The Bluegrass and Beyond

FRANKFORT — Margaret Robinson Robertson lived in the Old Governor’s Mansion in the early 1840s, when son-in-law Robert Letcher was the governor. Legend has it that her ghost appears whenever evil befalls the house.

The way the place looks now, don’t expect to see her any time soon.

The 211-year-old mansion has just undergone a privately financed $1.5 million face lift so it can take on a new role as the state’s guest house and official entertainment space for the governor.

The magnificent renovation was a statewide, all-volunteer effort involving more than 300 people, including designers, decorators, contractors and donors who each adopted small parts of the mansion.

The renovation will be unveiled later this month with a series of big-ticket events, proceeds from which will benefit the Kentucky Executive Mansions Foundation and Kentucky Equine Humane Center. The home will then be open for $10 public tours Sept. 19 to Oct. 3.

“We wanted the house to be a welcoming spot for people who come to Kentucky,” said David Buchta, state curator and director of the Division of Historic Properties. His office oversaw the renovation with the mansions foundation and Kentucky Historic Properties Advisory Commission.

“It’s a great shrine to Kentucky’s history,” said Steve Collins, chairman of the commission and son of former Gov. Martha Layne Collins.

The home was first occupied in 1798, two years before the White House. For many years, it was the nation’s oldest executive residence.

The mansion housed 33 Kentucky governors until 1914, when the current governor’s mansion was built beside the “new” Capitol. From 1956 to 2002, the old mansion housed 10 lieutenant governors.

Eight U.S. presidents have visited the mansion, from James Monroe to Bill Clinton, as well as such notables as Henry Clay, Aaron Burr and William Jennings Bryan.

“There’s no other house in Kentucky that has been used like this one — that has the stories and history and reputation,” said Collins, a Shelbyville lawyer and funeral director.

The General Assembly put up money to build the governor’s mansion in 1795 after the state’s first governor, Isaac Shelby, convinced lawmakers that a rented log cabin just wouldn’t do. It was completed in 1798.

Although the mansion’s federal-style exterior was rather plain, it was called the Palace when Shelby’s successor, James Garrard, became its first occupant. It was the first home in Frankfort with carpet. A crowd gathered when the city’s first piano was delivered to its parlor.

Two men who helped build the house later lived there: Thomas Metcalfe, a stonemason who helped lay the foundation, was governor from 1828 to 1832; and Letcher, who helped lay the Flemish-bond brick, was governor from 1840 to 1844.

The house hasn’t been occupied since 2002, when then-Lt. Gov. Steve Henry moved out to make way for a renovation. Last year, the idea emerged to turn the home into a state guest house, like Blair House in Washington.

(Francis Preston Blair, by the way, was a Frankfort journalist who moved to the nation’s capital in 1830. Seven years later, he took up residence in the Pennsylvania Avenue house that now bears his name.)

First lady Jane Beshear, former first lady Phyllis George and Meg Jewett, owner of the L.V. Harkness & Co. gift shop in Lexington, led the renovation effort. They and others recruited volunteers and donors from all over.

Longwood Antique Woods of Lexington donated flooring for the downstairs powder room. The wood came from the Lexington barn of 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral.

Louisville artist Sandy Kimura donated nine weeks of her time to paint a mural around the main hall in the style of early 19th-century Zuber wallpaper. It incorporates Kentucky scenes, such as Daniel Boone looking across the Cumberland Gap and the gentlemen on the state seal shaking hands, for which Buchta and Collins posed in period wigs.

“I’m going to get it out and wear it to some of the events,” Collins joked.

The house now contains a treasure trove of Kentucky furniture and art. There’s a rare 1815 cherry Sheraton sideboard in the dining room, thought to be the work of a Maysville cabinetmaker. Other items include chairs from Henry Clay’s law office, and modern Appalachian furniture and crafts that furnish a third-floor bedroom.

Other furniture and art has been donated or is on loan from the state, the Kentucky Historical Society, the Speed Museum, the Filson Club, the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, the Rebecca and Jay Rayburn Collection and several individuals.

Recognizable to many Kentuckians will be four original paintings by Paul Sawyier, whose Kentucky landscapes from a century ago remain popular as prints.

“Every room has something significant,” Buchta said. “Without the generosity of a lot of people, this project wouldn’t have been nearly as successful.”

As a former resident of the mansion, Collins said he is especially appreciative of all of the people who have made it a showplace.

Collins was a student at Georgetown College when his mother was elected lieutenant governor in 1979. He lived in a third-floor bedroom and remembers the mansion as a busy place that was used for many public functions.

Collins said he encountered many people in the mansion, but not the ghost of Margaret Robinson Robertson.

“We never saw her,” he said. “But we felt very safe when we lived here.”

• If you go

  Kentucky Mansion Celebration

  ■ First Ladies’ Luncheon, noon, Sept. 15, $110.

  ■ Brunch in the Garden with Jon Carloftis, 11 a.m. Sept. 16, $110.

  ■ Governor’s Barbecue & Unbridled Spirits, 7 p.m. Sept. 17, $210.

  ■ Preview Gala, 7 p.m. Sept. 18, $300.

  ■ Public tours, Sept. 19-Oct. 3. $10.

  For tickets and more information, go to www.kymansioncelebration.org or call (502) 226-6440.

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This seems to be Kentucky month on the small screen. If you didn’t like Diane Sawyer’s view, KET has something completely different.

Our Kentucky, an hour-long video valentine to the state’s scenic beauty, debuts on KET1 Saturday at 8 p.m. as part of the network’s annual on-air fundraiser. In tone and content, it couldn’t be more different from Sawyer’s report on systemic poverty in Appalachia for ABC’s news magazine 20/20.

It’s coincidence that these TV programs came out within two weeks of each other. In many ways, they represent the two sides of Kentucky’s coin — both begging us to scratch below the surface.

