Features

A couple of hundred people turned out for the eighth annual Women’s Health Fair on Thursday night at Claudia Sanders Dinner House. The event, sponsored by Jewish Hospital Shelbyville, focused on colon cancer awareness this year and included a silent auction, health screenings, salon treatments, and featured speakers such as prominent physicians and JHS president, Michael Collins. Proceeds from the event will go to support teen volunteer scholarships.

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.”

Those moving words by novelist Victor Hugo are especially true in the case of mothers who lovingly continue to care for children who have endured much illness or trauma in their lives.

We pay homage to all moms on Mother’s Day this year – with a special tribute to three wonderful women who give a special meaning to the word “mother.”

Elizabeth Nichols

If you’d like to get a mint julep at your favorite bar, you better cash in this week. This Southern staple can be hard to locate at any time other than that because a lot of bars don’t normally stock mint. And without mint all you have is, well, bourbon and sugar.

Churchill Downs, liquor stores and bourbon distilleries want you to believe the premixed concoctions they’re selling are just as good as the basic ingredients, but, let’s be honest, nothing beats that simple blend of sugar, fresh mint, crushed ice and good bourbon.

A day full of sunshine and mild temperatures added an extra dash of enjoyment to what was already a day packed with fun and smiles for hundreds who turned out for Shelby County High School’s Rocket Games.

Noelle Barnes, SCHS’ complex needs counselor, the coordinator for the event, said she estimated that nearly 1,000 people were in attendance.

“Well, we have three hundred student volunteers, and we have sold over five hundred t-shirts, and we have so many vendors and people who have come out; it’s just great,” Barnes said.

Put together a frosty Saturday morning, a placid lake with the sun glinting off the water, a dozen canoes and dozens of “morning people,” and what do you have?

A crew of exuberant volunteers all set to clean up Lake Shelby by canoe, of course.

The volunteers, consisting of Collins Army ROTC members, Clear Creek Trailblazer volunteers, and some individuals, braved a chilly morning, rain gorged waterways and muddy creek banks to participate in the annual Clear Creek Cleanup, which also included a cleanup by Boy Scouts who policed along the banks.

Rebecca Marrilla is 26 years old, an age during which most people don’t stare death in the face.

But in September, two days after celebrating her first wedding anniversary, the harsh reality of cancer shattered her world, when she learned she had Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer.

“When I went in [to the doctor’s office] that today, I was not prepared to hear that,” she said. “I don’t think you can ever be prepared to hear that.”

At Christmas, Gary Walls was surprised with a trip to Italy to see the Pope deliver the Easter Vigil at the Vatican.

What he didn’t know then was that a new Pope would have been named – one who would resonate with Walls even more than his Catholic roots would have predicted.

Pope Francis has become known for his commitment to service, to helping those in need.

Sometimes downsizing is the best way to grow, and that’s exactly what’s going on with The Luci Center in Shelby County.

Luci Center, a hippotherapy therapeutic riding center for children and adults with disabilities, has sold its property on Hebron Road and was planning to close Tuesday on a new location across the street.

This 15-acre site will be built to suit the center’s unique needs.

How can you put a price tag on being able to help keep kids off drugs and make the community a safer place to raise a healthy, happy family?

That price tag is $100,000, said Elizabeth Pulliam, director of Shelby Prevention, a non-profit organization that works to provide programs, activities and community projects in order to build a drug-free community.

That is the organization’s yearly budget that she is trying to generate by September.