The Bluegrass and Beyond

Kentucky doesn’t just produce writers; it celebrates them.

The biggest annual celebration is Saturday, when about 200 writers — 150 of whom are Kentuckians — will gather at the Frankfort Convention Center for the 28th annual Kentucky Book Fair.

Authors will sit behind long rows of tables so thousands of readers can stop by, meet them, buy their books and get their autographs.

This year’s lineup includes pop ular Kentucky writers Silas House, Erik Reece, Bobbie Ann Mason, Ed McClanahan, Thomas Parrish, Richard Taylor and David Dick.

Also there will be retired Courier-Journal columnist Byron Crawford, who has put together a 30-year collection of his work in Kentucky Footnotes, and journalist Leslie Guttman of Lexington, who writes about a year in the life of a race horse hospital in Equine ER.

Coach Rich Brooks and co-author Tom Leach will sign their book, Rich Tradition: How Rich Brooks Revived the Football Fortunes of the Kentucky Wildcats.

And retired Keeneland chairman Ted Bassett will autograph his memoir.

National authors at the fair will include George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, who has written a book about Abraham Lincoln.

“I’m always so proud to live in a state that supports literature the way Kentucky does, and the Kentucky Book Fair is real proof of that,” said House, who will sign his new novel, Eli the Good.

“Everywhere I go, all over the country, people assume that Kentuckians are illiterate,” House said. “And I always take that as an opportunity to correct them and tell them about our long literary history and how great the support for writers is in our state.”

When you think about that tradition and support, it makes perfect sense. Writing is about telling stories, and there are few things Kentuckians love more than a good story — and storyteller.

Jesse Stuart and me at his home, summer 1963. Photo by Marion Eblen

I’m the son of a school librarian and a bookstore manager. Writers, especially Kentucky writers, enjoyed celebrity status in our home. My first memorable encounter with that celebrity came the summer I turned 5, when my mother’s parents came up from far Western Kentucky for a visit.

My grandparents were Jesse Stuart fans and wanted to see the Greenup County he wrote about. While my father was at work one day, my mother took us to Greenup, thinking we could drive past Stuart’s home. What she didn’t know was that the narrow gravel road ended at his home.

It didn’t look as if anyone was home, so before she turned the car around, my grandparents urged her to look in the window beside the front door. When she did, Stuart looked back. Then he opened the door and invited us in to visit.

I had just learned to do somersaults, and, much to my mother’s horror, Stuart encouraged me to practice on the braided rug in his living room. I was barefoot, so when he took us to see the cabin where he wrote, he carried me out there, giving my mother a Kodak moment.

Writers such as Stuart and James Still found rich material in the people and places of Eastern Kentucky, just as Mason has explored the land and psyche of her native Jackson Purchase region, in far Western Kentucky.

I asked Mason last week about the importance of Kentucky writers, past and future. As you might expect, her response was well worth reading:

“Kentuckians have been confused about our identity, who we are and how others see us, what we have here and what there is in the larger world. Sometimes we feel smugly superior, sometimes inferior. Kentucky writers have always walked a tightrope between Kentucky and the Outside.

“Now even though the boundary lines are easing, and Kentucky is part of the wider mainstream, our writers can continue to lead the way on the most critical issues of our time, because we can write firsthand with passion and with historical perspective about what is happening to the land and its people. Our land of contrasts is an example and a warning to the rest of the world.”

Maybe creating a vibrant downtown isn’t so much about grand plans as small spaces.

One small space with potential is the block of North Mill Street between West Main and Short streets. It retains most of its old buildings, which now house places to eat, drink and work. Developer Nick Ebbitt is converting the upstairs of several buildings into loft condos.

The block is in the middle of downtown’s emerging action: Galleries, restaurants and bars have sprouted along Short and in Victorian Square; Dudley’s is moving there; Cheapside is alive with the farmers market and other events that will only increase in popularity when a market house is built.

But plans for Mill Street are controversial because developers want to close the street to traffic and eliminate a handful of parking spaces.

I don’t see a big problem with that, but several people, whose opinions on these matters I respect, do. They think it’s important to keep that block as a regular street, at least during the day. Pedestrian malls have been successful in some cities, including Charlottesville, Va., but they have failed in others.

The key seems to be striking a balance between cars and people to create flexible, inviting spaces where people want to spend time and businesses can succeed.

A grass-roots plan by property owners along Esplanade between East Main and Short streets has the potential to do just that. It seems like a good, reasonably priced idea that could be adapted for Mill Street and other places in Lexington, too.

The plan is the work of Gene Williams and Art Shechet, two of the partners in Natasha’s restaurant. Natasha’s developed a loyal following with its high-quality ethnic food, and the business has expanded by adding a music stage with nightly performances by local bands, emerging artists and occasional big-name acts.

Esplanade, which is fortunate to have wide sidewalks, will host a street fair during next fall’s Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. And that got the partners to thinking about the possibilities of a more flexibly designed Esplanade that could take advantage of an adjacent, little-used park on the Chase Bank tower property.

They figure the project could be done for less than $500,000 without closing Esplanade — and adding daytime parking spaces to the west side of the street, where there are none now. They also would plant shade trees that would be lighted at night.

In the evenings, resurfaced parking spaces in front of Natasha’s and the Lexington Club could be converted into outdoor dining areas. With some remodeling to open up the Chase park, there could be room for a temporary stage and booths during community events and festivals.

The result would be a small, flexible public square similar to those that help make European cities fun places to spend time.

Architect Farzin Sadr, who owns Natasha’s building and has his offices upstairs, drew up some initial plans. Natasha’s partners have enlisted support from other nearby property owners, including Chase tower and Central Christian Church.

Williams and Shechet unveiled their plan at an Aug. 18 breakfast for Mayor Jim Newberry and Urban County Council members. They soon will ask that the project be added to the city’s downtown streetscape work — ideally before the Equestrian Games.

“We’re latecomers to the table, but we think this plan makes sense and would be a lot of bang for the buck,” Williams said.

“We also think it would move the center of gravity back a bit to the east end,” he said. “We want an anchor here that is social and speaks to an older crowd and more family groups.”

Natasha’s partners think this could be an easy, highly visible downtown success story that would have relatively little cost or controversy. I suspect they’re right.

In case you missed them, the Herald-Leader carried two excellent op-ed columns Sunday and Monday from two of Lexington’s most knowledgeable and passionate advocates for smart growth and preservation of what’s special in the Bluegrass.

Here’s the Sunday piece by Knox van Nagell, executive director of The Fayette Alliance.