In Our Kentucky, KET’s videographers visited Kentucky’s most beautiful places, bathed in golden sunlight and rendered in high-definition splendor. We see panorama after panorama, set to majestic music and evocative narration by Nick Clooney.

There are fawns grazing in mountain meadows at sunrise, geese flying in formation framed by the setting sun, egrets swimming in misty cypress swamps. The camera lingers on such places as Chained Rock in Bell County, Natural Bridge in Powell County and Pennyrile State Forest in Christian County.

We see historic homes, foals romping across manicured Bluegrass pastures and the awe-inspiring cathedrals of Covington. There’s the 21st century skyline of Louisville, the 19th century skyline of Augusta and distilleries as noted for their quaint charm as for their fine bourbon.

It’s an idyllic view of Kentucky — true, as far as it goes.

Sawyer’s documentary, A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains, follows the lives of several poor children and young people in Eastern Kentucky. They’re shown trying to survive in a seemingly hopeless environment of poverty, drug abuse and a lack of enough good food, healthcare, education and economic opportunity. The report is true, as far as it goes.

The documentary attracted 10.9 million viewers nationwide when it aired Feb. 13 — the biggest 20/20 audience in more than four years. As expected, it drew fire from some Kentuckians who saw it as nothing more than a rehash of old stereotypes. After all, Sawyer could have found plenty of poor people on the cab ride out of New York to catch her plane.

Some complained that the program and a brief ABC News followup didn’t do enough to highlight progress and the efforts Kentuckians have made to help their less-fortunate neighbors.

Others, however, have responded with introspection, asking what more Kentuckians could do. Some of the most thoughtful reaction I have seen has been on WYMT-TV in Hazard, which could teach many big-city stations a thing or two about public-service broadcasting.

Appalachian scholar Ron Eller of the University of Kentucky, who appeared briefly in the documentary, wishes Sawyer, a Kentucky native, had focused more on the root causes of Eastern Kentucky’s problems and why so many efforts to solve them have failed.

“On the other hand, I think the program was quite successful at drawing attention to the persistence of poverty and social inequity in the Commonwealth,” he said.

National attention is helpful, Eller said. Ultimately, though, Kentuckians must create the modern economy, honest government and adequate infrastructure needed to lift Appalachia.

I missed Sawyer’s documentary when it first aired, so I watched it online Monday evening, immediately after viewing a preview DVD of Our Kentucky. In an odd way, watching them together made both more thought-provoking.

You won’t see any strip mines in Our Kentucky, no scalped mountaintops, factory hog farms or polluted streams. The Bluegrass meadows aren’t bordered by strip malls, big-box stores, McMansion cul-de-sacs or sprawling developments of cookie-cutter homes.

“The aspects of pride we have in who we are and where we live are often at odds with the way of life we have chosen for ourselves,” Eller noted. “But out of that strong sense of place could come actions to protect that land and the quality of life.”

Neither Sawyer’s documentary nor Our Kentucky tell the whole story. It would be asking too much to expect them to. But they’re both worth watching, because together they show Kentuckians what needs fixing — and why it’s worth the effort.

Kentucky has no shortage of organizations trying to lift the state up from the bottom of various national rankings of social and economic progress.

So I thought I would report on one of the first and most successful of these groups, the Committee for Kentucky, and what today’s do-gooders — and public officials — might learn from it.

I hadn’t heard of the Committee for Kentucky until last month, when I was rummaging through the shelves of the used-book store in the basement of Lexington’s Central Library.

I came across a tattered copy of Kentucky on the March, which was published in 1949 to tout the committee’s work. The book had endorsement blurbs from Vice President Alben Barkley and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The cover illustration cracked me up: A Kentucky colonel, lit cigar in hand, purposely striding toward “progress.”

The Committee for Kentucky was formed in 1944 and headed by Harry Schacter, the book’s author and president of the now-defunct Louisville department store Kaufman-Straus. Even without the sanctimonious tone of writing so popular in that era, the book makes clear why the committee was formed: Kentucky was a mess.

One in four native Kentuckians had left the state in the early 1940s for jobs elsewhere. One in three Kentucky children received no education; seven of eight never graduated from high school. Kentucky had the nation’s second-highest rate of illiteracy. Poverty and ill-health were rampant.

The committee’s founders, hardened by the Great Depression and energized by World War II, began by engaging the state’s academic community in studying how Kentucky had gotten in such sorry shape.

The conclusion was that Kentucky in the early 1900s hadn’t invested in education or in developing a modern economy and infrastructure. Like most other Southern states except North Carolina, Kentucky had looked backward rather than forward. There was a “clannish family society” and a lack of diversity in the work force.

The committee concluded that among the biggest issues facing Kentucky were these: Health, education, economic development, the use of natural resources, a hopelessly outdated constitution and a visceral aversion to taxes.

And there was this observation: “Somehow Kentuckians diverted to politics the social energy which should have gone into improving business, developing industry, and extending educational and welfare services. Because of our tremendous preoccupation with politics, we seem to have earned the slogan that ‘politics are the damndest in Kentucky.’”

Sixty years later, does any of this sound familiar?

The committee then set out to create what it called a “moral climate” for change, using weekly newspaper columns, radio programs, school essay contests and community meetings and projects.

Schacter wrote that some powerful business interests didn’t support the committee’s work. “Those who were the beneficiaries of the status quo were not at all interested in any change,” he wrote. “Those who were victims of the status quo were too apathetic to be much concerned about change.”

The committee also faced opposition because it included representatives of organized labor and the African American community, an especially radical move in the 1940s.

Still, the committee sparked civic engagement across the state, contributed to the creation of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and spearheaded a bipartisan effort that led to tax increases for better roads, schools and social services. The committee’s efforts lay the groundwork for several progressive governors who followed. (But we’re still stuck with that hopelessly outdated constitution.)

In the book, Schacter cites several keys to the committee’s success:

It didn’t sugar-coat Kentucky’s problems. Evidence was gathered and problems publicized. Real, practical solutions were proposed and fought for.

