The Bluegrass and Beyond

I first became fascinated with Civil War history as a boy in the 1960s, soon after the centennial celebration.

Many of the books I found in the Lexington Public Library — then located in the Carnegie building in Gratz Park — made that history seem remote. They told of epic battles in Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania. They showed pictures of Atlanta, Charleston and Richmond — the one in Virginia, not the one down the road.

I had no idea then how much Civil War history lay just beyond those library walls.

America is now in the midst of a more nuanced commemoration of the Civil War’s sesquicentennial. There is less focus on gallant cavaliers and more reflection on the causes and legacies of that terrible, transformative war.

That makes this the perfect time to take a short history walk through downtown Lexington. There are no forts or battlefields to see. But it would be hard to find another few blocks of American soil so intimately associated with the Civil War’s key political figures, central issue and deep divisions.

Begin your walk in Gratz Park at the James Lane Allen fountain. This is where Transylvania’s main building stood in the 1820s when Jefferson Davis was a student. After a couple of years, Davis transferred to West Point. He later became a U.S. senator from Mississippi and the only president of the Confederate States of America.

Transylvania’s main building burned in 1829. Years later, former student Cassius M. Clay revealed that the mysterious fire was started by his slave, who fell asleep with a candle burning while polishing his master’s shoes. Clay, the son of one of Kentucky’s largest slaveholders, became one of slavery’s most outspoken critics. In the 1840s, he published an abolitionist newspaper, The True American, from an office on Mill Street near the corner of Main.

Walk through Gratz Park to the corner of Market and Second streets. There is the Bodley-Bullock House, an 1814 mansion that served alternately as Union and Confederate headquarters when each army occupied Lexington during the Civil War.

Walk across the park to another 1814 mansion, at the corner of Second and Mill streets. It was the home of Gen. John Hunt Morgan, a cavalry raider known as the “Thunderbolt of the Confederacy.” It is now a museum owned the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation. (Hours and information: BluegrassTrust.org.)

Before proceeding on Second Street, look down Mill Street toward First Presbyterian Church. It surrounds a small brick building that was the law office of Henry Clay, America’s most influential politician of the early 19th century.

Clay negotiated political compromises over the expansion of slavery that delayed the Civil War for nearly four decades. (Learn more about Clay at his Ashland estate: HenryClay.org.)

At the corner of Second and Broadway, you will see a parking lot that was the site of Transylvania University’s renowned medical school, which closed in 1857. The building burned in 1863 while being used as a Union Army hospital.

Look down Second Street and you will see a marker outside the last home of John C. Breckinridge, whose career illustrates how the Civil War divided the city and the nation. This Lexingtonian was the 14th vice president of the United States, then a presidential candidate in 1860. When war came, Breckinridge sided with the South, becoming a Confederate general and secretary of war.

Walk down Broadway toward Short Street. You will see the Opera House, built in 1886. Before the Civil War, this was the site of a business operated by W.A. Pullum, one of the city’s many “negro dealers.” Lexington was one of the South’s biggest slave-trading centers.

Take a right on Short Street, past Saints Peter & Paul School and St. Paul’s Catholic Church, and you will see a marker noting the birthplace of Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of President Abraham Lincoln. Her grandmother, Eliza Parker, lived next door. Neither house remains.

Lincoln visited his wife’s family in the fall of 1847. The man who would later abolish slavery was then a freshman congressman from Illinois, just beginning to grapple with the issue. That visit to Lexington might have given Lincoln his most close-up look at the South’s “peculiar institution.”

From the Parker house, historian William Townsend wrote, Lincoln easily could have looked past the spiked fence into Pullum’s compound, which had rows of eight-foot-square slave “pens” and a whipping post.

Follow Short Street to Jefferson Street, turn left and cross Main. The Mary Todd Lincoln House museum in a restored home where the future first lady lived from 1832, when she was 13 years old, until she moved to Illinois in 1839. (Hours and information: MTLHouse.org.)

That’s a lot of Civil War history in less than a mile.

The Fountain of Youth, a gift to the city from the estate of the writer James Lane Allen, is on the north end of Gratz Park on the site of the original building of Transylvania University.  Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, studied in that building in the 1820s before transferring to West Point.  Photos by Tom Eblen

A groundskeeper last week prepared for Transylvania University’s graduation. In the foreground is Gratz Park, the former site of Transylvania’s main building, where Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, studied in the 1820s.

The Bodley-Bullock House, built in 1814, served as headquarters for both Union and Confederate armies when control of Lexington changed hands during the Civil War. The house is across Gratz Park from Hopemont, home of Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan.

Hopemont, built in 1814, was the home of Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, a notorious cavalry raider.

Hopemont was saved from demolition by the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation in 1855 and is now a museum.

Transylvania University’s Medical Hall stood where this parking lot is now at the corner of Broadway and Second streets. The building was being used as a Union Army hospital during the Civil War when it burned in 1863.

The Lexington Opera House, built in 1886, on Broadway just north of Short Street, stands on the site that in the 1840s was Pullum’s slave jail. Abraham Lincoln’s closest personal exposure to slavery may have been seeing Pullums while visiting his wife’s grandmother, who lived on Short Street adjacent to the jail.

A plaque noting Mary Todd Lincoln’s birthplace stands outside her former home on Short Street. The house in the background replaced an earlier one that was home to her grandmother, Eliza Parker.

The Mary Todd Lincoln House is where Abraham Lincoln’s wife lived from 1832, when she was 13, until 1839, when she moved to Illinois, where she met Lincoln. The house, originally built in 1806 as an inn, is now a museum.

The long Memorial Day weekend is over and you’re back at work today — thinking about what to do next weekend.

Well, get your bicycle out of the garage Saturday morning and head downtown for the annual Bike Lexington Family Fun Ride, a roll around the city without having to worry about cars getting in your way.

Registration begins at 8 a.m. at Courthouse Plaza, and the ride begins promptly at 10 a.m. There will be a Kids’ Bike Safety Rodeo and children’s bike race from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. There also will be food vendors and a raffle for a free bike from Bike Lexington’s main sponsor, Pedal Power Bike Shop.

The Family Fun Ride route map is below. For more information, go to BikeLexington.com.

Time is accomplishing what the combined forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could never do: wipe out the generation of Americans who won World War II.

Nearly 16 million U.S. veterans came home after the war ended in 1945. Only about 1.5 million of them are still alive, including about 3,100 in Kentucky. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that these men and women in their 80s and 90s are passing at the rate of 740 a day.

So when I got a call recently from Donald and Mary Jane Roser of Lexington, who both served in the military during World War II and have been married for 65 years, I figured they would have interesting stories to tell.

Donald Roser, 93, was in the First Marine Division in the South Pacific, including nearly five months in the Guadalcanal campaign. “I always say I must be going to heaven because I’ve already been to hell,” he said.

Mary Jane Roser, 91, was one of 350,000 women accepted into military service during the war. She joined a new Navy unit called the WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.

They grew up only 10 miles apart; he on a family farm that is now part of Masterson Station Park, she in Midway. They graduated from high school in 1937; he at Bryan Station, she as valedictorian of the 14-member class of the old Midway High School.

After two years at the University of Kentucky and an unsuccessful attempt to become an Army aviator, Donald Roser followed his uncle into the Marine Corps two months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. After basic training, he went to communications school to learn how to set up battlefield radio and telephone networks.