Here’s the Monday piece by Hayward Wilkirson, who was a founding board member of Preserve Lexington, which last year opposed destruction of a historic block that’s now a downtown meadow.

I wrote Sunday about last week’s Shakertown Roundtable, which featured former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and included more than 50 of Kentucky’s most influential leaders in business, government, academia and philanthropy.

Given the complexity of the topic — economic crisis and recovery — and the caliber of the panel and participants, there was a lot to discuss and think about.

Here are a few additional notes from last Thursday afternoon’s conference in one of Kentucky’s most scenic settings, Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill:

■ One executive I found insightful was Paul Varga, president and CEO of the Louisville-based liquor giant Brown-Forman Corp. In stressful times like these, he joked, “You’ll all understand why I’m happy to be in the business I’m in.”

Varga said he understood some executives’ worries about a backlash of too much taxation and regulation after a period many people think had too little. Liquor has always been an easy mark for higher taxes, he said, adding that “our industry once had the ultimate government intervention: Prohibition.”

He noted that much of the economic crisis was caused by what people did with other people’s money and an abandonment of traditionally sound business practices. Varga said future prosperity will require companies to not just achieve revenue growth, but create value.

Brown Forman — and the entire bourbon industry — has remained relatively healthy by not taking on too much debt and by searching out new markets overseas and developing spinoffs such as the Bourbon Trail initiative around distillery tourism.

■ In response to a question, Volcker said ideology and economics don’t mix well. That’s because unpredictable human behavior can have a big effect on the economy.

“It’s not a rational activity,” he said of economics, adding that this crisis showed that free markets with little regulation can lead to greed, manipulation and disaster.

■ Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, who is running for lieutenant governor on Gov. Steve Beshear’s re-election ticket, reminded executives who criticized government spending on the social safety net that many average Americans are hurting.

“We have real families and real children who are going through some real difficulties,” Abramson said. The nation needs to take care of them, he said, not only because it’s the right thing to do but because they are the workers who will be needed to build the future.

■ Centre College President John Roush said most aging baby boomers won’t be able to enjoy the leisurely retirement they expected because our old economy and lifestyle expectations weren’t sustainable.

“We’re not going to get to go fishing every day,” said Roush, 59, who said he likes to fish.

But Roush said he is encouraged that today’s college students have different expectations. “They have a sense of possibility and optimism,” he said.

■ University of Kentucky President Lee Todd said America needs to renew its focus on research and development, advanced manufacturing and high-quality education. Kentucky students need more math and science — and more confidence in their abilities.

With the right education and training, Kentucky students can compete with anyone, said Todd, himself the product of a small town in Hopkins County. As an example, he mentioned UK students’ strong showing last week in the international solar house design competition in Washington, D.C.

Kentucky students need to start their own businesses, not just expect to work for someone else. And the state needs to emphasize entrepreneurship and business development, not just attracting employers from elsewhere.

“Kentucky people who start companies will stay in Kentucky,” Todd said. “We’ve got to create our own jobs.”

Kentucky Educational Television videotaped the Shakertown Roundtable and will show an edited version on Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. and at other times.

Paul Volcker, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and is a top adviser to President Barack Obama, has earned a reputation as one of the rarest of creatures: a straight-talking economist.

Volcker was true to form Thursday, when he came to Kentucky to speak at the Shakertown Roundtable, a gathering of about 60 of the state’s most influential leaders in business, government, education and philanthropy.

The 82-year-old economist was blunt in his assessment of what caused this economic crisis and what’s needed to fix it. And he brought things back into focus when some executives tried to point fingers, shift blame and complain about recovery strategies.

“We spent, as a nation, more than we were producing,” Volcker said. Mix that with a real-estate bubble, reckless financial manipulation and too little government oversight, and it was a recipe for disaster.

“We were leveraging the economy … and then it all unraveled,” he said, adding that the recovery will be a “considerable slog” that could take years.

Volcker has advised Obama to restore legal restrictions, enacted after the Great Depression but repealed in the 1990s, that separated investment and commercial banking and prevented banks from becoming “too big to fail.”

The Obama administration has balked at Volcker’s suggestions amid industry opposition. But Volcker warned that without such reforms the nation could face a repeat of its current crisis in a few years.

After Volcker’s remarks, the 11 other panelists gave their views on the economy and the proper relationship between business and government. They included Gov. Steve Beshear, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, the presidents of the universities of Kentucky and Louisville and several business leaders.

David Grissom, president of Mayfair Capital in Louisville, said he was depressed at the quality of national leadership. He complained about the huge amounts of money government is using to try to rescue the economy.

Julie Janson, president of Duke Energy in Kentucky and Ohio, lamented new government regulations on energy and utilities.

Churchill Downs Chief Executive Robert Evans warned this was a bad time to raise taxes and increase government regulation of business.

U of L President Jim Ramsey cited sobering statistics about Kentucky’s economic “blood bath,” such as the decline in manufacturing jobs in the past decade from 310,000 to 200,000 and the fact that Kentucky spends $9,000 a year on each public school student, $6,000 on each college student — and $19,000 on each prison inmate.

As each panelist took his or her turn, things turned gloomier. Then the last panelist, the governor, spoke.

Beshear said he thinks Kentucky is in better shape economically than many states and, with smart strategy and investment, the state could position itself to take advantage of future economic opportunities, such as advanced manufacturing.

“Until I heard from the governor, I was in a state of desperation,” Volcker deadpanned, adding that he agrees with Beshear’s optimism.

But, Volcker said, Kentucky and the nation must see the economic crisis as a “wake-up call” and make some fundamental changes.

Volcker also agreed with comments by UK President Lee Todd, who emphasized the need for more rigorous math and science education and more technology research that can be commercialized to create jobs.

Todd criticized the recent emphasis on the service economy: “We can’t create wealth by serving hamburgers to each other.”

In the best line of the day, Volcker said Americans need to shift away from “financial engineering” and focus once again on civil, mechanical and electrical engineering.

We need to regain our leadership in technology development and manufacturing, he said, rather than churning out so many business school graduates who are focused on making big, quick and easy profits by manipulating money.

If there’s one thing this year’s Shakertown Roundtable made clear, it is this: Economic recovery will require us to figure out how to prosper in a new and different global economy, rather than simply trying to get back what we have lost.

Centre College President John Roush, commenting from the audience, perhaps said it best: “I think we are going back to a place of well-being. But it’s a different place.”

Readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine recently voted the 21C Museum Hotel in Louisville as the nation’s best hotel.

It was in the news last week and discussed on NBC’s Today Show this week.