The committee avoided taking sides politically, always emphasizing that its only agenda was improving the lives of Kentuckians. “This was important because the people of Kentucky take their politics so seriously that they have a tendency to read political bias into every important public activity,” Schacter wrote.

The committee operated on little money and refused state appropriations to maintain its independence.

After almost six years of work and accomplishment, the committee voted itself out of existence in 1950. It wanted to avoid the temptation to become a self-perpetuating bureaucracy.

Kentucky has made a lot of progress since the 1940s, but other states have made more. We remain near the bottom of many national rankings of social and economic progress, despite six decades of good work of many public-interest groups.

At the moment, we seem to have our hands full trying to survive the current economic slump. But once this crisis has passed, what’s the next step, and the next?

What will it take to create the “moral climate” in Kentucky to really invest for success in the 21st Century and beyond?

Some Kentuckians will believe anything, unless they hear it from a person well educated on the subject.

Historians have long noted Kentucky’s anti-intellectual streak, which has helped keep the state near the bottom of national rankings in education, income and other measures of progress.

In addition to the Second Sunday road-closing events on Oct. 12 in 71 of Kentucky’s 120 counties, several free activities are planned at Kentucky State Parks.  Here’s a summary of them from a parks press release:

Barren River Lake State Resort Park, Lucas

Barren River staff will lead an interpretive hike along the 1-mile Connell Nature Trail.  This hike takes approximately 1.5 hours and goes through a heavily wooded area. Participants will see a variety of trees and possibly some of the wildlife, which could include our triplet and twin white tail deer fawns.  Participants should wear comfortable clothes, hiking boots or tennis shoes (no flip flops). Bring along drinking water and apply sunscreen.  Hikers should meet in front of the lodge at 1 p.m. CST.  Terrain is easy-to-moderate.

Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park, Mount Olivet

Blue Licks will close a major portion of the park to vehicle traffic from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Children and adults can enjoy walking the park roads, riding bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, etc.

Buckhorn Lake State Resort Park, Buckhorn

Buckhorn Lake State Resort Park’s first 2-mile Back to Nature Walk begins in front of the lodge at 2 p.m.  Most of the walk will be on blacktop, with a small portion on gravel.   In addition, local health departments and clinics will provide services and tips.

Columbus-Belmont State Park, Columbus

This is the weekend of the Civil War Days event.  Festivities will include a “ghost walk” on Friday night that goes through park trails, which are earthworks built by Confederates during the Civil War.

Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park, Burkesville

Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park will offer a guided hike to Eagle’s Point at 4 p.m. This is a moderate 1.6-mile hike out to a beautiful overlook of the lake.  Learn about park and lake history and native wildlife, and see the fall foliage.

Greenbo Lake State Resort Park, Greenup

A Fern Valley hike begins at the trail head at the Jesse Stuart Parking Lot at 2 p.m. The walk will be at an easy pace and last about an hour. Greenbo also has hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails for all levels of expertise.

As for almost every other day of the year, Kentucky’s state park system has more than 250 miles of hiking trails of various levels of difficulty.  Find more information at www.parks.ky.gov.

Kentuckians are among the nation’s least healthy people. All of the surveys show it. Many of us smoke, most of us don’t get enough exercise and almost all of us have a deep and abiding love for fried, salty and sugary food.

We also know Kentucky is a poor state, with little money available to build gyms, pools or trails for walking and biking.

All of that is why many people who attended Lexington’s first Bike Summit a year ago were struck by a presentation from Gil Peñalosa, the former parks director of Bogotá, Colombia.

“He said, ‘You have the best bike and pedestrian infrastructure in the world already in place. You just have cars running up and down it all the time,’” Urban County Councilman Jay McChord recalled.

Peñalosa is famous for starting Ciclovia, an event that since 1976 has closed 70 miles of Bogotá’s streets to motorized traffic for seven hours each Sunday so people can come out to walk, bike, exercise and socialize. (Click here to see a short video of former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa discussing these issues.)

Several American cities have followed Bogotá’s lead. On three Saturdays in August, New York City banned motorized vehicles from seven miles of Park Avenue, all the way from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. Thousands of New Yorkers came out to walk and roller blade and to ride bikes, skateboards, strollers, wheelchairs and even grocery carts.

No state has tried such a thing — until Kentucky, this Sunday.

The event is called Second Sunday, and between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., at least 1 mile of a prominent street will be closed in 71 of Kentucky’s 120 counties for a street party that focuses on health and fitness.

In Lexington, Limestone will be closed from Third Street south to the Avenue of Champions. There will be a band playing at each end, and musicians will stroll through the crowd.

The courthouse square will be have a health fair and games for all ages. There will be stationary bikes for those who don’t want to ride in the street, and tandem bikes for those who want to ride with someone whose eyesight is better than theirs. There will be tai chi and bike polo demonstrations, a stroller workout and a dog bone hunt.

At 4 p.m., police will escort ambitious cyclists who want to ride out to Paris Pike — some even plan to ride to Paris and back.

“We want to make this a 21st-century parade where there are no bystanders,” said Diana Doggett, a University of Kentucky extension agent in Fayette County.

Lexington’s effort has been championed by McChord and Mayor Jim Newberry, with a lot of work being done by Doggett and Kenzie Gleason, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, among others. A dozen Lexington companies and organizations have signed on as sponsors of Second Sunday, and the Downtown Lexington Corp. has coordinated with businesses on and near Limestone to be open.

UK’s Cooperative Extension Service, which is coordinating the statewide effort, put out the challenge at a meeting in June that included teams of officials from 50 counties. Doggett said the response has been overwhelming, and many counties that couldn’t get something together for Sunday are already planning events for the second Sunday of October 2009.

The initial goal is to make Second Sunday an annual event. Or maybe a monthly event. In some places, it could even become a weekly event, giving small towns a hook to attract visitors.