After sailing to New Zealand and training near the island of Fiji, Roser became part of the invasion force on Guadalcanal on Aug. 7, 1942. He spent the next four months setting up phone lines around the island, making him an easy target for Japanese snipers.

“I never got wounded, even though I got shot at a lot,” he said. “They bombed us every day and shelled us every night for months, and we didn’t get much sleep and didn’t have any food to amount to anything for a while. It was a nasty place.”

Roser kept a daily diary during his first six weeks on Guadalcanal. “Expecting Japs to try to make night landing haven’t slept much for a week need a bath and haven’t had clothes changed for a week pretty cruddy,” he wrote Sept. 2, 1942.

“Received mail from home,” he wrote two days later. “Got word of Mom’s death from cancer on July 12. Don’t seem to care anymore. Hope and pray I can snap out of it soon.”

Among later entries that month: “Some of us are cracking up. General MacArthur better hurry and give us some relief. … You just wait for the shells to come. … Still raining. Our fox holes are full of water. … No retreat for us — hell no. Everyone is resigned to the fate that seems to await us. God help us all.”

While Roser was in the Pacific, Mary Jane Diamond was teaching school near Dayton, Ohio. In 1943, she decided to enlist in the WAVES. “I just got this bug to go into the service,” she said. “My children wrote in their little school paper, ‘The war will soon be over; Miss Diamond has joined the WAVES!”

After learning to march in basic training, she spent two years processing mail in San Francisco and New York City, where she once saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a parade. “It was an adventure,” she said.

She worked mostly with Victory Mail. Families wrote letters to their servicemen on special forms that were microfilmed, then enlarged and reprinted once they reached their destination, eliminating shipping bulk and costs. “That was V-mail,” she said. “Now we have email.”

After a few more months of battle on other South Pacific islands, Roser returned home to find his pre-war girlfriend had married an Army officer. Roser and Diamond were fixed up by their aunts, who belonged to the same Scott County homemaker’s club. The aunts arranged a dinner for them on New Year’s Day 1946.

“That really took, right off,” Roser said. The couple were married Oct. 12 that year.

He had a career farming and working in a hardware store and harness shops. She taught in public schools in Fayette County, mostly at Jesse Clark Middle. They raised four children and have been members of Hunter Presbyterian Church since the early 1950s.

The Rosers were never active in veterans’ organizations. But around Memorial Day each year, he will read through his copy of The Old Breed, the First Marine Division’s official history of World War II.

Showing me the book last week, Roser slowly turned the last 16 pages, labeled “In Memoriam”. Each page had four columns of names. “We lost a lot of good men,” he said softly.

“I think sometimes about what I’ve been through; well, I just never give up. I’m not that type of guy,” he said. “But now it’s getting that way — when you get to be 93 years old, you have to give up sometime.”

“He’s a tough ol’ dude,” Mary Jane Roser said. “But I took good care of him.”

Her husband smiled. “Put a Marine and a Navy together,” he said, “and you can’t beat ‘em.”

More than 400 local business leaders packed a Lexington Center ballroom last Tuesday to hear lectures encouraging entrepreneurship in Kentucky from two of the state’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Jim Host, the founder of Host Communications and now chief executive of iHigh.com, and Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech, told their personal stories, talked about why Kentucky needs more entrepreneurs and offered their personal tips for success.

I know how much business people love lists of success tips, so I will share those later. First, though, I want to discuss why, beyond their obvious success, Host and Lyons are worth your attention.

Both are classic, hard-charging entrepreneurs. They are keen observers of business and society. Not only do they embrace change, they try to anticipate and drive it. They know that people always want better ways to satisfy their needs and desires, and in that space are great business opportunities. They know how to make things happen.

Jim Host

Host is a home-grown success story. He moved to Ashland as a boy and has spent most of his life in Kentucky, including serving in state government and running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor early in his career.

Host created world-class companies in travel, sports marketing and communications. Now he is trying to create the future of television. Host never felt he needed to move elsewhere to succeed. More importantly, he never allowed his vision to be limited by Kentucky’s cultural aversion to change.

Most recently, Host led the effort to build Louisville’s KFC Yum Center arena, despite being a blue-bleeding University of Kentucky alumnus and fan. Working in Louisville underscored for him the foolishness of allowing intrastate rivalries to obstruct progress.

Host, 74, has become an evangelist for Louisville-Lexington cooperation. He was founding chairman of the Bluegrass Economic Advancement Movement, a new effort led by both cities’ mayors to bring more advanced-manufacturing jobs to Kentucky.

Lyons’ story is different. Born, reared and educated in Ireland, he came to Kentucky in 1974 because he thought it was a great place to start a business.

Pearse Lyons

Alltech began with the idea of developing and making all-natural animal nutrition supplements. Now, the company’s goal is no less than figuring out how to feed the world using natural ingredients and breakthrough technology, not to mention making good beer and whiskey on the side. Privately held Alltech now has 3,000 employees in 128 countries, including more than 500 in Kentucky.

Part of what makes Lyons worth watching is that he has figured out how to embrace and build upon Kentucky’s strengths without feeling limited by its traditional shortcomings. He is bullish about Kentucky’s potential. He took a “Kentucky Proud” road show to England’s Windsor Castle. Alltech is selling Bourbon Barrel Ale in China and, soon, in Ireland. Alltech just launched the Lyons Farm brand of premium meats, which have a distinct Kentucky marketing flavor.

“If you can’t sell Kentucky as a place to do business, then you’re not in any shape or form a salesman, because it’s an easy sale,” Lyons said. “I’ve been around the world I don’t know how many times, and I’ve never found a place as conducive to doing business or rearing a family as Kentucky — y’all.”

Now, about those success tips. Both entrepreneurs stressed the importance of having a positive attitude, passion for your work, a willingness to take risks, a confidence in self and a good sense of humor.

Among Host’s success tips:

■ Be prepared. Eighty percent of any sale is preparation; 20 percent is presentation.

■ Under-promise and over-deliver.

■ Do not lie or misrepresent to a client about anything. “You build great companies on integrity and character,” he said.

■ Write down the five most important things you need to do each day, and do the hardest one first. That will clear your head for creative thinking.

■ If you focus on creating excellence, profits will follow.

Among Lyons’ success tips:

■ Take a chance, any chance, to start a business. And, if possible, go it alone. You can never truly align partners’ dreams with your own.

■ Be curious and add to your expertise, both through your own education and by hiring great people.

■ Avoid negative people, whom he called “energy vampires.”

■ Be prepared to change your business, but not your core values.

■ You have two ears, one mouth; listen more than you talk, and take notes.

Sherry and Geoff Maddock keep chickens on a one-tenth-acre “farm” beside their home on East Fourth Street. It will be  part of the Tour de Coop on Sunday, May 27, sponsored by CLUCK, the Cooperative of Lexington Urban Chicken Keepers.  Photos by Tom Eblen

Debra Hensley and Melissa Watt’s newest back-yard pets are named Latifa, Penny, Amelia, Nellie and Pee Wee. In addition to companionship, they provide something the couple’s three dogs and cat never could or will: fresh eggs for breakfast.

The five Barred Plymouth Rock hens took up residence on Transylvania Park in August after Watt designed a movable coop and hired a friend to build it. The hens started laying just before Thanksgiving, and each now produces an egg almost every day. Neighbors like the hens, too, especially when they get free eggs.

“They’re surprisingly easy to care for,” said Hensley, an insurance agent and former Urban County Council member. “They’re very peaceful. They come running to you in a little flock when you come home. It’s a real stress-reliever for me.”

