine horn players, although you would have never known it, given the volume and polished musicality of their performance.

“This is the smallest we’ve ever been,” said Shelby Valley’s director, Robert Scheeler. “We got to band camp this summer and there were nine of us.  So we said, what the heck, let’s make the most of it.”

And they did. It’s why, like the Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament, Kentucky’s state marching band championship is special.

It was a good night for Central Kentucky bands as Lafayette and Bourbon County won first place in their divisions. Here are some photos from the finals Saturday night at Papa John Stadium in Louisville.

Click the arrows to advance the slide show below. To see the slide show bigger, click here.

See earlier posts on my blog for photos from the semi-finals of the 5-A competition Saturday afternoon. They also include photos of Tates Creek, Bryan Station, George Rogers Clark, Central Hardin, Madison Central, Marshall County and Graves County.  And click here for slide shows of Lafayette and Dunbar photos with audio of their finals performance shows.

Here are more photos from the state high school marching band championships in Louisville.  This group includes photos of Lafayette, George Rogers Clark, Central Hardin, Madison Central, and Paul Laurence Dunbar high schools.  Click on the photo to enlarge.

Here are some photos from the first few competitors at Saturday’s Kentucky state high school marching band contest at Papa John Stadium in Louisville.  Click on each photo to enlarge it and read the caption.