McChord sees even bigger possibilities.

One of his interests is building more walking and bike paths. McChord, 40, grew up in the south Lexington suburbs and remembers how important the ball fields built at Shillito Park in the 1970s were to him.

“So I’ve thought, what could I do that my daughter’s generation would look back on?” he said.

McChord decided it was building recreational trails. His first effort has been a proposed 8-mile, multi-use path in his south Lexington district that he’s calling the HealthWay trail. It would connect Waveland State Shrine, Shillito and Wellington parks and major shopping centers in the area. He’s also among those working to create the Legacy Trail, which would connect downtown Lexington to the Kentucky Horse Park.

With the small amount of money now available, it would take forever to build a decent multi-use trail system in Kentucky. For example, McChord said, state officials last year had $13 million in various funds to build bike and pedestrian trails, but got requests for $75 million. And many counties didn’t bother to ask, because they knew funds were limited.

So, what if Kentucky could tap into more of the millions and millions of dollars that private foundations across America give each year to promote health, wellness and community life?

“What Second Sunday is designed to do is make a national statement that we are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” McChord said. He thinks Kentuckians could use Second Sunday “to cast ourselves as the lovable big loser” — like the characters in the popular weight-loss TV show.

“At the end of the day, we can take our biggest liability and turn it to our advantage,” he said. “We can make a statement that allows us to ask for help.”

So, think of Second Sunday as a first step — or pedal stroke — to a healthier Kentucky.

Teller, the quiet half of the famous magic team Penn & Teller, started his speech at the Idea Festival by pulling a carpenter’s hammer from his coat pocket and placing it at the edge of the stage.

Teller said he planned to reveal some secrets of his magic, but he didn’t want videos of it showing up on YouTube. So he asked audience members to use the hammer to smash any video cameras they saw among them.

That introduction drew laughs. Many others were simply surprised to hear Teller, who is usually silent on stage, actually speak.

As it turned out, Teller was a terrific speaker, and he explained how he performs one of his most difficult illusions — making a red ball dance around in thin air. Let’s just say it has to do with thread, skill and lots and lots of practice.

Some magicians want to keep their secrets secret.  But Teller said his theory is this: “If you know how a trick is done, you’ll like it more, not less.”

During the explanation, he offered several insights into magic tricks and illusions and why they work, such as:

“Magic’s cause and effect are linked by poetry instead than physics.”

“Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself.”

Teller may be one of the world’s most famous illusionists, but that doesn’t mean he no longer needs to practice.  In fact, he said he spends much of his time practicing tricks over and over to improve his skill and make them look effortless.

“The muses don’t drop by unless you keep regular office hours,” he said.

There is no shortage of international  prizes honoring flashy, provocative, beautiful or breathtaking architecture and design.

The new $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize, administered by the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, is different.

The first Curry Stone Design Prize was awarded Thursday at the Idea Festival in Louisville to a South African architecture firm that, working without pay, designed and is building 10 houses for poor people in Capetown. The houses are made of timbers of wood and steel and bags filled with sand. They cost less than $7,000 each and can be built by their owners.

Beautiful? Provocative?  Not in the world of architecture. But for a world where it is estimated that 1 billion people — about 15 percent of the population — live in shanties, projects like this have the ability to reshape the way much of humanity lives.

That was the idea when Clifford Curry and his wife, H. Delight Stone, of Oregon decided to create the prize as part of a $5.5 million gift to UK. Curry had been a successful architect, pioneering the design of housing for elderly people. Curry, a UK architecture graduate, wanted to honor breakthrough design ideas that improve the human spirit, increase awareness of the environment or responde to areas of human need.

Like the famous MacArthur “genius” grants, the Curry Stone Prize comes with no strings attached.

“The concept is they can do whatever they darn well please” with the money, Curry said. “These are motivated people. I want them to figure that out.”

MMA Architects principal Luyanda Mpahlwa, 49, was unable to get a U.S. visa to attend the ceremony because of his anti-Apartheid work in South Africa years ago. But in a telephone interview, Mpahlwa said he expects to use some of the money to continue this sort of work, as well to expand a scholarship program for architects he has started in South Africa.

“There is a lot of need for these projects,” he said. “I am starting to look at what other materials combinations and types we could use. We want to take part in a body of knowledge that contributes to local housing situations.”

MMA was chosen from among five finalists; the others attended the ceremony and received $10,000 cash awards. Thirty anonymous nominators around the world suggested candidates, and a panel of judges met in New York in July to choose four finalists and a winner.

David Mohney, a College of Design faculty member, former dean and secretary of the prize, said MMA was chosen because it is an example of using conventional architecture in an unconventional way to promote social good. But all of the finalists had amazing stories to tell.

Wes Janz, 55, an associate professor of architecture at Ball State University in Indiana, helps people in third-world slums build well-designed housing from scavenged materials. Marjetica Potrc, 55, an artist and architect from Slovenia, works in impoverished communities. One project she discussed was a toilet that doesn’t need water that has been used in shanty communities in Guatemala. Antonio Scarponi, 34, an architect based in Venice, Italy, uses architecture and multimedia arts to illustrate social and political lines that unite and divide people.

The most unconventional finalist was Shawn Frayne, 27, an inventor in Hawaii, who has invented the first non-turbine wind-powered generator. It is small and looks like a violin bow. It uses wind to create very cheap electricity that can replace batteries. It can be used to power lamps, run small refrigerators and charge cell phones.

“Harder problems make for better inventions,” said Frayne, who created the generator after visiting Haiti and thinking that poor people there needed cheaper and safer sources of light than kerosene lanterns. “The problems in emerging countries are no longer isolated, but are showing up everywhere in the world.”

Emiliano Gandolfi, an Italian architect who led a panel discussion of the finalists at the Idea Festival, said the Curry Stone Design Prize recognizes a new sensibility among architects and designers, especially young ones like him, that design is about more than creating beautiful things. It can be about improving the human experience at all levels.