The Hensley-Watt coop and a dozen others in Lexington will be open for tours Sunday afternoon. The second annual Tour de Coops is sponsored by CLUCK — the Cooperative of Lexington Urban Chicken Keepers.

Anita Courtney, a public health nutritionist, and Miki Wright, a graphic designer, started CLUCK in 2010 to create a network of local chicken keepers. The organization now has about 30 active members and provides fellowship, idea-sharing and educational resources.

Back-yard chickens are a fast-growing hobby nationwide. “We attribute a lot of the popularity to the local food movement,” Courtney said. “Nothing is more local than chickens in your back yard.”

Many cities have repealed laws from the early 20th century that banned back-yard chickens. Unless forbidden by neighborhood deed restrictions, chickens are allowed in Lexington back yards, provided they are properly sheltered and stay off other people’s property.

Chicks can be bought for a just few dollars each, and the cost of keeping them is, well, chicken feed. Coops can be made cheaply — if you are handy and good at repurposing salvaged materials. Or you can get fancy and spend as much as you want.

The biggest issue Lexington chicken-keepers say they face is protecting their birds from predators, especially raccoons and hawks.

“I have no farming background and I’m not an animal person,” said Courtney, who has had chickens in her Bell Court back yard for more than two years. “If I can do it, anybody can. It’s so darn much fun!”

Another stop on the Tour de Coops is Fourth Street Farm, a 1⁄10 acre lot beside Sherry and Geoff Maddock’s 1870s home in the East End neighborhood.

After the house next door burned, the Maddocks bought the lot and began a quest to see how much agriculture they could commit to in a small space. The lot and their small back yard now have raised vegetable beds, 15 fruit trees, blackberry and raspberry bushes, bee hives and seven laying hens.

In addition to helping feed themselves and son Isaac, 8, the Maddocks see their farm as an extension of their passion for community engagement. She works for the Blue Grass Community Foundation. He works for Blessed Earth, a Lexington-based group that works to inspire Christians to become better stewards of the environment.

“As people walk by and we have conversations, we’ll send them home with bags of things,” Sherry Maddock said, adding that she hopes to inspire others in the neighborhood to grow, buy and eat healthy food. “I see this as a part of the local economy in the future.”

Montessori Middle School of Kentucky, another stop on the Tour de Coops, has incorporated chickens and other agricultural pursuits into the curriculum at its 13-acre campus on Stone Road.

Marilynn Spitz, the school’s math and science teacher, started the poultry program two years ago when the 55-student campus opened. Eggs are sold to the students’ parents.

“It’s really fun to watch them all grow up,” Anna Ison, 14, said of the school’s 24 chickens, most of which the students raised from eggs.

“They say having a dog is a lot of responsibility, but having chickens is more. You have to make sure they have all the things they need and keep them safe.”

If you go

Tour de Coops

When: Noon-5 p.m. May 27

Where: A list of tour locations is available at Clucklex.org, Alfalfa restaurant and Good Foods Market and Café. Tour is self-guided and starts anywhere.

Cost: $5 adults, free for kids free. Buy a tour bracelet at your first stop.

After the tour: Chat about chickens and question experts at Pints for Peeps at West Sixth Street Brewery, 501 W. Sixth St.

Debra Hensley, an insurance agent and former Urban County Council member, strokes Latifa, one of the five chickens she and Melissa Watt keep in the backyard of their home on Transylvania Park. “We don’t plan on eating them, so we don’t mind naming them,” Hensley said. Each chicken produces about an egg a day.

One of five chickens Debra Hensley and Melissa Watt keep in a backyard coop at their Transylvania Park home.

Debra Hensley and Melissa Watt had a friend build this portable coop that Watt designed to house the five chickens they keep in their backyard.

One of the five chickens Debra Hensley and Melissa Watt keep in their backyard sits in a laying box inside their coop.

Anna Ison, left, Frances Werner-Wilson, and Emma Gearon, right, students at Montessori Middle School of Kentucky, look in on young chickens in a coop on the school’s 13-acre campus on Stone Road.

Alltech announced a job-creation competition Tuesday for business students at the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and University of Pikeville, with a $20,000 prize for the winning school.

Pearse Lyons, president and founder of the Nicholasville-based animal nutrition company, said the business plan competition is focused on fostering innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development in nine Eastern Kentucky counties: Bell, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Letcher, Magoffin, Martin and Pike.

“It’s time to balance the scales and cultivate a Kentucky that leads the nation not just in college sports but in employment as well,” Lyons said, noting that many of the targeted counties have unemployment rates twice the national average.

“With its hardworking people, vibrant culture, picturesque landscape and abundance of natural resources, Kentucky is ripe for the right idea,” Lyons said. “What we need is innovation and inspiration — sparks that will kindle the economic flame.”

Lyons announced the competition during a free seminar on entrepreneurship in the state that he and veteran Kentucky entrepreneur Jim Host put on at Lexington Center. It attracted a capacity crowd of more than 400 people, including many Central Kentucky business leaders.

The seminar was held in conjunction with Alltech’s 28th annual International Symposium, which each spring brings a couple thousand of the company’s customers here from all over the world.

Officials at each university will choose a competition team from among master’s in business administration students and some undergraduates. The competition will run from November through January 2013, when students will present their final plans to a panel of business leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

The winning plan will be the one that best fosters economic development in the nine-county region and appeals to investors interested in funding it. The winning team will receive $20,000 from Alltech for their university’s business school.

Robin Sither, brewmaster at West Sixth Street Brewery, cleans tanks. The brewery and taproom, which opened April 1, are located in part of a former Rainbo bread factory at the corner of West Sixth and Jefferson streets. Photos by Tom Eblen

Last week was American Craft Beer Week, so I thought it would be a good time for an update on three brewpubs that have opened in Lexington this year.

Better still, Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop was having a fund-raiser, a “bicycle progressive dinner” where a sold-out crowd of 70 people would pedal to all three brewpubs in one evening.

So — purely in the interest of journalistic research, of course — I signed up. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.

The popularity of local and unique food and drink has exploded. Wineries, boutique distilleries and craft breweries have sprung up everywhere. Lexington’s new brewpubs will soon be joined by at least two more, one downtown on Short Street and a second in Chevy Chase. And don’t forget Alltech, which has been brewing Kentucky Ale downtown for a decade.

While Americans’ beer consumption has declined slightly during the past 30 years, the number of small, independent breweries has risen from a handful to about 2,000, according to the Brewers Association. Still, they account for less than 6 percent of total U.S. beer sales, indicating a lot of room for growth.

Craft breweries, microbreweries and brewpubs are gaining popularity for many reasons: they are popular local hangouts; they support local economies and engender regional pride; and, most of all, their brews taste better than industrial beer.

The first stop on our two-wheeled tour was Lexington Beerworks, which opened Jan. 13 in a renovated old building at 213 North Limestone. The company’s three partners — Mike Vincent, Greg Leimer and Jason Wolf — are Lexmark marketing guys. They wanted a side business to indulge their home-brewing hobby and introduce others to making and appreciating craft beer.

Lexington Beerworks

Lexington Beerworks serves craft beers from around the country, sells home-brewing supplies and offers twice-monthly home-brewing classes. Unlike the other two brewpubs, they don’t make significant amounts of beer on premises.

Vincent said the place is designed for craft beer geeks and novices. The most popular item is a flight of four samples of different beers for $6.