“It sounds like the idea behind this is brilliant,” said Today Show host Matt Lauer, who seemed barely able to hide his surprise that Kentucky could be on the cutting edge of anything.

The 90-room luxury hotel that houses a public, all-hours contemporary art museum really is brilliant, and the Today Show and Conde Nast Traveler are just the most recent examples of the positive buzz it has created for Louisville.

The 21C was the brainchild of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, who worked with Lexington-based Gray Construction to create the museum/hotel by renovating and connecting four century-old buildings.

The complex is not far from developer Bill Weyland’s Glassworks art and office complex and Louisville Slugger factory and museum. They are all on Louisville’s West Main Street, in renovated old buildings that less imaginative developers would have demolished.

These attractions have sparked a vibrant entertainment district popular with locals and visitors alike. Last year, the American Planning Association named West Main Street as one of the nation’s 10 best streets.

Gray Construction’s chairman, Lexington Vice Mayor Jim Gray, worked closely with Brown and Wilson to create 21C - and it wasn’t easy. Some of the buildings needed new foundations and steel reinforcement. “There was one day when we almost lost one of them,” he said.

But Brown and Wilson never considered tearing down the old buildings, Gray said. And it wasn’t just because the $180-a-square-foot cost of renovation was cheaper than new construction.

“They knew that the character of the old buildings was what would inspire and create the energy for the project,” Gray said. “Within the frame of the old buildings they were going to create something new and contemporary and inspiring.”

Last year, during Lexington’s debate over the now-stalled CentrePointe project, Gray often mentioned 21C as an alternative approach to the generic skyscraper developer Dudley Webb planned. Webb could create something special by saving some of the 14 old buildings he wanted to tear down and weaving them into a quality piece of contemporary architecture.

Webb wasn’t interested. The old buildings weren’t worth saving, he said, even though renovation would have been cheaper than new construction.

So, here we are more than a year later. The block has been cleared of 180 years of Lexington history. CentrePointe is stalled and probably dead. Louisville has 21C and a lot of national buzz. Lexington has a pasture in the middle of town and a missed opportunity.

But it’s not Lexington’s only opportunity.

A few blocks away, developer Barry McNees is scraping together money to create the Lexington Distillery District. His vision is to renovate two abandoned bourbon distilleries and other industrial buildings in one of the city’s long-neglected neighborhoods. They would become the nucleus for a mixed-use neighborhood reflecting Lexington’s heritage and authentic culture.

The Distillery District is struggling amid the credit crunch. Still, the 150-year-old Old Tarr Distillery warehouse has become Buster’s, a popular nightclub. Galleries and artists’ studios are sprouting nearby.

“You clean that place up and it’s a destination,” Gray said of the Distillery District. “There’s nothing like it in Lexington, and that’s what appeals to people.”

So here’s the question for May Jim Newberry’s administration and Lexington’s business leadership: Where should this city place its bet? Will a prosperous future look more like what’s happening on Louisville’s West Main Street, or what’s been happening for 30 years on Lexington’s West Main Street?

Tuesday is the National Day on Writing. Do you have a sentence or two to contribute?

If so, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning wants to hear from you. To celebrate this day, the center is putting together what it calls the “longest short story ever written.”

The center is seeking contributions from average folks and from established local authors, including Ed McClanahan and Bobbie Ann Mason. First lady Jane Beshear plans to finish the story during an event at 5:30 p.m. at the Carnegie Center in Gratz Park.

The idea is to put together a snapshot of Lexington and what’s going on in people’s lives this day, said Neil Chethik, the Carnegie Center’s writer-in-residence.

People can add their contributions by stopping by the Carnegie Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or at the following places and times: Starbucks in Chevy Chase, 7-9 a.m.; Starbucks downtown, Third Street Stuff or the Eagle Creek Library, 9-11 a.m.; Joseph Beth Booksellers or Barnes & Noble, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; The Morris Book Shop, Waldenbooks or Northside Library, 1-3 p.m.; or the Village Branch and Central libraries or Common Grounds Coffee, 3-5 p.m.

Ed McClanahan

McClanahan has started the story with these two sentences: “I found her sitting on a bench in Woodland Park. She looked up when my shadow fell on the letter she was writing.”

McClanahan, whose books include The Natural Man, said he doesn’t know what will come from this community story.

“It will generate some interest among people (in writing), I’m sure,” said McClanahan.

He said writing is a useful exercise for anyone. “It is an opportunity to examine one’s life and experiences and thinking processes. It’s a way of looking at yourself and what’s going on in the world.”

This community story will be written on butcher paper, the pieces of which will be taped together into a big scroll. Excerpts will be published online, including on www.galleryofwriting.org, the Web site of the National Council of Teachers of English, which sponsors the National Day on Writing.

It sounds like a fun project. I’m just glad I don’t have to edit it.

“I’m glad I don’t have to, either,” McClanahan said.

I’ve always found it ironic that Kentucky was considered more innovative and successful in the early 1800s, when it was on the edge of the American frontier, than during the past century, when it was at the geographic center of a booming nation.

Maybe success isn’t so much about where you are physically as where you are mentally.

The Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s annual conference in Louisville on Thursday looked at the usual problems that vex this state: health, education and economic development.

But much of the discussion focused on new ways of thinking about and tackling those problems.

Doug Henton, a Versailles-born author and consultant who heads a California company called Collaborative Economics, said Kentucky’s economic future could be much different than its past.

Natural resources, such as rivers and mineral wealth, will be less important in the future. What will be much more important is how human resources are developed.

Globalization of the economy is changing the importance of place and the strategies that states must use to create economic success.

Economic development strategies that focus on tax breaks, cheap labor and low-cost energy will no longer work. That’s because industries that depend on those things have either moved work offshore or eventually will.

What will be important is “quality of life” — creating a place where the best and brightest people want to live and the most innovative companies want to set up shop.

That makes a clean environment important, as well as smart land use and growth strategies, good urban planning and good transportation systems.

The most successful businesses now tend to be small- and medium-size companies that embrace change and are good at networking. Because collaboration is important, companies tend to cluster in areas where ideas can feed off one another.

Local and state governments are often either too little or too big to effectively address issues that will be important in the future, such as growth strategies and transportation, Henton said.

Breaking down old political barriers and promoting regional collaboration will become essential.

Northern Kentucky has had some success with regional cooperation, as has the Louisville area since metro consolidation. Central Kentucky? Not so much.

From his work around the country, Henton said, he has observed that the most successful regional initiatives are bottom-up and collaborative. They are ones in which leaders from government, business, universities, non-profits and citizen groups work together across traditional political boundaries.