“What we are discovering is a new sensibility,” he said.

Michael Speaks, dean of the UK College of Design, said he’s glad to see the university on the forefront of that movement.

“Many people understand design to be the engine of innovation,” he said. “This prize recognizes social innovation and not just commercial innovation.”

The great thing about the Idea Festival is that you can bounce from session to session, topic to topic, idea to idea.

This morning, I heard neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik, author of Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, talk about brain surgery. “Brain surgery is not exactly rocket science,” she said. Yea, right. In addition to a lot of interesting insights into her work and medical science, she had some good advice for anyone facing a mysterious illness: The most important question to ask a doctor trying to make a diagnosis is, “What else could it be?”

Neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik speaks at the Idea Festival. Photo by Tom Eblen

A little later, crossword puzzle master Will Shortz was talking about the world of puzzles and the people who design and work them. Shortz, by the way, grew up on an Arabian horse farm in Crawfordsville, Ind.  When he isn’t editing crosswords for The New York Times or talking about them on National Public Radio, his passion is table tennis.  Who knew?

But the most challenging sessions may have been the first ones this morning. Festival attendees walked quickly from room to room at the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville for a series of 12-minute sessions on everything from opera to time travel to how people form beliefs. The presenters handled the strict time limits with varying degrees of success.  For example, physics professor Suketu Bhavsar, who talked about the concept of time travel, had little concept of time. He went way over limit, creating a crowd in the hallway waiting to get into his next session.

There was a session on how to write a screenplay, presented by Mark Shepherd and Brad Riddell, who teach at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.  It’s a two-year academic program, but they compressed the key concepts into 12 minutes by talking very, very fast.  Don’t have two years to spare?  Here are the basics of writing a screenplay:

It should be able to be read quickly. Have a good story to tell and tell it well. Don’t be boring. Your story needs a “hook” — a simple premise that will appeal to the audience emotionally and have some “extraordinary” element. “Scripts are essentially actor bait,” Riddell said. “Movies don’t get made without strong actors.”  Focus on imagery and action, not fancy dialogue. “You should almost be able to turn off the sound and know what’s going on” in a movie, Shepherd said. Aim for maximum audience engagement and a character the audience will care about. Build suspense. A main character must want something badly and face significant opposition. Conflict must be created. There must be a satisfying ending.

There you have it.

A South African architecture firm that has pioneered simple, affordable housing that poor Capetown families can largely build themselves has won the first $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize.

The new prize, administered by the University of Kentucky’s College of Design, is intended to recognize breakthrough work being done around the world that uses design to accomplish humanitarian goals.

MMA Architects of Capetown is headed by Luyanda Mpahlwa, 49, and Mphethi Morojele, 45. It came up with a design for a house made of timber supports and sandbags that a family or community can construct for less than $7,000.  The firm is helping a Capetown neighborhood build 10 of the structures.

MMA Architects was one of five finalists for the award, and the only one not able to attend the announcement today at the Idea Festival in Louisville. Because of post-911 security, Mpahlwa was unable to get a U.S. visa because he had been imprisoned years ago when blacks were resisting white rule in South Africa.

The other finalists, who will receive $10,000 prizes, are Shawn Frayne, inventor of the world’s first non-turbine wind-powered generator; Wes Janz, architect and associate professor of architecture at Ball State University in Indiana; artist and architect Marjetica Potre; and Antonio Scarponi, an Italian architect and multimedia artist.  All have used design to help solve health and housing problems in poor, developing parts of the world.

Click here to view videos of each finalist’s work.

Clifford Curry, co-founder of the prize, said there are no restrictions on how the winners use the prize money.

“The concept is they can do whatever they darn well please,” he said. “These are motivated people. I want them to figure that out.”

The afternoon session of the Idea Kentucky conference was basically a big brainstorming session.

After hearing from the speakers, the 240 or so attendees passed around microphones and expressed their ideas. The moderators asked for ideas about investments Kentucky could make in developing people and talents that could produce “transformational” change within 10 years. It was a tall order.

The audience was heavy with educators, and there was a class of high school students from Breckinridge County. So many of the ideas had to do with improving education.

Russ Meredith, a University of Louisville senior, addresses the audience during the afternoon brainstorming session.

Larry Hujo, a Jefferson County school board member, suggested more apprenticeship programs to help students learn job skills. At the same time, though, he thought there should be more classes that teach students how to think, rather than commit facts to memory. “We’ve got to have classes in our schools that teach creativity,” Hujo said, remembering how his father once told him, “Son, you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Other education ideas:

• Restore physical fitness programs, and recess time, because students learn many life skills on the playground.
• Move to year-around schools, rather than having long summer breaks.
• Pay teachers much better, but also abolish tenure to weed out lazy, ineffective teachers.
• Require teachers to visit the home of each student for dinner one time during the year, as is done in some places in Japan.
• Create better scholarship programs that help students with the cost of higher education and provide incentives for them to remain in Kentucky after graduation.
• Encourage employers to provide more tuition reimbursement and other continuing education benefits to keep workforce skills sharp and up-to-date. Also encourage employers to be more flexible in helping workers achieve work-life balance.
• Create school-based innovation funds that could finance ideas for solving community problems.

Aside from education, the ideas were all over the map.  One man suggested rebuilding old railroad beds and reopening commuter train service, at least among Lexington, Louisville and Northern Kentucky. It would be good for economic growth, and good for the environment.

Russ Meredith, a University of Louisville senior who also manages a farmer’s market, suggested more promotion of local foods, including using local foods in school cafeterias. A woman suggested more support for community-owned businesses, and urged people to shop less at Wal-mart.  (It wasn’t mentioned, but Wal-mart is now Kentucky’s biggest private employer, with more than 32,000 workers.)

A man suggested requiring public buildings to be meet LEED environmental construction standards. A woman said Kentucky’s forests could be developed more — not just for cutting timber to be shipped elsewhere, but to develop finished wood-products companies.