“We try to recommend beers that people will like, and if they do like them, hopefully they’ll come back,” he said. “So far, we’ve done better than we expected.”

After a couple of samples and appetizers from Fork in the Road Food Truck, our group pedaled over to Chair Avenue, off South Broadway, to a concrete-block building that used to house batting cages. It is now home to Country Boy Brewing.

This small brewery was started on a shoestring by three Kentucky country boys who wanted to take their home-brewing hobby to the next level. Jeff Beagle, Daniel Harrison and Evan Coppage make small batches of seriously good beer, which they serve in a bar on site.

They have made 17 different recipes, 11 of which are on tap now. “We’re not afraid to experiment,” Harrison said. “People have been appreciative of the riskiness of what we’re trying to do. Business has been great.”

The country boys now have enough equipment to make eight barrels a week, but that will increase to 12 in June. When production capacity can outstrip demand at the bar, they plan to find a retail distributor, Beagle said.

After a couple of samples and a big slice of Goodfellas’ outstanding pizza, we pedaled back to where we started the ride: West Sixth Brewing, at West Sixth and Jefferson streets, for two beer samples and desserts from Two Birds Bakery in Midway.

West Sixth was launched April 1 by Ben Self, Joe Kuosman, Brady Barlow and Robin Sither. The brewery, which is housed in one corner of a former Rainbo Bread bakery, makes all of its beer on premises at the rate of 45 barrels a week.

Daniel Harrison, right, of Country Boy Brewing.

There are now six beers on tap, following introduction of a premium double IPA last week. “The taproom has given us a place to experiment and see what people like,” Self said.

A seventh beer — an Imperial Stout — will debut in a couple of weeks. West Sixth’s flagship IPA also is sold at the brewery in cans and growler jugs. Clark Distributing will begin this week making cans available at retail locations around Central Kentucky.

“We’ve been much busier than we could have imagined,” Self said. In addition to making money, the partners also want to give back to the community. They plan to donate 6 percent of net profits to local charities, support local organizations and be an example of environmental responsibility.

How many brewpubs can Lexington support before the market is tapped out? None of these entrepreneurs knows, but they see no sign of it happening any time soon.

If you go

Lexington Beerworks

Where: 213 N. Limestone

Hours: 1-11 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 1 p.m.-midnight Fri., 11 a.m.-midnight Sat., noon-11 p.m. Sun.

Learn more: (859) 359-6747, Lexingtonbeerworks.com

Country Boy Brewing

Where: 436 Chair Ave.

Hours: 4-10 p.m. Mon.-Wed.; 4 p.m.-midnight Thu., Fri.; noon-midnight Sat. Closed Sun.

Learn more: (859) 554-6200, Countryboybrewing.com

West Sixth Brewing

Where: 501 W. Sixth St.

Hours: 3-10 p.m. Mon.-Thu.; noon-midnight Fri., Sat.;, 1-6 p.m. Sun.

Learn more: (859) 951-6006, Westsixth.com

Donna Pelfrey, the Morgan County Circuit Court clerk, moved her office to a room in a Morehead State University extension campus building outside West Liberty. She expects to be there for at least two years. Photos by Tom Eblen

WEST LIBERTY — I first met Donna Pelfrey, the Morgan County Circuit Court clerk, on March 6. She was standing in a debris-strewn street outside her demolished office, having just gotten a hug from Kentucky Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr.

A tornado had blown through town four evenings earlier, killing six people and demolishing everything in its path.

Pelfrey and state Administrative Office of the Courts employees had made their way into town the day after the storm to secure records in the office vault. When I met them, they were moving them to a temporary courthouse just outside town.

Pelfrey has been clerk for a dozen years and was deputy clerk for 24 years before that. Now, faced with the biggest disaster to ever strike her hometown, she was scrambling to help restore order. It was a family affair: her husband, Rick Pelfrey, outside plant manager for Mountain Telephone, was working night and day to restore cell-phone and land-line service to the county.

I returned last week, 75 days after the tornado, to see how recovery efforts were going. I figured Donna Pelfrey would be a good person to ask.

I found her in the temporary courthouse, a Morehead State University extension campus classroom building. It is in the nearby community of Index, which has become the new nerve center of a Morgan County on the mend.

The building’s auditorium is both a makeshift courtroom and church, depending on the day of the week. Various agencies and businesses are upstairs and in the Regional Enterprise Center next door. West Liberty Elementary School is in a former industrial building at the top of the hill.

Pelphrey and her six assistants work in a big, windowless room of the MSU building, where they expect to be for at least two years. A new judicial center was being built next to the century-old courthouse where they worked when the tornado hit. Work is stalled while structural engineers assess the damage.

Much of the past 75 days has been a blur, Pelfrey said. She considers herself lucky: Her immediate family was unhurt, and her home was only slightly damaged. Still, the tornado killed a cousin and a woman she had worked with for 25 years. Her sister’s home was demolished. “That kind of stuff has been hard to deal with,” she said.

Pelfrey hears a lot from people who come into the clerk’s office every day. “What I hear more than anything is people having insurance trouble,” she said. “They’re fussing about their insurance, and adjusters, and they can’t get what they need.”

Some still seem traumatized. “They have a lot of stories to tell,” she said.

They talk of having impulsively taken shelter in a certain corner of their home — the only corner left standing when their house collapsed. Then there was the woman who, seeing the tornado coming, tried to take shelter in the Family Dollar store. The door was locked, so she clutched the rails of the shopping cart corral as hard as she could to keep from being blown away.

Only once in our conversation did Pelfrey come close to tears. That was when she recalled all of the strangers who have poured into West Liberty since May 2 to help clean up, or who have sent clothing and supplies for her neighbors in need.

“When you saw church buses and truckloads of people volunteering their time, that was the most surprising thing,” she said. A roofing company from another town went from house to house, putting tarps on damaged roofs for free.

Pelfrey said she hasn’t heard any reports of scam artist repairmen who often show up in towns after disasters. She said she knows of only two or three people who were charged with looting.

Cleanup and reconstruction have put a lot of people back to work, but the future remains uncertain. Pelfrey says she thinks it will be at least two years before West Liberty returns to anything approaching normal.

The restoration of Salyer Cemetery, where monuments were flattened, has boosted people’s spirits, she said. The pizza restaurant is supposed to reopen this week, and there is a sign on Main Street saying the Chinese restaurant will return soon.

There’s no word yet on the fate of Freezer Fresh Dairy, which for years was West Liberty’s most popular hangout. There are doubts about whether some downtown businesses, which were struggling before the storm, will ever come back.

After weeks of waiting for insurance settlements, demolition and reconstruction work is now under way along Main Street, which makes Pelfrey’s daily commute through town a little more encouraging.

“Every time you see something come back, it lifts your spirits,” she said.

Kentucky Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. comforts Morgan Circuit Court Clerk Donna Pelfrey on March 6 in tornado-damaged  West Liberty. Behind Minton is Justice Will T. Scott. Both the unfinished new justice center at left and the county courthouse where Pelfrey’s office was located were heavily damaged.

Like most buildings on West Liberty’s Main Street, this one is “closed for renovation” as residents work to recover from a March 2 tornado that devastated the Morgan County seat.

A makeshift flag pole decorates remains of the new Morgan County Judicial Center, which was under construction in downtown West Liberty when a March 2 tornado swept through.

Several downtown buildings in West Liberty are being demolished two months after a March 2 tornado devasted the town. Here, a bulldozer works behind some Main Street buildings.