“Focus on people and relationships, and not organizations and structures,” Henton said. “It’s about group creativity and regional stewardship, and the regions around the country where this happens seem to have more vibrant economies.”

The basic foundation for any region’s success in the future will be a well-educated population that is able to seize economic opportunities.

“We need well-rounded people who are creative as well as having the basic skills,” he said.

Kentuckians must become more comfortable with change, and more innovative in how they deal with it. One good example is in the way Kentuckians approach energy and the environment.

Peter Meyer, an environmental expert and University of Louisville professor, said climate change is real, and further worldwide restrictions on the burning of coal are inevitable, whether we like it or not.

But while Kentucky faces many challenges, it also has some opportunities.

Kentucky state government is doing good work in improving energy efficiency, especially with the construction of new public schools. The state’s first “net zero” energy use school building will open in Bowling Green next fall.

But state government could be doing more to promote those projects as examples, he said.

Rather than pledging $300 million in state funds for a coal-liquefaction demonstration project, Kentucky officials should put that money toward conservation efforts.

Home electricity consumption is 24 percent above the national average, which means we have a lot of opportunities to do better.

But it will involve a mental shift from Kentucky’s devotion to coal — and to doing things the way they’ve always been done.

“We need to become risk-takers in this environment,” Meyer said.

The old building doesn’t look like much, standing across East Third Street from a demolition site and the King Cobras motorcycle club. A small sign in a window behind a steel-bar security door says: LOT Parrish Rash.

Since early this year, it has been the Land of Tomorrow, an occasional gallery, and the workshop of Parrish Rash & van Dissel, a small company with big ambitions.

PR&vD hopes to encourage artists and industrial designers around the world to innovate by creating new and more profitable ways for them to produce and market their work.

At the company’s workshop last week, there were three projects under way: A high-design chaise being made of Styrofoam and urethane for a Vienna art museum; a stage set for The xx, a British rock band; and another UK professor’s project that involves creating a LED lighting system for a large model of a planned community in China that will be exhibited in Germany.

Upcoming work includes a piece for a show at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and two pieces for a show at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Later this month, LOT will bring collectors from across the country together with an international group of designers represented by the NOUS Gallery of London, England. The event will include a mixed-media show called Boys and Their Toys, which will be on display from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8. The opening reception Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. is open to the public.

Why would these collectors and designers travel thousands of miles for an event in Lexington?

“High-end collectors are looking for new places to discover work,” said LOT founder Drura Parrish. The event will include a dinner, an afternoon at Keeneland and plenty of bourbon. “You sell the destination, not the art.”

It also didn’t hurt that one of the British gallery’s principals, designer Melissa Woolford, is originally from Evansville, Ind., across the Ohio River from Parrish’s hometown of Henderson.

Good connections and a “why not?” attitude have enabled Parrish and his business partner, Rives Rash, to build an international reputation over the past six years by working with contemporary artists and architects to produce their designs. Their work has appeared at such venues as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Vienna’s MAK Center and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Parrish and Rash are faculty members at the University of Kentucky’s College of Design. They’re also workshop wizards who never outgrew playing with sticks and glue.

“The reputation got out there that if you wanted to do something crazy, there’s these guys from Virginia and Kentucky who will help you do something crazy,” said Parrish, who, like Rash, earned a graduate degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

During the past 15 years, technology has revolutionized architecture and design. Parrish, 33, and Rash, 30, have created a niche by exploring the possibilities of new design geometries and materials.

The company’s newest partner, Bart van Dissel, 55, a former Harvard Business School professor and McKinsey & Co. consultant, sees an opportunity for PR&vD to change the economics of design by connecting designers, manufacturers and customers.

That means working with designers to build prototypes and figure out manufacturing processes and costs. PR&vD would do some manufacturing itself and outsource some work to other Kentucky manufacturers.

In addition to fine art, PR&vD is interested in making furniture and household items — really, any object that might be improved by innovative design.

“There needs to be a democratization of design,” Parrish said. “People used to not give a damn about design because they couldn’t afford it.” That is changing as high-design items show up on the shelves of such retailers as IKEA and Target.

Designers haven’t been well-served by traditional retail models, where mass production and big sales volume are necessary and retailers get as much as 60 percent of the price. It gives designers little incentive to innovate or take risks.

For that reason, PR&vD also is interested in exploring new retail models, from online sales to distribution through museum stores.

“The key point is to shift the way the designers do business,” Parrish said. “Our paradigm is simple: Put designers first, and they become the brand.”

PR&vD has begun making several products for sale on www.etsy.com, an arts and crafts site. They include flatware, lamps, chairs and decorative items made from a mix of urethane and tree limbs salvaged from last winter’s ice storm.

There are limits to what can be made in PR&vD’s rented workshop, which also must accommodate the building owner’s bass boat. It is moved around the room as space is needed.

“It adds soul to the workshop,” Parrish said of the bass boat.

“And it reminds us that we don’t go fishing enough,” van Dissel added.

Parrish thinks Kentucky is an ideal place for the kind of creative, specialized manufacturing that PR&vD has in mind. The state has a wealth of aluminum and plastics fabricators who located here for the auto industry but could use more work.

“Kentucky, more than any place I know, is tied to making and doing,” he said. “If we don’t do it as a profession, we often do it as a hobby. It’s just what we do.”

After all, look what PR&vD has done so far with limited equipment in an old building on East Third Street. In the land of tomorrow, what’s important are ideas — and people with the knowledge and connections to make them work.

When Brian and Sara Turner finished their first concert poster in 2003, they wanted to sign it with the name of their studio.

Trouble was, the Lexington couple didn’t have a studio, although it was a dream beginning to form.

What they had was a small workspace in their damp basement, which was infested with crickets.

In a moment of whimsy, a word people sometimes use to describe their distinctive, colorful and eye-catching art, Cricket Press was born.

Now, you can see Cricket Press’ posters and other artwork all over Lexington — and across the country — promoting concerts, small music gigs, festivals, businesses and even weddings.

“Once our work got out there, other bands and venues started contacting us, and it took off from there,” Sara said. “Lexington has been very good to us.”

Cricket Press will be featured in a segment of Kentucky Educational Television’s Kentucky Life show Oct. 17-24. And The Morris Book Shop on Southland Drive will host an event 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 13 where the Turners will sign a book of their art.

Cricket Press is what can happen when two people combine their personal and artistic passions and figure out a way to make both a life and a living.

Sara, 32, a Lexington native, and Brian, 34, of Frankfort, met when they were fine-arts photography students at the University of Kentucky. After graduation and their marriage in 2000, they got good corporate jobs as graphic artists. “We were creating stuff, but we weren’t satisfied,” Brian said.

