Today's Features

Inspiration sometimes comes from an insult.

One of Joseph “Austin” Shirley-Dean's classmates several years ago told him he couldn't dance. That comment got him started on the road to the title 2009 Teen Mister Dance of the Bluegrass, an honor he picked up last weekend in Ashland. This summer he will compete in Washington, D. C. for the national title.

The Shelby County Community Theatre (SCCT) is inviting people to come in after a hard week's work, sit back, relax and listen to others sing about "Working".

Adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso from the same-titled book by Studs Terkel, "Working" is a musical about the common man - and woman.

Developed from real interviews with a variety of workers - from cleaning women to bricklayers -- the show offers monologues of 26 average American workers as they share their work experiences and deepest dreams.

Another championed cause that took years to gain the attention it needed began with Bob Fay sending me down an alley in Shelbyville that he said deserved a photo page. What I saw in the short drive down the alley, unknown to most residents along Main Street, brought me to tears.

Houses  with front doors resting on rusted hinges and leaving a gap at the top and bottom were crumbling to the ground. Old men sitting on porches that had holes in the floor with weeds growing through them waved shyly as I passed.

We often speak of unsung heroes whose acts of kindness or courage, strokes of genius or divine luck, words of inspiration or encouragement; leave their mark on an individual or even a community. In an era when respect for people of the media is at an unprecedented and unfortunate low, there is one former publisher/editor whose good works even now, over 35 years after his retirement from journalism and departure from Shelby County, benefit our community.

I recently learned that Robert A.