A former attorney’s office across from the old Morgan County Courthouse suffered extensive damage in the March 2 tornado. The rear of the building has been demolished since then.

The century-old Morgan County Courthouse suffered extensive damage in the March 2 tornado, but County Clerk Donna Pelphry said officials hope to renovate the structure for another use.  The building is shown here May 16.

Morgan County’s historic plaque, knocked off its post by the March 2 tornado that devastated West Liberty, sits propped up on the remains of a World War I monument. The county’s old courthouse is to the left. The new judicial center, which was under construction when the tornado hit, is to the right. Both buildings were heavily damaged.

Workmen begin extensive repairs to the second story of a commercial building on Main Street in West Liberty on May 16.

James Cecil may be platoon’s last member. Photo by Tom Eblen

Eight months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, hundreds of people gathered around the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse to honor James T. Cecil and 69 other local boys.

The recent graduates of Henry Clay, Lafayette and other Central Kentucky high schools were forming the Lexington Platoon of the United States Marine Corps. Mayor T. Ward Havely and other dignitaries spoke at the mass-induction ceremony. A young lady sang the Marine Hymn, and women and children wept, the Lexington Herald and Leader reported in late August 1942.

Platoon members left in buses that day for processing in Louisville and training in San Diego. From there, they joined some of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific Theater: Okinawa, Saipan, Tinian and Guadalcanal.

The Lexington Platoon will be honored again Thursday at the Urban County Council meeting. This time, Cecil, 88, will be the only platoon member present. “As best we can tell, I’m the only one left,” he said.

Mayor Jim Gray will present a proclamation declaring James Cecil Day. Councilman Jay McChord will speak about how he met Cecil and other World War II veterans while writing and illustrating his 2010 book, A Veteran’s Legacy: Field Kit Journal.

“We’re losing so many of these guys every day, it’s good any time we can honor them,” McChord said. “We need to remind ourselves of who they are and what they did.”

Cecil and Mitch Alcorn, his Lafayette High School buddy and the longtime Midway postmaster, began tracking down their fellow Lexington Platoon members several years ago, searching the Internet and running ads in veterans magazines.

By this time last year, the group had dwindled to the two of them and Elwood Watkins, who earned a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts in battle. Watkins died July 12. Alcorn, who earned a Purple Heart and later fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars as an Army officer, died Feb. 18.

Cecil grew up on a tobacco farm off Nicholasville Road. “We didn’t have any money, but we had plenty to eat,” he said. “We had milk cows, chickens and a big garden.”

When the war came, he decided to join the Marines rather than wait to be drafted. After training, platoon members were scattered to various units of the 2nd Marine Division, although Cecil served alongside Alcorn and a few others from Lexington. “We were just like a big family,” he said.

As I talked with Cecil last week, he pulled out a small envelope. Inside was a portrait of a Japanese officer he killed, and money and a ration card he found in the officer’s pocket. That wasn’t all: The officer was carrying a map of artillery positions, a find that got Cecil promoted from private to corporal.

Cecil earned a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in the battle of Saipan on June 20, 1944. He survived several Japanese suicide attacks on his camps at night.

“The next morning you couldn’t walk without walking on a dead Marine or a dead Japanese,” he said.

At the battle of Okinawa, a Japanese suicide pilot hit the USS Hinsdale before Cecil’s unit could land on the beach. Cecil spent 45 minutes in the cold water, watching for sharks, before a Navy destroyer rescued him.

“We had so many killed and wounded,” Cecil said. “Every battle, you just didn’t know who was going to be next.”

Cecil’s only trip stateside came in August 1945, when he was recommended for officer candidate school. Before he could begin, though, U.S. forces dropped atomic bombs on Japan, and World War II ended.

After the war, Cecil had a successful career as the owner of an Ohio-based trucking company. He moved back to Lexington after Janet, his wife of 52 years, died in 1998. In his apartment, he proudly displays photos of her, their sons and their grandsons.

Cecil’s health is good, his mind sharp. He finds himself thinking a lot these days about his wartime experiences, including the occasional nightmare with Japanese soldiers “getting after me.”

“I just felt honored and proud that I served my country,” Cecil said. “Coming off a tobacco patch and going into battle, that was a hell of a change. We were just a bunch of brave boys.”

The Lexington Platoon at basic training in San Diego, 1942.

Sandra Pianalto said she was outside her comfort zone. The president and chief executive of the Fourth District Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland usually speaks to groups about the economy or banking. And most of the people in those groups are men.

But Wednesday, Pianalto spoke to Women Leading Kentucky’s 13th annual Women’s Business and Leadership Conference in Lexington. She was there to talk about what her life and career have taught her about leadership and success.

Pianalto, 57, immigrated from Italy when she was 5 years old. Her parents came to this country with little besides a desire to achieve the American dream for their four children, she said.

As a child, Pianalto became interested in public service while helping her parents, whose English was not as good as hers, study for their American citizenship tests. She later earned degrees in economics and worked her way up the Federal Reserve system, from research assistant to one of the 10 people who periodically sit around a big mahogany table in Washington and set the direction of interest rates.

Federal Reserve officials have a well-deserved reputation for obfuscation when discussing the economy. But on this subject, Pianalto outlined four clear principles:

1. Embrace uncertainty and take risks. While it is human nature to keep doing what we know we are good at, the most successful people are often those with the courage to get outside their comfort zone and try new things. Pianalto’s parents “had no idea what would await them in the United States. That taught me a great deal at an early age.”

Women can be more reluctant than men to seek promotions they don’t feel fully qualified for, she said. With 15 senior vice presidents ahead of her, Pianalto said, she hesitated when superiors encouraged her to apply for the bank’s chief operating officer’s job in 1993. But a mentor told her: “First get the job, then figure out how to do it.” She went for it — and got it.

2. Commit to lifelong learning. “Education transforms lives,” she said. “And the environment for women to lead and influence within their organizations has changed dramatically in a very short time.”

Thirty-six percent of American women ages 25 to 34 have college degrees, up from only 12 percent in 1970. During the same period, the rate for men rose from 20 percent to 29 percent. Women have overtaken men in college attainment in this and every other economically advanced country, except Japan and Turkey, she said. But formal education is only one aspect of learning.

“The further you progress in your career, the more important it is to seek wise counsel, to keep on learning,” she said.

The world is too complicated for senior executives to know everything, so they must be open to learning and ask good questions of everyone, both above and below them in status.

“We can all learn from the people we encounter every day,” she said. Even in the most boring of meetings, Pianalto said, she tries not to leave without identifying at least one thing she learned.

Pianalto suggested that everyone ask their boss for two things they could improve. “You’ve got to get that feedback in order to get better,” she said.

3. Create a culture of respect and inclusiveness. Diversity, collaboration and cooperation are now vital to organizational success, Pianalto said. Everyone deserves respect. Smart leaders create an environment where everyone can contribute and succeed.

Under her leadership, she said, employees have made the Cleveland bank the top performer in the Federal Reserve system, and it has been listed among the best places to work in Northeast Ohio for a dozen consecutive years.

4. Take control of your career. When the Cleveland bank’s CEO job came open after she had been COO for a decade, Pianalto said she worked aggressively to convince the board she was the best person for the job. “That’s not always in our nature as women,” she said.

But even if you reach the top professionally, you must continue to listen to others and be accountable. She likes the question posed by longtime University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt: “Would you follow you?”

“I ask that question a lot,” she said. “How accountable are you to yourself, your employees, your customers, your values and your dreams?”