Another woman suggested that heavy-smoking, tobacco-growing Kentucky should set a goal for becoming a “smoke free” state as an example to the rest of the world.

Several people suggested more development of alternative energy sources, and new ways to use coal that would be more environmentally friendly.

Len Peters, secretary of the state Energy and Environment Cabinet, talked about the potential for more efficient power plants, noting that the average age of Kentucky’s plants is about 35 years old, and 50 years is generally considered maximum life. “There’s a tremendous opportunity for (Kentucky’s energy profile) to look very different than it does today,” he said.

Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corp., the Idea Festival’s founder, said he was pleased with the conference, and the ideas that came from it, even if they weren’t necessarily bolt-of-lighting revelations. “A transformational strategy involves multiple ideas,” he said.

Which ideas did Kimel think were most promising?  He liked restarting commuter rail service in the Golden Triangle, and requiring teachers to visit students’ homes to help get parents more involved in their children’s education. He also thought that becoming a “smoke-free” state was an intriguing idea, whatever form it might take.

All in all, it was a good warmup for a week devoted to ideas.  What ideas do you have to add to the mix?  Comment below.

Jeffrey Manber is a New York entrepreneur who works around the world helping develop commercial applications for space and space travel.

In his remarks to the Idea Kentucky conference today, he focused on the need to create an innovation economy rather than a commodity economy.  It’s a concept that resonates in Kentucky, which has long had commodities at its economic core: Coal, timber, tobacco, etc.

Manber said Iceland presents an interesting example. In the early 1980s, it had high unemployment and an old-world economy based on commodity — fishing. Iceland’s leaders decided then to focus on creating an economy for the modern age, so they invested heavily in education, technology and creativity. And they weren’t afraid to take risks.

Now Iceland, with a population a little smaller than metro Lexington’s, has full employment, an exploding consumer market, a hip culture, growing eco-tourism and geothermal energy industries and big technology companies.

“We’re going to have to train our young people to focus on the new economy,” Manber said.

Manber said the United States has a key strength: The freedom of individual decision-making. People succeed in this country based on their ideas and their work ethic, rather than their pedigree or social standing. “They don’t do that in most places in the world,” he said. “We have this flexibility that no one else has.”

However, a key weakness is that Americans are reluctant to travel elsewhere in the world and learn from others. “We don’t mind people coming here, but we don’t think we can go learn from others,” he said.

Manber said the biggest immigration problem facing the United States isn’t what most people think it is — illegal workers coming to take low-wage jobs.  The real problem is that it’s difficult for talented people from other countries to come work legally for high-tech, top-performing American countries.

“The free flow of talent is as important as the free flow of currency has been for the past 20 years,” he said.

Manber said the United States also must get used to the notion that it must be more creative and innovative, because we’re no longer the world’s only superpower.  To keep its economic edge, the United States and Kentucky must invest more in education and innovation.

He noted that India’s focus on education is not only transforming that country, but India is sending talented, well-educated professionals throughout the world. He cited figures that 38 percent of U.S. physicians and 12 percent of U.S. scientists are from India, as are the CEOs of several of this nation’s top companies.

Here at the Idea Kentucky conference, people are taking notes, taking photos and recording audio and video. And then there’s Keith Bendis, a graphic artist and cartoonist from New York state, who has been brought in to capture the conference’s main themes in drawings.

Bendis is working along one side of the big conference room at the Muhammad Ali Center, on three big white boards with a fist full of magic markers. As speakers speak, he draws.

“It’s called graphic recording,” said Bendis, who has been in this business a little more than three years after a three-decade career in cartooning and graphic arts in New York City. “I capture the main themes of the presentations graphically. People remember things more visually than just listening to them. People really respond to these.”

Bendis will keep his board up all day, then take it home, photograph it and turn it into a PowerPoint presentation for Idea Kentucky organizers.

Photos by Tom Eblen.  Click photos to enlarge them.

Before Gov. Steve Beshear spoke at the first Idea Kentucky conference today in Louisville, the stage for discussion was set by organizer Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corp. and Michael Childress of the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center.

“I think there’s a palpable sense in Kentucky that we need a different path for this state,” said Kimel, who also is the force behind the international Idea Festival that will follow this conference, Thursday through Friday in downtown Louisville.

“It’s not about the sky falling,” he said. “It’s about finding ways to change the trajectory for the Commonwealth in a lot of different issues. We’re not going anywhere unless we do some things dramatically different. In today’s world, it’s about breakthrough innovation.”

Childress outlined four areas he hoped the afternoon discussions would focus on: Economy, education, healthcare and energy. “We know it’s possible to do better” in all of those areas, he said.

He showed statistics that told how Kentucky’s per-capita income was 65 percent of the national average in 1950. That had grown to 81 percent by 2006. Funny thing is, we were still 46th among the states. In other words, we were not making progress compared to the rest of the country.

Childress noted that because Kentucky’s economy is so tied to manufacturing, the state uses twice as much energy as the national average in overall economic production. And only 3 percent of the energy used in Kentucky is from renewable sources. That could be a liability as energy prices increase and environmental concerns grow more acute.

Kimel noted that incremental improvement is no longer good enough for Kentucky, if, indeed, it ever was. At the current rate of income growth, it would take 154 years for Kentucky to reach the national average, he said.

Technology now allows work to move to people, rather than forcing people to move to where work is. That could be a big advantage to Kentucky if the state can create a more innovative culture and invest more in developing and attracting talented, creative people, Kimel said.

“In today’s world, it’s all about people and talent and creative capacity,” Kimel said. “There is a perception of this state that while we have a lot of things gong for us, we’re not a place of innovation.”

Gov. Steve Beshear kicked off the first Idea Kentucky conference in Louisville this morning by calling for more innovation and action in Kentucky.