In addition to art, they loved music, especially indie rock, punk and jazz. They also loved riding bicycles, which are frequently a theme in Brian’s art. As music fans, the Turners came to admire gig poster art and figured out how to make prints using silk screens.

“They taught screen printing at UK, but we never took it,” she said.

The Turners usually begin a piece with a pen-and-ink sketch, which is then digitally scanned and refined. Each piece is hand printed, with a minimum order of 50 pieces. Job prices begin at about $300.

The Turners say they rarely collaborate on pieces. Each has his and her own style and interests, although they say their styles have become more similar.

“I’ve heard people say they can tell a Brian poster from a Sara poster,” he said.

Cricket Press is still a home-based business. In addition to the basement work space, the enterprise has taken over much of their home, with his and her computers in one bedroom, a printing press in another. Print-drying lines are strung across the upstairs hall, and a downstairs room is used for mailing, storage and cleaning screens.

So much work was coming in by 2005 that Brian quit his job to devote himself full time to Cricket Press. Sara works part-time as a graphic artist but doesn’t think it will be long before the business can fully support them both.

In addition to the orders for custom work, the bulk of their business, the Turners sell art prints and note cards through their Web site, www.cricket-press.com, and www.etsy.com, a site for art and craft sales.

Because their personal and artistic relationship is such an important part of Cricket Press, the Turners don’t want their business to get too big for the two of them.

Eventually, though, they would like to have their home back and move Cricket Press into a separate studio.

They want a studio with more room to print larger pieces, and a storefront that would be more convenient for local customers. But no crickets, thank you.

At least 104 of Kentucky’s 120 counties will close a major street for several hours Sunday afternoon and invite people to come out and exercise: run, bike, walk, jog, skate — whatever they like.

In Lexington, Main and Short streets between Rose Street/Elm Tree Lane and Broadway will be closed from about 2 to 7 p.m.

More than 75 local organizations have activities planned around Second Sunday in Lexington — everything from dance classes to bike polo demonstrations. Plus, Biggest Loser TV show finalist Mark Kruger will speak about how he lost 129 pounds by exercising more and eating less.

For details, go to the city’s Web site, www.lexingtonky.gov and click on the Second Sunday icon. For statewide information, go to www.2ndsundayky.com.

It will be a big afternoon. But what happens after that?

In Lexington, a smaller version of Second Sunday will become a monthly event.

Beginning Nov. 8, organizers plan to sponsor a police-escorted bicycle ride on the second Sunday of each month, said Urban County Councilman Jay McChord.

“For a year we’ve been talking about how to make Second Sunday a once-a-month thing, and eventually a once-a-week thing,” McChord said. “This is a start.”

McChord has been one of Second Sunday’s biggest boosters, seeing it as a way to curb Kentucky’s horrible health statistics, which include being a national leader in heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The hope is that these events will inspire people to exercise regularly and adopt healthful lifestyles.

The new monthly 10- to 12-mile bike rides for cyclists of all abilities who are at least age 12 will begin at Cheapside. Each month, the ride will go to a different Lexington park or neighborhood.

The November ride will begin at 2 p.m. and go out Harrodsburg Road to the Beaumont neighborhood, where old farm roads have become trails. Details of each monthly ride will be posted on the city’s Web site, including cancelation information if the weather turns nasty.

Each event will cost organizers about $750 for a police escort, money that will be covered by sponsors. November’s ride is being sponsored by downtown developer Phil Holoubek and his wife, Marnie. Future sponsors include the Legacy Center and Pedal the Planet bike shop.

“The idea is to showcase the bike lanes and trails we already have and the ones we are building,” said Wendy Trimble, co-owner of Pedal the Planet. “We want to get people out more often and maybe give them the confidence in a group setting to get out later on their own. We also hope it will make people realize that 10 miles on a bike isn’t really that far.”

Holoubek said Mayor Jim Newberry and Lexington police officials have been very supportive of the effort. Eventually, the monthly escorted rides could lead to other activities that will get people outside and exercising all year around.

“We can really change the health culture of Kentucky,” McChord said.

It’s no wonder people are frustrated by the debate over health care reform.

The issues are complex. None of the proposed solutions is perfect. And, more often than not, the arguments seem to dissolve into emotional oversimplification.

Besides, there’s a lot of money at stake. Whole business models have been built around the inefficiency of America’s health care industrial complex.

Last Thursday, the Lexington Forum hosted one of the better discussions I’ve heard on the subject.

The panelists were Dr. Michael Karpf, the University of Kentucky’s executive vice president for health affairs; Dr. John White, president of the Kentucky Medical Association; and Melodie Schrader, executive director of the Kentucky Association of Health Plans.

Some points of view weren’t represented, and the discussion lasted only an hour — not nearly long enough to do the subject justice. Still, it was enlightening.

Here’s what I took away:

The key issues are access, cost and quality. Some people want to change the entire health care system. Others want to preserve the status quo — or at least their current coverage or company’s profits.

But the key is figuring out how to control costs, maintain the quality of care and provide access to more of the millions of Americans with little or no access to affordable health care.

Karpf noted that a significant portion of uninsured Americans are young working people. That’s because employer-sponsored health insurance is becoming more scarce because of costs.

America has too few doctors, especially in small towns and rural areas. White estimated that Kentucky needs 2,300 additional doctors to meet national standards.

Many of us will have to give up something. Increasing access and controlling costs will mean people who have insurance now will have less freedom to choose expensive procedures that have little proven effectiveness.

They also won’t be free to forgo coverage. Schrader said the only way to guarantee that everyone can get access to insurance is to require everyone to have it.

Health care companies and insurers must give up some profits. For example, White said, Medicare Advantage programs — enacted during the Bush administration and criticized as government subsidies for insurance companies — should be eliminated, with the money going directly to pay for more Medicare patient care.

Malpractice litigation must be addressed. Republicans see tort reform as a panacea; Democrats dismiss it as insignificant. But the fact is many doctors feel compelled to order expensive tests and treatments of questionable value for fear they’ll be sued if they don’t.

A better balance must be found between protecting patients from medical malpractice and forcing doctors to practice costly “defensive” medicine.

We can’t be distracted by sideshows. For example, some reform critics warn that government bureaucrats will overrule doctors’ medical judgment. White said that is done too often now by insurance-company bureaucrats.

Another sideshow is the debate over coverage for illegal immigrants. As Karpf said, they’ll be treated one way or another to some degree — and somebody will pay for it. They’ll come to emergency rooms after accidents, when they are about to deliver babies or when suffering with serious illnesses or communicable diseases.

