A few strokes solve identity crisis

Brothers paint towns' water towers

WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. - People with split personalities hire psychiatrists. Towns hire the Brummett brothers of Harrodsburg, Ky.

This town did, anyway. Paint was what the doctor ordered, so here came James Brummett to the rescue in his Chevy pickup.

Up U.S. 127 Mr. Brummett rode, turning east into the sun onto Interstate 64, then north up I-75. This wasn't an emergency run. Williamstown isn't a Jekyll-and-Hyde case. As identity crises go, this town isn't too bad.

But how long can a community go on being part Northern Kentucky and part central, part Buckeye and part Bluegrass, part Turfway and part Keeneland?

No longer, Williamstown Mayor Robert Hall Jones decided. And that's where the Brummett brothers come in.

Gateway to the Bluegrass

And who can overlook the tower in Boone County emblazoned with the words ''Florence, Y'all''?

This week, James Brummett and his co-workers from the Currens Co. will put the finishing touches on Williamstown's new identity. They painted the north face of the big, round tank at the top of the town's water tower near I-75 with the same words they had painted on the south face the day before:

''Welcome to Williamstown, Gateway to the Bluegrass.''

Who hasn't wondered where Northern Kentucky stops and central Kentucky starts? Who hasn't wondered exactly where it is that Greater Cincinnati fades into the gentle hills of horse country?

Why not Williamstown? This charming Grant County town of 3,500 has long been caught in the middle, anyway, wedged between vastly different ways of life. Those who don't work the rich earth here head north each day to jobs in or near Cincinnati. Those who do farm tend to their corn and tobacco in fields that are pure Kentucky.

Years ago, there was a restaurant and truck stop not far from the water tower on U.S. 25 called The Halfway House - a tribute to Williamstown's location midway between Cincinnati and Lexington, the heart of the Bluegrass.

Gordon Taylor, superintendent of Williamstown's water department, thinks the town is more closely aligned with Cincinnati than with central Kentucky.

''Most everybody here goes north to work,'' he says. ''Very few go south.''

But when the inspiration hit Mayor Jones to define this town on that water tower, you'll notice he didn't suggest calling Williamstown ''Gateway to Cincinnati.''

Presumably, he'd like to get re-elected some day.

A golf ball on a tee

Still, Mr. Jones might be the most courageous politician this election year when he admits that, yes, those words on the tower were his idea.

''I'm going to take the credit for that,'' he says. ''Or the blame, as the case may be.

''I believe Williamstown is the gateway to the Bluegrass.''

The town will install lights on the 8-year-old water tower so its newfound identity will be obvious even at night.

''I believe a community needs to be known for something,'' Mr. Jones says.

Historically, Northern Kentucky often has been identified more closely with Ohio than Kentucky, he says. But just as often it has found itself in no-man's land.

''Grant County's in a unique position,'' Mr. Jones says.

Now the county's unique position is written up there in black-and-white for all the world to see.

The 200,000-gallon water tower, rising 130 feet into the air, looks like a golf ball on a tee. But if God had a 9-iron, which direction would he play?

Wednesday morning, the water tower glistened with moisture. The fog over Williamstown's knobs and fields was so thick it kept James Brummett, Dalton Hearst and Stan Anderson from starting work on time.

So many low-lying clouds. Is this the gateway to heaven, too?

All lines blur in Grant County, a peaceful place straddling I-75. Its rural landscape looks much more like Kentucky than the rest of Greater Cincinnati. But how long will that hold true?

All lines blur

But at least one person here is crystal-clear about what the town is and always will be. And that person is the man on top of the water tower.

James Brummett has been on the job in Williamstown for two months now. Next he goes to Dry Ridge.

He's lived in Kentucky every one of his 43 years - mostly in Harrodsburg. And though he has the hard shoulders of a construction worker, his speech is soft enough to bend around words.

In a gentle Kentucky drawl, Mr. Brummett will tell you he doesn't get caught up in regional alliances. Kentucky is Kentucky, from Williamstown to Williamsburg.

For him, the gateway is the state line, pure and simple.

''Long as I'm in Kentucky,'' he says, ''I feel like I'm home.''

Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 292-7169.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

Published Aug. 29, 1996.