“This is no time to be wishy-washy,” Beshear told about 200 leaders from across the state who came to the conference at the Muhammad Ali Center. “We keep doing things the same way and expecting different results. If we don’t watch out, we’re going to fall further and further behind.

“We have to be bolder. We have to be more aggressive. And we have to take action now.” Beshear said, adding that he hoped the conference would be a “Pep rally for boldness.”

Beshear outlined several areas where he thought bold action was needed:

Citizens in Kentucky, which has the nation’s highest adult smoking rate and one of the highest obesity rates, must take more individual responsibility for improving their health. A more healthy population would save millions, if not billions, in future healthcare costs that could be invested more productively, he said.

Kentucky must stop living in the past, using outdated and often failed economic development strategies that produce only incremental improvement. Instead, he said, the state must invest aggressively in innovation, education and technology.

“We must invest in modernizing our economy,” he said. “Ideas without resources are just clever ideas.”

Beshear urged more investment in early childhood education and healthcare. Many Kentucky children don’t get any formal education until age 4, when 90 percent of brain development has already occurred, he said.  And in order to develop mentally, a child must be physically well.

Beshear said food and energy could be important areas for innovation in Kentucky, noting the state’s rich agriculture history and coal reserves. “Coal isn’t going away,” he said. “Our challenge is to make it cleaner and greener.”  He also called for more investment in alternative energy sources such as solar energy.

“We are moving,” Beshear said. “We are doing things that will get us where we want to go. But we aren’t moving fast enough. And we’re not investing enough.”

Beshear received loud applause from the audience when he called for a “significant increase” in the state’s cigarette tax, a proposal he made earlier this year but which the General Assembly rejected. “It’s a no-brainer,” he said, because it would both raise state revenue and promote a healthier lifestyle that would save healthcare costs.

Beshear wrapped up by quoting the pioneering scientist Charles Darwin, who noted that survival doesn’t go to the strongest or smartest creatures, but those most able to adapt to change.

If you go to the Web site for Idea Kentucky, a big gathering Wednesday in Louisville, there’s a link that takes you to the conference’s ground rules.

Click on the link, and this is what you see:

Statements not allowed during discussions

■ That’s a crazy idea.

■ That will cost too much.

■ That won’t work in Kentucky

Those rules set a perfect tone for the six-hour conference at the Muhammad Ali Center. And they work equally well for the bigger event taking place in downtown Louisville from Thursday through Saturday: The 2008 Idea Festival.

This is the sixth Idea Festival, a now-annual gathering that was started in Lexington in 2000 by Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corp. The festival moved to Louisville in 2006 because it needed bigger venues and corporate sponsors.

I’ll be attending both events and blogging throughout the day, each day, at The Bluegrass & Beyond on www.kentucky.com.

There should be a lot of interesting things to write about, because the Idea Festival each year brings some of the world’s smartest and most creative people to Kentucky to explain their big ideas and expand the minds of those in the audience.

I love it that the festival links Kentucky with brainpower, creativity and innovation. Kentucky isn’t often on the cutting edge, but considering our state’s problems and opportunities, now would be a good time to get sharper.

A quarter of Kentuckians smoke. A third are obese. At the current rate of per capita income growth, it would take Kentucky 150 years to reach the national average. And when it comes to educational performance, we’re just ahead of the bottom third of states.

Those are some of the issues that will be discussed at Idea Kentucky. Speakers include Gov. Steve Beshear, Kimel and Michael Childress of the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center. But much of the conference will be about audience participation and group discussion. Maybe some new ideas will emerge.

It should be a good warm-up for the Idea Festival, whose speakers range from off the charts to off the wall. Unlike Idea Kentucky’s agenda, which seems focused on practical ideas for problem-solving, the Idea Festival simply tries to expand your mind. What happens after that is up to you.

Speakers include scientific types, such as neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik, author of the book Another Day in the Frontal Lobe; Richard Gott, a Princeton University astrophysicist who’s originally from Louisville; and Richard Kogan, a distinguished New York psychiatrist and award-winning concert pianist.

There are business types, such as pioneering marketers Bridget Brennan and John Gauntt. Artistic types such as filmmaker Soozie Eastman, chef Howard Dubrovsky and dance artistic director Jacques Heim. And top international architects such as Emiliano Gandolfi of Italy and Bjarke Ingels of Denmark.

The University of Kentucky’s College of Design will award the first $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize to someone whose breakthrough design solutions have improved our lives and our world.

And then there are speakers from all walks of life and disciplines: Rwanda genocide survivor and peace activist Immaculée Ilibagiza; ninjutsu martial-arts master Peter King; crossword puzzle master Will Shortz; and Vova Galchenko of Russia, who is perhaps the world’s best juggler.

And many more. See the festival’s Web site for more details. And read my blog for reports several times each day.

Can’t get to Louisville? There also should be some good ideas bouncing around Bluegrass Tomorrow’s “Inno Vision 2018″ breakfast Thursday at the Marriott Griffin Gate. Speakers include Beshear, Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson.

The morning-long conference will discuss a comparative analysis of innovation in 22 metropolitan regions around the country similar to Central Kentucky. For more information, call (859) 277-9614 or go to Bluegrass Tomorrow’s Web site.

I’ve always thought that fall didn’t officially begin in Kentucky until Keeneland opened its racing meet on the first Friday of October. But I know fall is coming. In my front yard this morning, I noticed the first leaves on my maple tree had turned red.

Fall is a great time to travel around Kentucky, enjoy activities, do things outdoors and see the colorful leaves.The Herald-Leader today published its annual Fall Festival Guide in the Weekender section. You also can see it, and keep up with updated information, on Lexgo.com.

The Kentucky Department of Travel will soon be relaunching its fall colors Web site, which tracks the fall colors and highlights activites around the state you can enjoy.

I was encouraged by the column in Monday’s Herald-Leader by Gov. Steve Beshear and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo. It sought to calm the fears of environmentalists and others about plans for developing “adventure tourism” in Kentucky.