We must take more personal responsibility. Karpf noted that the health care economy now is based on fee-for-service, rather than prudent management. That encourages more spending.

Plus, he said, there’s not enough incentive for patients to live healthy lifestyles and make wise choices.

One key to lowering health care costs is to make the cost structure more transparent — and personal. People will use health care services more wisely if they see it’s in the best interest of their own pocketbooks.

Non basta una vita - Italian for “one life is not enough” - was the late John Regis Tuska’s motto to describe his artistic ambitions.

Now, his son is discovering that two lives may not be enough, either.

For the past dozen years, Seth Tuska has worked to preserve and publicize the legacy of his father, a prolific artist and University of Kentucky art professor who died in 1998 at age 67.

Seth Tuska, 51, turned the family home at the corner of Old Park and Central avenues into a museum of his father’s art. He engaged a filmmaker and curator to put together a documentary film about his father and catalog and traveling show of his work.

He sought commercial outlets for reproductions of Tuska pictures and sculptures, which depict the human form in motion. And he started a bronze foundry on Walton Avenue to support regional sculptors.

But last November, after a bronze-pouring at the foundry, Tuska said he went home with a ringing in his ears. Then, on Christmas morning, he awoke at 4 a.m. with an intense pain in his chest. Foolishly, he didn’t see a doctor for three weeks. When he did, he was taken straight in for quadruple heart bypass surgery.

But the worst was still to come.

Tuska said when he resumed normal physical activity in March, the ringing in his ears, which had never really gone away, got much worse. He now suffers from a severe case of tinnitus - a constant sound like cicadas in his head that makes it hard to sleep, read or concentrate.

Tuska said he now needs to deal with his medical crisis and entrust his father’s legacy to others. “I have to move on and figure out what’s ahead for the rest of my life,” he said.

The first public steps in that direction will come Friday. Mayor Jim Newberry is to issue a proclamation honoring John Tuska and his work, and he will accept the loan of a bronze figure, Energy Source, for display at city hall.

That evening, during Gallery Hop, the Kentucky Theatre Gallery will display 18 Tuska pieces. The theater will have two showings, at 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., of  Non Basta Una Vita, a 2008 documentary about John Tuska by Arthur Rouse and Kiley Lane.

Thanks to the event’s sponsors, attendees also will be given a film poster, popcorn and a drink. Tuska said he has worked with local arts educators to distribute many of the 600 tickets to students.

Where things go from there, Tuska said, depends on community interest - both artistic, and financial.

Tuska sold the foundary to artist Amanda Matthews Fields and enlisted a group of community leaders to advise him on how to proceed with setting up a non-profit Tuska Museum and Learning Center foundation to take over the family home and his collection of his father’s art.

Tuska lives upstairs in the home, but is in the process of moving out. He wants to keep the collection of his father’s work in Lexington.

His vision is to continue the home’s first floor museum. But, more importantly, he wants to use the upstairs apartment to house visiting artists and the 2,500-square-foot lower level for educational space.

Downtown developer Phil Holoubek, a member of the advisory group, said several strategies have been discussed. “Seth will have to decide what he feels most comfortable doing,” he said.

Holoubek said the Tuska collection includes outstanding art that could not only enrich the community culturally, but promote economic development.

LexArts President Jim Clark, who for six years directed the New York Public Art Fund, agreed. “If John Tuska had done this work in New York City he would have been a very prominent sculptor,” he said.

Clark sees a lot of potential for the Tuska Museum and Learning Center, if it gets the right leadership that can attract the necessary money.

“Having a house museum is perfect for Lexington,” Clark said. “It is intimate in scale. It’s in a beautiful neighborhood. Anybody flying into Lexington for the (horse) sales, that would be a perfectly lovely discovery. Part of that is just working with what they’ve got and marketing it.”

With more regular museum hours, more advertising and an experienced curator, Clark thinks the Tuska museum could become an important cultural destination. And he thinks Seth Tuska has the right idea about using his father’s legacy to encourage arts education.

In addition to the high quality of John Tuska’s work, Clark said, what made him special was his dedication to teaching. Great artists who also are great arts educators, like Tuska and Centre College’s Stephen Rolfe Powell, are rare.

A learning center that promoted arts education - and honored arts educators with a “Tuska prize” and residency - could put Lexington on the arts map. “That would be a very big deal in this country,” Clark said.

What’s needed now is for people to step up and help Seth Tuska make it happen.

Click on each thumbnail to see complete photo:

With all of the public attention focused on President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation’s school children, I had to wonder: Did the adults learn anything?

Obama urged kids to study hard and not give up, even if they don’t like some classes or things are tough at home. He reminded students that each of them has special abilities, and it’s their responsibility to develop them.

The president acknowledged that, like many of us, he was “a little bit of a goof-off” when he was young. He told kids that success takes hard work, and nobody else will do it for them.

It was a speech that could have been delivered by any responsible leader, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

AP Photo by Stew Milne

It was a pep talk about personal responsibility, not politics. But from the way the right-wing fringe and some Republican Party officials reacted to it beforehand, you would have thought Obama was planning to sprout horns and advocate devil worship.

There was a lot of bluster about Obama “overstepping his authority,” even though previous presidents have made similar speeches. Timid school officials offered opt-outs for students whose parents objected. Cowardly school officials skipped the speech all together.

Steve Robertson, chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, last week called Obama’s plan to speak to children “very concerning and kind of creepy” and an attempt “to circumvent parents” and “gain direct access to our children.”

Robertson and some talk radio entertainers focused on an ill-chosen phrase that federal education bureaucrats used in material prepared for teachers. The phrase, suggesting teachers could have students write letters to themselves about how they can “help the president,” was reworded to how they “can achieve their … education goals.”

It seemed like a lame excuse for objecting to a presidential speech, because that’s exactly what it was.

Some GOP leaders have no interest in working with Obama and other Democrats, whether it’s rebuilding the economy, reforming health care or anything else. They just want to see Obama fail.

The talking heads of the right-wing media relentlessly bash Obama. They shamelessly distort facts, incite fear and call anyone who disagrees with them radical, socialist or even communist. It’s a profitable business model, because gullible listeners lap it up.

Obama is no radical, unless you think “middle of the road” means the right shoulder. But there are radicals out there, on both sides of the political spectrum, and this episode is a good reminder that responsible people should be wary of them.

American politics has always been messy, but it works pretty well. In robust, fact-based discussions among responsible people, ideology usually gives way to artful compromise and practical solutions. One of history’s best examples was Lexington’s own Henry Clay.