Case Clay, left, and Robert Clay pose with the newest star sire at Three Chimneys Farm, Flower Alley, father of 2012 Kentucky Derby Winner I’ll Have Another. Photo by Tom Eblen

MIDWAY — Florists’ trucks have been entering and leaving the manicured grounds of Three Chimneys Farm a lot over the past two weeks.

First, they came with condolences. Dynaformer, the farm’s star sire at $150,000 a pop, was euthanized April 29 on what would have been the ninth birthday of his most famous son, the late Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Barbaro.

Dynaformer had suffered an aortic valve rupture two weeks earlier. The 27-year-old stallion’s foals, which included 130 stakes winners, earned more than $105 million on the track.

Last week, the flowers came in celebration. Only six days after Dynaformer’s death, I’ll Have Another, a son of the farm’s young sire Flower Alley, won the Kentucky Derby, impressively chasing down Bodemeister just lengths from the wire.

“When he started coming down the stretch, we started yelling and we haven’t recovered,” said Three Chimneys’ founder, Robert N. Clay, whose voice was still hoarse Thursday morning.

“That week is, in a way, a microcosm of the sport,” Clay said. “There are heartaches and then these incredible highs. That’s what keeps us all going.”

The landmark week was also a microcosm of Three Chimneys’ 40-year history, added Clay’s son, Case, 38, who in 2008 became the farm’s president and chief operating officer.

Robert Clay bought 100 acres along Old Frankfort Pike from a doctor in 1972 and put 10 stalls in an old tobacco barn. Over the years, he and former president Dan Rosenberg built Three Chimneys into one of the legendary breeding operations.

Three Chimneys has consigned about $500 million in horses at public auction, and its sires’ progeny have earned nearly $1 billion. The farm now has more than 1,800 acres, 100 employees and 400 horses — nine stallions, 225 mares and their foals and yearlings.

“We’ve been blessed with a lot of good ones,” Robert Clay said of the farm’s stallions. “We got a break with Seattle Slew, who was here 17 years.”

But the key to long-term success, his son added, was having great young stallions waiting in the wings.

“Seattle Slew died and Dynaformer and Rahy picked it up,” Case Clay said. “Dynaformer dies and Flower Alley gets a Derby winner six days later. It’s indicative of the strategy of Three Chimneys, which is to fill the stallion roster with who we think are going to be the next stars. We didn’t expect it to happen within six days, but it’s very encouraging.”

In addition to finding places to put flowers, Case Clay spent much of last week selling mating seasons to Flower Alley.

“We’ve been selling about eight a day, and it’s only Thursday,” he said. The Clays decided not to raise Flower Alley’s $7,500 stud fee for the rest of this season, but will decide in November how much to increase it based on how well his offspring do before then.

Flower Alley may not even be the biggest young star in the barn. Big Brown, which won the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, sees his first crop of foals race this year. “We’re getting a lot of calls from trainers saying, ‘I like my Big Brown’,” Case Clay said.

Big Brown is now the farm’s priciest sire at $35,000. The Clays hope he and Flower Alley will help Three Chimneys continue to bounce back from 2009-2010, when their farm and the rest of the Thoroughbred business suffered a slump.

“We feel like the industry’s hit bottom and hopefully is on its way back up,” Robert Clay said. “We’re in an industry that’s driven by discretionary wealth, really. Nobody has to have a horse in a recession.”

Case Clay is proud of his management team, a mix of veterans and young talent, which has managed to increase auction sales each year despite the economy. Three Chimneys does about 20 percent of its business overseas, with an office in Tokyo and representatives in England and France.

“The production side of the industry may get smaller than it has been,” Robert Clay said. “But there’s still going to be a demand for the top-quality horses.”

Case Clay’s job now is to figure out how to meet that demand. “Does Flower Alley pick up Dynaformer’s shoes?” he wondered aloud. “Does Big Brown?”

Sitting in his office on a beautiful spring morning, leaning against a pillow embroidered with the motto “Nothing’s Easy,” Robert Clay said fate can be fickle in this business — and fortunes can change in an instant.

The day Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby, Clay had his binoculars trained on the runner-up, an incredible filly he bred. Just as she crossed the finish line, Eight Belles broke both front ankles and had to be euthanized minutes later.

“There are highs that are really, really high and there are lows that are really, really low,” he said. “You can go from agony to ecstasy in this sport in two minutes. But that’s what makes it exciting, fun and a life’s work.”

Three Chimneys Farm near Midway is celebrating its 40th year. Robert Clay started the farm in 1972. His son, Case, became president in 2008, succeeding Dan Rosenberg. Photo by Tom Eblen

Dynaformer was famously ill-tempered. Robert Clay, the owner of Three Chimneys Farm, said Dynaformer would become so irritated when one of his stablemates was shown to visitors that he would kick the steel bars on his stall door, bending several of them. Photo by Tom Eblen

Students in the Plant to Plate program at the Family Care Center’s alternative high school began this spring by planting vegetables in donated bourbon barrels in the center’s courtyard.  Photo by Ken Gish

Sharon Aguilar said her 15-year-old brother likes to eat fast food, but she wants something better for herself and her 1-year-old daughter, Isabel.

So she is learning to buy and cook fresh food. She is even trying to grow lettuce in a little plot outside her family’s apartment, although a rabbit seems to be getting most of it.

Aguilar, 18, read recently that she and her peers might not live as long as their parents because of poor nutrition. “I don’t want that for my daughter,” she said. “Maybe I can make things different for her generation.”

Aguilar’s interest in nutrition was sparked by Plant to Plate, a service project organized by members of this year’s class of Leadership Lexington. The 33-year-old leadership development program, sponsored by Commerce Lexington, helps local professionals become more familiar with different aspects of the community.

“We started out with the idea of trying to do something with gardening, nutrition and students,” said class member Kenneth Gish, an attorney with the firm Stites & Harbison.

In the process of exploring options, the class discovered Lexington’s Family Care Center, which provides education and social services to try to help families become self-sufficient. Its programs include an alternative high school for young mothers and pregnant teens.

Leadership Lexington class members spent the fall and winter organizing Plant to Plate and enlisting the help of people and companies to make it happen. They launched the effort in February with a series of presentations for the girls about nutrition, shopping for food and gardening. They were given by dietician Judy Lawson, Alexa Arnold of the Lexington Farmers Market and organic farmer Sandy Canon.

Several of the school’s two dozen students got to attend the Bluegrass Local Food Summit, organized each March by community garden activist Jim Embry. “He’s my role model now,” Aguilar said.

Leadership Lexington class members helped the girls plant container gardens in the Family Care Center’s courtyard using half bourbon barrels donated by Buffalo Trace Distillery, soil given by Southern States, plants and tools from Fayette Seed, compost from Gunston Farms and garden hoses from Chevy Chase Hardware.

“It has been great to see the willingness of people in the community to get involved in this,” Gish said. “It was a fun process.”

The day I visited, the girls were getting lessons in healthy cooking from Jeremy Ashby, executive chef at Azur restaurant in Beaumont Centre, and Sylvia Lovely, the restaurant’s owner. They do a radio show about food, Sunny Side Up, each Saturday at 11 a.m. on WLAP-630 AM.

“One of the things we want to talk about is that local is better,” Ashby said as he told of good sources for locally grown food. He taught the students to properly cut vegetables and prepare a simple but delicious meal of almond-crusted chicken, carrots sautéed with thyme, corn bread, and macaroni and cheese.