“Some people have misinterpreted our enthusiasm,” the state’s top two elected officials wrote. “They hypothesize that we intend unrestrained ATV use in even delicate environments and at the expense of other activities. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“In seeking to encourage exploration of Kentucky’s beauty, we must not destroy it,” they wrote, adding that they hope to find the resources for stricter enforcement of laws that protect sensitive natural areas.

And here was the most encouraging part: As state officials survey state lands to determine appropriate places for new ATV, horse, mountain bike and hiking trails, they will seek public participation. “Kentuckians will have their say,” they wrote.

I think Beshear and Mongiardo are on to a great idea.

As they point out, Kentucky’s natural beauty could be more effectively leveraged to improve the economy. They wrote that tourism is already a $10 billion industry in Kentucky, and it could be a lot bigger. I think they’re right.

Every time I take visitors biking, hiking or just sight-seeing, they’re impressed by Kentucky’s beauty and distinctive culture. And not just in the wild places. For example, the new Kentucky Bourbon Trail, which helps visitors tour distilleries, should have been organized years ago.

I go on a weeklong bicycle tour every summer in a different part of rural Virginia. More than 2,000 people come from all over the country to ride, and they pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into Virginia’s economy.

Each year, I return home from Bike Virginia thinking, why doesn’t Kentucky do this? Sure, we might need a few highway improvements in some rural areas, but we all know Kentuckians can pave anything if we put our minds to it.

In addition to capturing out-of-state dollars, adventure tourism could have an even bigger benefit: It could make Kentuckians appreciate their state’s environment more, and learn to take better care of it.

Our commonwealth has an old and ugly legacy — the notion that natural resources are something to be pillaged and exported for short-term profit, rather than developed for long-term sustainability. You know the mind-set: Sell the family farm for a subdivision, or let a coal operator strip-mine the holler great-granddaddy bought a hundred years ago. If we make enough money, we can retire and move to Florida.

Imagine: If more Kentuckians appreciated the beauty of our mountains, it might become harder for coal companies to bulldoze them.

Besides, Kentuckians are among the nation’s least healthy and most obese people. If there were more opportunities for us to enjoy the outdoors, we might get in better shape, live longer and reduce the financial burden on our health care system.

But, like anything, the devil is in the details. The success of adventure tourism in Kentucky will depend on diverse and thorough public participation in the planning and execution.

The new Kentucky Recreational Trails Authority has begun mapping the trails that now exist, and it is asking for the public’s help. People with global-positioning satellite equipment who are interested in mapping their favorite trails can get more information here.

The authority also is trying to identify areas that could be good for new recreational trails of various kinds — and areas where trails should not go, or should be restricted, such as in nature preserves.

One piece of the authority’s work is a study that will examine the damage done by misuse of all-terrain vehicles on state land and what should be done to stop it. That study is just beginning, and it is scheduled to be completed by Dec. 15.

Senate Bill 196, which created the authority earlier this year, called for it to include a variety of interested parties, from coal companies to hiking groups. The authority hopes to bring even more organizations and individuals into the discussion through working groups and public meetings.

This could be a good test for Kentucky. Will the decision-making process be inclusive and transparent? Can diverse interests work together on a plan that balances environmental stewardship against the historic temptations of politics and short-term profit?

Google, I wish you had warned me you were coming.

I would have cut up that brush pile and stuffed it in the Lenny — as my wife probably told me to do — instead of leaving it at the curb for your roving camera to find.

Now, a color photo of my house and brush pile is there for all the world to see on Google Maps’ Street View.

Lexington and 36 other cities were added earlier this month to Street View, a year-old service that allows Internet users to type in an address or click on a map and get a panoramic view as if they were standing in the street.

It’s a big advancement from online satellite images, where you can zoom in and perhaps make out the shape of your driveway. With Street View, you can count the panes on the windows.

For Realtors, it’s a dream come true. For the rest of us, it’s fascinating technology — and more than a little creepy.

So how did they do this?

Google sent cars out on public streets equipped with special digital video cameras. The cameras filmed everything around them, including the lady walking her dog outside my neighbor’s house and the truck filled with pallets driving past City Hall. The images look as if they were taken last summer.

The video was reduced to stop-action images, embedded with global-positioning coordinates, matched with street addresses and posted online.

To find your house, go to Google, click “Maps” and type in your address. If Google’s video car went down your street, you’ll be shown a picture of your house. (Or, perhaps, a neighbor’s house. Addresses are approximate.) You can see where the video car went, because the maps shows those streets in blue.

Once you have an image on your screen, you can move up and down the street by clicking on computer-generated arrows. You also can zoom in and out, and spin the view around. Way cool.

Of course, not everyone is happy about it.

Communities in other states with private streets have banned Google’s video car. Others have asked Google to remove images of their homes, and the company has generally agreed. The Pentagon has banned images of military bases.

Despite technology that blurs the faces of most people caught in the Google lens, the European Union is concerned that future filming there might violate some countries’ privacy laws.

Taking pictures on a public street isn’t illegal in this country. Already, people with too much time on their hands have found Street View images more embarrassing than a front-yard brush pile. There’s a burning car, a man walking out of a strip club, a boy falling off his bike and a man urinating in an alley. None of those images seem to be from Lexington — yet.

I spent a couple of hours looking at Lexington through the eyes of Google.

The first thing I noticed was that some big streets were missed, while the camera car made a few odd detours — such as Von Alley, between 5th Street and Fayette Park, and the occasional dead-end rural road. The camera car went down every lane in Lexington Cemetery where, predictably, there was little activity. You can check your family plot to make sure.

I didn’t see anyone coming out of a strip club or doing anything risque. But, then, Lexington isn’t a very risque place in the middle of a summer day.

When you were little, your Sunday school teacher told you to behave as if someone were always watching. George Orwell warned us long ago about Big Brother.

But who would have thought Big Brother would have a goofy name like Google?