On the other hand, history’s ills can usually be traced to political or religious ideology and extremism, from Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany to the Spanish Inquisition and modern Islamic terrorism. Those perpetrators believed they were right and their opponents were evil, and they had no reservations about saying or doing whatever it took to win.

Obama’s agenda and proposals should be carefully studied and vigorously debated. Thoughtful discussion could lead to good compromises, better ideas and ultimately solutions for the nation’s problems, some of which can be traced to past examples of ideology trumping common sense.

That has become more difficult, though, because modern communications technology amplifies the voices of irresponsible extremists, ideologues and the willfully ignorant people who follow them.

The best lesson to take away from the president’s speech to school children is that personal responsibility is a good concept for adults, too.

Lexington was born and grew up around the Town Branch of South Elkhorn Creek, but over the past century we’ve done our best to pollute it, bury it and forget about it.

Water finds its way, though, even if it sometimes needs help.

Town Branch Trail Inc. has been working for a decade to develop a greenway along the creek west of downtown. The first fruits of those labors will be on display next weekend, when the initial two-mile section of the trail is opened with a benefit concert and bicycle rally.

The Freedom Concert, with music by Cora Lee and the Townies and Fifth on the Floor, is at 8 p.m. Friday at the new Buster’s in the restored Old Tarr Distillery, which backs up to the creek on Manchester Street. Admission is $10, with all proceeds going to the trail project.

The next morning at 8:15, the public is invited to meet at Cheapside for a police-escorted 10-mile bicycle ride out and back on roads to the completed trail section off Leestown Road and Alexandria Drive. There will be a hospitality tent at Lewis Manor, a circa 1800 home beside the trail in Marehaven subdivision.

When I walked the trail last week, people were already using it.

Workers had just installed stone-cutter Richard McAlister’s beautiful sandstone benches and furlong posts made of finely crafted “Kentucky marble” limestone. And there were several new signs along the trail explaining Central Kentucky’s landscape, geology and ecology.

Van Meter Pettit, the Lexington architect who put together the trail project, sees it as more than a place to exercise; it’s a way to learn about Lexington’s history and environment. It’s also a way to rehabilitate and protect the watershed and help deal with runoff and pollution problems that have grown with the city.

“There is a compelling story to why we are the way we are that even many natives don’t understand,” he said. For example: Lexington’s downtown is long and narrow because it was built along Town Branch, which now flows beneath Vine Street.

Town Branch runs along the west side of the finished section of trail, just beyond tracks that were part of Kentucky’s first railroad line.

In one section, the trail goes around a giant, centuries-old tree, surrounded by a stand of native cane. When the first pioneers came here 250 years ago, much of the Bluegrass was covered with cane. Now, it’s hard to find.

“This is about as good a snapshot of authentic Kentucky as you can get,” Pettit said.

On the east side of the trail is Central Kentucky’s modern landscape: several new subdivisions.

Efforts to build trails in established neighborhoods often are met with “not in my backyard” opposition. But these subdivisions are new, and many homeowners are building decks and landscaping their yards to take advantage of trail access.

Indeed, subdivision developer Dennis Anderson was key to the Town Branch Trail’s success. That’s because he realized the trail would not only be an amenity for his development, but would help with drainage and be a financially attractive way to use undevelopable land.

“Without him,” Pettit said, “this trail would have been a nice idea that never would have happened.”

With this section of trail finished, Pettit is now turning his attention to another one-mile section that has funding. The remaining five miles is under feasibility study while trail organizers seek money, easements and rights of way.

So far, Town Branch Trail has received about $2 million in grants and other funding and $1 million worth of donated land, Pettit said.

Plans call for the trail to eventually be at least eight miles long, going from this first finished section to downtown. It will end along Manchester Street near Rupp Arena, where developers of the Distillery District plan to rehabilitate the stream and incorporate the trail into their multi-use project.

Eventually, Pettit would like Town Branch Trail to connect with the nine-mile Legacy Trail being built from downtown to the Kentucky Horse Park, as well as other walking and bike paths.

Even further in the future, there is talk of developing a trail beside the railroad line from Lexington to Versailles and eventually Frankfort.

So come out and see this first piece of Town Branch Trail. You’ll get some exercise, learn about Lexington and see how creative people are harnessing our rich heritage to literally pave the way to a better future.

With Second Sunday a little more than a month away, 100 of Kentucky’s 120 counties have plans to participate.

Each county plans to close a street or highway for a few hours Sunday afternoon, Oct. 11, and invite residents to come out to walk, bike, run or jog — and to think about how regular exercise could make them healthier and happier.

That was the basic idea used to launch Second Sunday last year, when 70 counties were involved. This year, though, many communities have more ambitious plans.

“It’s becoming a platform for all kinds of health-related events,” said Diana Doggett, a county extension agent in Lexington who is coordinating the statewide effort.

Dogget said many counties are planning health fairs, “fastest kid in town” races and even arts events.

Lexington will close a mile-long loop downtown — Main to Mill to Short to Deweese streets — from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Related events include bike polo demonstrations, health screenings and martial arts and yoga classes. A bike valet service will be available for cyclists to check their bikes while participating in other activities.

Jessamine County plans similar events downtown, plus a 6k run between West Jessamine and East Jessamine high schools to memorialize a popular coach and student athlete who recently died, Dogget said.

Elliott County’s events include speeches by House Majority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins, a cancer survivor, and a local man who lost 140 pounds without surgery. Festivities end with a concert by bluegrass star Don Rigsby.

Allen County citizens are building a two-mile bike and walking trail on property surrounding a Civil War site, Dumont Hill. Second Sunday activities there will include canon ball bowling.

Newport plans to close Monmouth Street between Fifth and 10th streets. Taylor County will include canoeing on the Green River. Franklin, Scott, Green and Adair counties all have big festivals planned around Second Sunday events.

UK’s Cooperative Extension Service is coordinating Second Sunday plans across the state, and some counties haven’t gotten involved because of vacancies in their extension offices, Dogget said. But anyone can step up and organize local events in those counties — and she hopes people will.

But the point of Second Sunday isn’t to get people outside exercising one day each October; it is to inspire them to start a regular exercise habit.

“What we need to do is change people’s lifestyles,” said Jay McChord, a Lexington councilman who helped create Second Sunday.

McChord also wants Second Sunday to attract national attention — and money — to Kentucky’s effort to shed its ranking as one of the nation’s least-healthy states.