Aguilar said she had never been a fan of broccoli, but she still might try the mac-and-cheese recipe at home. Her daughter already likes fresh vegetables better than she does, she admitted.

“It’s not as hard as I thought it was to eat healthy,” she said when asked what she has learned. “And it tastes better. I don’t like canned spinach, but I like fresh spinach.”

Plant to Plate has made a difference, said Joanna Rodes, director of the Family Care Center, which is run by the city’s Division of Family Services.

“I’m pleasantly surprised at how much they have enjoyed it,” she said of the students. “I hear them talking more about cooking at home and making healthy choices for their children.”

Rodes hopes to build on many aspects of the Plant to Plate experience, from cooking classes to growing vegetables. But it will take more volunteer efforts from individuals, companies or groups like Leadership Lexington.

“We’ve lost a lot of resources,” she said. “So we just can’t do it without people who want to do good things.”

For one thing, Rodes said, the students’ excitement about container gardening makes her think a much larger garden on the center’s grounds could be successful — if volunteers were willing to help.

“I feel that we could take any of these avenues and go 100 miles,” she said.

Jeremy Ashby, executive chef at Azur restaurant, shows Sharon Agular how to use a chef’s knife to julienne carrots. Photo by Tom Eblen

Jovanna Martinez, left, and Sharon Agular learn to cook almond-crusted chicken during a cooking class led by Jeremy Ashby, executive chef at Azur restaurant. Photo by Tom Eblen

John Michler, right, and his son Robin are the fourth and fifth generations to operate the family’s flower shop and greenhouse business in Lexington. Photos by Tom Eblen

Plants flourish when placed in the right location. The same seems to be true for the Michler family’s plantsmen.

In 1901, Carl Michler started a botanical business on an acre and a half between Maxwell and High streets near Woodland Avenue. His century-old greenhouses are still being used by the third and fourth generations of his descendants.

Michler’s, which calls itself Kentucky’s oldest continuously operated florist and greenhouse, is an Aylesford neighborhood institution. It also has become a regional destination for people seeking John Michler’s gardening expertise and his vast selection of plants, virtually all of which are raised on the premises.

“One of my cousins claims horticulture runs in the male genes of the family,” he said. It certainly seems that way.

Carl Michler immigrated from Württemberg, Germany, in 1869 and settled in Lexington in the late 1890s. With an inheritance from his brother, Wilhelm, a well-known German scientist, he started his business at 417 East Maxwell Street. It was called Michler Brothers for two of Carl’s sons, Louis and Charlie, who worked there. Later, Charlie opened Michler Nurseries on Richmond Road, which no longer exists.

Louis’ son Karl and his wife, Jean, took over the florist shop and greenhouses after he returned from military service in World War II. When they retired, John, 57, and his wife, artist Claudia Kane Michler, inherited it and the family home next door.

John studied horticulture at the University of Kentucky and spent a couple of years after college helping a friend start a strawberry farm in New England. “I fell in love with perennials in Massachusetts,” he said.

John expanded the business to include a garden center with an extensive stock of perennials, herbs, native Kentucky species and exotic plants.

“People come here and see plants they say they have never seen before,” he said. “And they know we offer plants that are well-suited to Kentucky because they are grown right here.”

Inventory has expanded over the years with John’s curiosity and continuous study of horticulture and gardening techniques. “This winter’s subject was Japanese gardens,” he said. “I read a bunch of books and tried to learn that esthetic.”

As his knowledge has grown, so has the demand for his consulting and garden- design services. That work now supplements Michler’s traditional florist shop, garden center and propagation greenhouses.

Over the years, the Michlers have had many longtime employees who lived nearby and reflected the diversity of Lexington. Five of the nine current employees walk or bike to work. “This has been a nice neighborhood for us,” he said.

John, a former neighborhood association president, was active in getting historic zoning designation for Aylesford, a mixture of 19th- and early 20th- century homes and newer big-box student apartment complexes. “I enjoy living in a student neighborhood because there is such an interesting mix of people,” he said.

The recent economic slump hurt business, as many customers had less money to spend on landscaping and flowers. Michler’s now faces competition for common plants from big-box suburban stores that truck them in from out-of-state nurseries.

“I think having a small family business has always been a challenge,” John said. “There are no deep-pocket investors. We have to make a living for ourselves and our employees from what we do.”

But the rewards outweigh the challenges. “A huge part of a family business is that you get to spend a lot of time with your family,” he said. “That’s a valuable thing.”

Two of the Michlers’ three children are now involved in the business. Jessamine, 22, is the wedding flower specialist. Robin, 26, moved home last August from North Carolina, where he studied and worked in urban planning. (Daniel, 24, is doing research abroad.)

“I’ve really enjoyed being back,” said Robin, whose wife, Penina Goldstein, also is from Lexington. “We came back because of family and this business — and because of Lexington.”

John hopes the business can continue adapting to the times while retaining the valuable aspects of its heritage.

Robin recently added an online sales application to the Web site (Michlers.com) and updated the company’s database systems. That is why you now see a laptop computer on the antique table that serves as a checkout counter in one of the greenhouses Carl Michler built more than a century ago.

LOUISVILLE — Oh, the humanity! Oh, the humidity!

After a stormy night, the sun shone brightly on Churchill Downs all day Saturday as a record 165,307 sweltering fans turned out for the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby. They got a good show for their trouble, as I’ll Have Another blew past front-runner Bodemeister to win the $2 million purse.

The two-minute race capped a day of partying and networking that began long before Mary J. Blige, all decked out in red, rocked The Star-Spangled Banner to several interruptions of applause.

The beer-for-breakfast crowd arrived early in the infield, hoping to stake out a prime spot to pitch a tent, spread a tarp and set up lawn chairs. Many of the groups of families and friends have been coming back to the same spot for years, if not decades.

“I’ve always wanted to come,” said Tony Sirkin, a furniture store owner from Chicago who at mid-morning was trying to lay claim to one of the few remaining patches of green until a group of friends could arrive. “It’s something you’ve got to experience.”

His goal for the day? “To meet my future wife,” Sirkin said.

Nahru Lampkin of Detroit had the same goal Saturday as at his 17 previous Derbys: make a good day’s living as an entertainer. A fixture in the infield, he plays bongo drums and makes up hilarious rhymes about passing fans in hopes of encouraging them to drop some cash in his bucket.

“We come every year to seek this guy out,” Joe DeJohns of Chicago said of Lampkin. “This guy is really, really good.”

High above the infield and grandstand, in the air-conditioned comfort of the luxury suites overlooking the track, well-heeled groups of family, friends and business associates mingled.

For many at the Derby, it was a long day of glad-handing and networking. Lexington Mayor Jim Gray and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler stopped by the Jockey Club suite of 21c Museum Hotel, the Louisville-based company that recently announced plans to open its third location, a hotel in Lexington, in what has become a small chain of boutique hotels.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer had a hectic day, greeting people, presenting an undercard trophy and entertaining 24 economic development prospects whom he declined to identify.

“It’s a great way to show off our city; you couldn’t ask for anything better than this,” Fischer said. “They always come away favorably impressed.”

Gov. Steve Beshear worked the crowd, which included a visiting group of other Democratic governors from Maryland, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina. When the other governors gathered in a suite, the hall was filled with their dark-suited security guards staring at each other.

