Group to help pick leader of new college

        COVINGTON — A committee of educators, lawmakers and business people has been selected to help pick the founding president of a new community college in Northern Kentucky.

        Michael McCall, president of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, appointed the 12-member search committee to review applicants for the position. Mr. McCall will make the final decision.

        Through $10 million in state funding, the Northern Kentucky Technical College — with campuses in Covington, Highland Heights and Edgewood — is expanding into a comprehensive community and technical college.

        The state plans to invite presidential finalists to meet with the technical college's faculty, staff and students this fall. Mr. McCall hopes the new president can start by January.

        The search committee members are: Steve Pendery, Campbell County judge-executive; Jack Moreland, superintendent of Covington Independent Schools; J. Dan Lacy, vice president for corporate affairs for Ashland Inc.; Bernie Sandfoss, director of the Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services; Judith Gibbons, vice president of community affairs at Lee Hecht Harrison in Covington; R. Richard Jordan, president of LSI Images in Erlanger; Barb Stewart, Workforce Development Division coordinator for the Northern Kentucky Area Development District; Angie Taylor, dean of professional and business development at Northern Kentucky Technical College's Covington campus; Alan Hall, assistant professor at NKTC's Highland Heights campus; Sondra Fee, assistant professor at NKTC's Edgewood campus; Marinell Brown, associate professor at NKTC's Covington campus; and Brenda Campbell, staff support associate at NKTC's Covington campus.
       

Business incubator wins municipal loan

        COVINGTON — City officials will present a $100,000 interest-free loan to the Madison Avenue E-zone Friday. Madison Avenue E-zone, originally known as Madison Avenue Launch Team, is an incubator for businesses engaged in information technology, computer software and hardware, and digital devices and related fields. The city's loan is to defray the incubator's start-up costs.

        “Helping fund this operation gives the city credibility to market itself to the high-tech community,” said Covington Mayor Butch Callery. “After the incubator is up and running, the creation of new high-tech companies, jobs, as well as the relocation of hi-tech companies to Covington, is only a matter of time,” Mr. Callery said.

        Madison Avenue E-zone is in the Fifth Third Bank building at Sixth Street and Madison Avenue.
       

NKU gets $900 grant for history project

        HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — Northern Kentucky University has received a $900 grant from the Kentucky Humanities Councilto buy books and videos related to teaching about the Underground Railroad in Kentucky.

        A presentation and discussion based on the materials will be Oct. 15 and 16 at NKU's Highland Heights campus.

        During the summer, an NKU professor and 17 teachers of preschool through grade 12 met for a week to study the historical context of the Underground Railroad. The course was designed to be interdisciplinary in subject matter and to generate a greater appreciation and understanding across races.

        On Oct. 15 and 16, the class will reconvene to view video clips of the implementation of this multicultural curriculum into daily teaching. The teachers are using resources such as textbooks that visually depict the inhumanity of slavery, CDs which use music to relate oral history, artifacts such as quilts that show escape routes used by slaves, and a KET video on Kentucky history.

        For information about “Teaching the Underground Railroad in Kentucky” contact Dr. Denise Dallmer at NKU at (859) 572-6935.
       

State troopers say mayor resisted arrest

        STANTON — It took two Kentucky State Police troopers to wrestle Stanton's mayor to the ground when he was charged with drunken driving while on a tractor last month, court records say.

        Mayor Myers Arnett, who also drives a school bus, did not appear in court on Tuesday for his arraignment on the Aug. 20 charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, resisting arrest and third-degree criminal mischief.

        An attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

        Mr. Arnett, 51, had slurred speech and a “strong odor of alcoholic beverage on or about his person” when Trooper Chris Short arrived to find Mr. Arnett driving a tractor, a citation said.

        When Short tried to put handcuffs on Mr. Arnett, the mayor resisted and “we (Trooper Short and Trooper Sam Hunt) had to wrestle him to the ground,” the citation says.

        Mr. Arnett is suspended with pay as a bus driver for the Powell County schools in eastern Kentucky. If he is convicted, he would lose the bus-driving job, which he has had for five years.
       

Business conference expects 1,000 people

        GILBERTSVILLE — Next week's Kentucky Labor-Management Conference at Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park is attracting more than 1,000 people from 15 states.

        The event begins Tuesday. Gov. Paul Patton will speak at a banquet honoring labor-management award winners, including Paducah resident Larry Sanderson, business manager of Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Local 184.

        The first conference in 1977 was an effort by former Gov. Julian Carroll, as well as labor and economic development leaders, to improve the state's labor-management climate.
       

Trial under way in baby's death

        LEXINGTON — A man accused of killing the 5-month-old child of his girlfriend is on trial in Fayette Circuit Court.

        The trial for Donnie Douglas Sparks, 35, the boyfriend of the baby's mother when Stephen Trimble died, began Monday and is expected to end Wednesday.

        Mr. Sparks was the last person prosecutors say was alone on Nov. 2 with a healthy Stephen, who they say was the victim of a vicious shaking. Stephen was taken off a respirator a week later.

        Mr. Sparks' attorney, Chuck Aaron, warned the jury that some evidence points to the mother, Amanda Crowell. Ms. Crowell already has pleaded guilty to criminal abuse of Stephen because she left him alone with Mr. Sparks while she went out to buy cigarettes. She has yet to be sentenced.

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