He hopes exposure will attract millions in grant and foundation money to build a trail system throughout Kentucky so communities large and small won’t have to close streets for their citizens to have safe places to walk, run or bike.

Dr. Rick Lofgren, a physician at the University of Kentucky Hospital, appeared with McChord, Legacy Trail organizer Steve Austin and UK Agriculture Dean Scott Smith at the Lexington Forum’s monthly meeting Thursday to talk about trails, better health and Second Sunday.

Lofgren said he practiced in academic hospitals in many parts of the country before coming to UK five years ago. He noted that Kentucky ranks high nationally in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and lung cancer — all of the health problems nobody wants.

“This is the sickest group of patients I’ve ever taken care of,” Lofgren said. “Much of what I see is preventable. It has to do with the lifestyles we have around here.”

Lofgren said regular exercise would help a lot — on Second Sunday, and every other day of the year.

The national debate over health care reform is clouded by ideology, distortion, old myths and misinformation, especially when it comes to the way health care works in other countries.

T.R. Reid, who for many years was a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, tries to cut through some of those with solid reporting in his timely new book: “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.”

Click here to read a Washington Post op-ed piece by Reid that gives an overview.  Click here to read Business Week magazine’s review of the book. Click here to listen to an extended interview Reid did with National Public Radio.

State Rep. Darryl Owens has a good idea; he just hasn’t taken it far enough.

The Louisville Democrat proposed legislation last week that would end a 160-year-old requirement that Kentucky state officers, legislators and lawyers swear they haven’t been dueling.

The state constitution requires them to swear that: “… (I) have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”

The oath never fails to elicit giggles and snickering at otherwise dignified swearing-in ceremonies, and Owens thinks that is bad for Kentucky’s image. Besides, the state’s last known duel was fought in 1867.

I’m for anything that improves Kentucky’s image. And there’s a lot about our 1891 constitution that needs changing. But this issue is worth a closer look.

The Kentucky Encyclopedia says there were 41 duels fought in the state between 1790 and 1867. Sixteen men died, but there were never any prosecutions. In an attempt to end the illegal practice, the oath has been part of Kentucky’s constitution since 1849.

When you think about it, the oath was a smart idea that worked pretty well. That’s because duels were generally fought by ambitious men, the same men who wanted to be Kentucky’s lawyers, legislators and state officials.

So instead of just deleting the archaic anti-dueling language, as Owens wants to do, let’s think about modern illegal activities that persist among the ambitious men and women who now seek to be Kentucky’s lawyers, legislators and state officials.

With that idea in mind, here’s my proposed rewrite of Section 228 of the Kentucky Constitution:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of …. according to law.

And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not lined my pockets nor enhanced my political standing by any of the following means:

■ Paving constituents’ driveways and private roads; buying votes; conspiring with highway contractors to rig or award bids; arranging sweetheart deals to lease or sell my property to public agencies;

■ Accepting money, favors or jobs from lobbyists and special interests; giving government jobs or huge taxpayer-funded raises to my friends, relatives or supporters; steering public work to my businesses; doing special favors for my friends, relatives and campaign contributors; eating high on the hog at fancy restaurants or visiting strip clubs on the public tab; so help me God.

My proposed oath would narrow the field of potential lawyers, legislators and state officials, perhaps urging more honest men and women to get involved in the law and public life. Plus, can you think of a more effective system for term limits?

OK, so maybe it wouldn’t eliminate giggles and snickering at public swearing-in ceremonies. But, like the once-useful dueling ban, it would do a lot to improve Kentucky’s image — and a whole lot more.

After announcing Tuesday that the state would find money to bury power lines along the Newtown Pike extension, Gov. Steve Beshear remarked that if we hadn’t done this project right, we would have regretted it for decades.

He’s right about that. And it’s scary how close it came to being done wrong.

Many people deserve credit for quickly changing the course of this project and saving it from mediocrity, including Beshear, Mayor Jim Newberry and several Urban County Council members.

But after city officials take their bow, they need to take a hard look at why this sort of thing happens too often in Lexington.

The Newtown Pike Extension has been on the drawing board in one form or another since the 1930s. As dreams turned into designs over the past few years, city officials promised the project would create a beautiful new gateway into Lexington, complete with a “signature” bridge.

Somehow, though, those dreams and promises didn’t make it into the state Transportation Cabinet’s blueprints.

Many people — including Urban County Council members — just assumed the power lines would be buried, rather than strung up on poles like those that clutter much of Lexington’s skyline. Not so.

Architects Graham and Clive Pohl, brothers who own property along the Newtown Pike corridor, sounded the alarm after Kentucky Utilities contacted them about buying an easement to string lines.

That created public outcry, prompting Newberry to ask Beshear for state help in paying to bury utilities and the governor to shake loose some Transportation Cabinet contingency money.

“Citizens got our attention on this issue,” Beshear said.

It was a good save all around. But the bigger issue is why the save was needed.

Lexington has come a long way recently in creating a vision for excellence in downtown development. Part of it is a desire to “clean up for company” before the Alltech FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games. Part of it is the realization that quality of life is a key component in economic development.

But if Lexington is to stop settling for second-best, we need to find the missing link that too often keeps vision from becoming reality.

Settling for second-best is how we get buildings like the suburban-style High Street Post Office and the federal prosecutors’ building on Vine Street, which looks like a cheap suburban hotel. It’s how we allow the city’s historic core to be demolished for ego-driven, pie-in-the-sky projects like CentrePointe and the World Coal Center.

We’re getting better with vision, but we often seem to lack the structure, leadership and will to make it happen.

The Downtown Development Authority has traditionally seen its mission as facilitating the plans of private developers, although, since the CentrePointe fiasco, Chairman David Mohney has talked about the need to serve a broader public interest. Still, the DDA has limited power.

Great cities seem to find ways to make developers, businesses, government agencies and utilities build in ways that are good for the whole city and not just themselves.

These cities don’t do it by trying to write rules for everything, or creating dense bureaucracies that discourage development. They do it by requiring that major projects undergo public scrutiny and professional review by people with expertise in urban design and planning.

Last winter, I wrote about how the nine-member Downtown Commission has guided the revitalization of Columbus, Ohio’s urban core. Many other cities also have effective design review boards to make sure new parts of the urban landscape fit in and contribute to the whole. Those boards have broad authority, and they don’t settle for mediocrity.

Distillery District developer Barry McNees said the ability of officials to find a way to bury power lines along the Newtown Pike extension is a promising sign for future development in Lexington.

“It begins to define the kind of urban DNA we want for downtown,” McNees said. “A lot of the concern was, if we’re willing to compromise at the beginning, where will we end up?”