Scattered throughout the Downs were celebrities, including Cindy Lauper, Debra Messing and Miranda Lambert. Head and shoulders above them — in both stature and popularity — were members of the championship University of Kentucky basketball team. They wandered through rooms posing for photos with fans before making their way to the Winner’s Circle to help present the Derby trophy.

The Millionaire’s Row crowd included many familiar Kentucky faces: House Speaker Greg Stumbo, Alltech’s Pearse and Deirdre Lyons, Toyota’s Wil James, lawyer and politico Terry McBrayer, and developer Woodford Webb.

The Derby is a fashionista’s paradise. Women seem to compete to see who can wear the tightest dress, the highest heels and the most bodacious hat. Among men, the competition seemed to be for the loudest sport coat, although Jim Leuenberger of Shawano, Wis., took things a step further. He attracted a lot of attention in the paddock with a bright red suit and matching bowler hat.

“I saw a guy last year with a yellow suit,” said Leuenberger, who was attending his 18th Derby. “He told me about a Web site where you can get any color. I’ve always wanted a red one.”

Many Derby regulars get their kicks by wearing outrageous hats sure to attract attention and photographers.

The first time Jan and Scott Baty of Traverse City, Mich., came to the Derby six years ago, she put a plastic pink flamingo on her hat. Her hats have gotten bigger and fancier, but she has stuck with the theme.

“This is our first year with a double-flamingo hat,” said Scott Baty, whose own Panama straw hat was covered with roses. “We ran out of singe-flamingo options.”

But few attention-seekers had it as hard as Tracy Lindberg of Chicago, who was in the infield for his 29th Derby wearing a 50-pound stuffed horse he called Seabiscuit on his head.

“I usually can wear it two or three hours tops,” Lindberg said. “I’ve done an hour, though, and I already can’t feel my neck.”

Marlitt Dellabough of Eugene, Ore., right, and Denise Meroni of Morris County, New Jersey, center, cheer on their horses in an undercard race on Kentucky Derby Day at Churchill Downs.  Photo by Tom Eblen

The view of the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs from the Jockey Club Suites on Kentucky Derby day.  Photo by Tom Eblen

Women make fashion statements at the Kentucky Derby with outrageous hats. With some men, it’s outrageous sport coats.  Photo by Tom Eblen

Jan and Scott Baty of Traverse City, Mich., were attending their sixth Kentucky Derby. She came the first year with a plastic flamingo on her hat and has stuck with the theme. “This is our first year with a double-flamingo hat,” Scott Baty said. “We ran out of singe-flamingo options.”   Photo by Tom Eblen

Jim Leuenberger of Shawano, Wisc., attending his 18th Kentucky Derby, attracted a lot of attention in his bright red suit and matching bowler hat.  ”I saw a guy last year with a yellow suit,” Leuenberger said. “He told me about a Web site where you can get any color. I’ve always wanted a red one.” Photo by Tom Eblen

Tony Sirkin, making his first trip to the Kentucky Derby, tried Saturday morning to save one of the last vacant plots of the infield for a group of friends. The furniture store owner from Chicago said his goal for the day was “to find my future wife.”  Photo by Tom Eblen

Joe DeJohns of Chicago, right,  said he has been coming to the Kentucky Derby since the mid-1980s and always seeks out Nahru Lampkin of Detroit, who sits in the infield playing bongo drums and making up hilarious rhymes about passersby in hopes that they will drop some cash in his bucket. Lampkin said this was his 18th Derby. Photo by Tom Eblen

Tracy Lindbert of Chicago was in the infield for his 29th Kentucky Derby, his second wearing the 50-pound hat he called Seabiscuit.  ”I usually can wear it two or three hours tops,” he said. “I’ve done an hour, though, and I already can’t feel my neck.” Photo by Tom Eblen

The ATM is always a popular destination in the Kentucky Derby infield, where there are plenty of opportunities to spend money.  Photo by Tom Eblen

May is National Bike Month, a good time to briefly note upcoming events and review recent progress toward making Central Kentucky a better place to ride bicycles for fun and transportation.

■ Bike Lexington, the city’s monthlong celebration, is sponsoring commuter classes and a commuter challenge. The family fun ride through town, which always attracts a couple thousand riders, is June 2. More information: BikeLexington.com.

■ Second Sunday’s third annual Blue Grass Airport event is June 10. Several thousand people always come out for a chance to ride, skate and walk on the auxiliary runway while it is closed to aircraft. More information: 2ndSundayKy.com.

■ The Bluegrass Cycling Club’s 35th annual Horsey Hundred tour is May 26 and 27. Saturday ride options include routes of 26, 35, 53, 75 and 100 miles. Sunday options are 35, 50 and 75 miles. All rides begin at Georgetown College.

The rides are supported with rest stops and “sag wagons” to pick up riders who need help. About 2,000 cyclists will come from across the nation to ride through our beautiful countryside. For more information, go to BGcycling.org.

■ Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop reopened Friday in a much larger space at the new Bread Box development at West Sixth and Jefferson streets. The shop started in late 2010 behind Al’s Bar on North Limestone and Sixth Street.

The non-profit shop “recycles” donated bikes for sale to low-income people. “Our goal is to provide reliable basic transportation at a price anyone can afford,” said Shane Tedder, one of the shop’s volunteer organizers.

Broke Spoke also provides a place where anyone may borrow tools to work on a bicycle in return for an hourly fee or shop membership.

The shop now has a 2,500-square-foot space, thanks to the Bread Box’s developers and an $11,000 grant from the Paula Nye Memorial Foundation, which the Kentucky Bicycle and Bikeway Commission administers from the fee that motorists pay for “Share the Road” license plates. Other financial backers included the Bluegrass Cycling Club and Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt.

Broke Spoke is open 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday and 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. The Bread Box, a former commercial bakery, also is home to West Sixth Brewing and several artist studios.

Broke Spoke’s new space opens onto the proposed extension of the Legacy Trail, from the Northside YMCA on Loudon Avenue to East Third Street and Midland Avenue. For more information, go to Thebrokespoke.org.

The Bread Box is next to Coolavin Park, whose former tennis courts have become the site of Lexington’s burgeoning bike polo leagues. Last weekend, the park hosted Ladies Army IV, an all-female bike polo tournament that attracted 40 teams with more than 200 athletes from the United States and from five European and Asian countries. Who knew?

■ An important piece of bicycle infrastructure just opened with little fanfare at the double-diamond interchange at Harrodsburg and New Circle roads.

The original design called for a sidewalk. But Urban County Councilman Doug Martin said he was able to work with Bob Nunley and others at District 7 of the state Transportation Cabinet to put a paved bike path on both sides.

That short path might not seem like much to motorists, but it solves a huge problem for cyclists. Crossing New Circle Road can be a major problem on a bicycle, and more solutions like this are needed.

Martin hopes this connection and others along the Harrodsburg Road corridor will allow the Legacy Trail to connect eventually with the new bike path along U.S. 68, providing a safe way to ride all the way from the Kentucky Horse Park to Wilmore, he said.

Meanwhile, Lexington recently installed bicycle detection devices at several intersections where lights often wouldn’t change without a car present. Also, an updated bike-route map of the city will be published in May.

■ Bluegrass Bike Partners is a new regional effort started in Midway to identify and market businesses and organizations that welcome cyclists. More information: Midwayrenaissance.org.

■ Pedal the Planet Bike Shop has become the state’s second organization, after the University of Kentucky, to be certified as a “silver” bike-friendly business by the League of American Bicyclists. The designation recognizes companies and institutions that provide certain ways and incentives for employees to bike to work.