Apple orchard open and ready for pickin'

        PINER — Thornberry Orchards, a pick-and-pay operation that features Golden Delicious and Red Delicious apples, is reopening at 9 a.m. today.

        Hours of operation will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

        Thornberry Orchards is at 14507 Stephenson Rd. in Piner, just off Ky. 14.
       

High-speed chase ends after wrong-way turn

        HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — A Dayton, Ky., man led police on a high-speed chase through Northern Kentucky Friday night. Dennis Wildeboer, 34, is facing numerous charges, including drunken driving, wanton endangerment and fleeing.

        Highland Heights police said the chase started at 9:20 p.m. on Interstate 471 and ended in Edgewood.

        It lasted for more than 10 minutes, with Mr. Wildeboer reaching 80 mph on the interstate and 60 mph on side streets. It ended with no injuries when Mr. Wildeboer went the wrong way on a one-way street in Edgewood and ended up in someone's driveway.
       

Area artists expand
Roots and Heritage

        LEXINGTON — Area artists are displaying pieces of work for the first time at the Roots and Heritage Festival, which runs through Sunday.

        The artists hauled in, unwrapped and arranged their work at Lexington's Carnegie Center in preparation for the annual African-American cultural street festival which began Friday.

        The exhibition is just one of the ways organizers are trying to expand and improve Roots and Heritage this year, said Catherine Warner, festival coordinator.

        Although the festival has had art displays in the past, this is the first time that local artists have participated and invited a nationally renowned artist, said Garry Bibbs, the exhibit organizer and a sculpture professor at the University of Kentucky.

        The featured artist will be Ed Hamilton of Louisville, who has traveled the country and is well-known for a sculpture welcoming passersby in front of the African-American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C.

        Jeffrey Osborne, an internationally known jazz artist, is performing at the festival.
       

Ky. staffers get raises thanks to law change

        FRANKFORT — A little-noticed initiative from the 2000 General Assembly raised a limit on state workers' salaries, and Gov. Paul Patton's administration has taken advantage of it by dramatically increasing the state's payroll.

        The governor's office payroll, for example, has grown from about $3 million per year in April 1996 to about $6 million today.

        The cap had limited most state workers — with some exceptions, such as university presidents — to making no more than the governor. And the governor's salary each year increases generally by only the rate of inflation.

        The problem was that salaries for top executives in the private sector were soaring in the booming economy of the 1990s, but state government could not offer salaries higher than the governor's base pay — which is now $103,018 — to keep and attract people to high-level jobs.
       

Wallace's warehouse likely to be sold

        LEXINGTON — A judge has cleared the way for an Owensboro-based bank to begin foreclosure on the vacant headquarters of Wallace's Bookstores.

        Fayette Circuit Court is likely to order the public sale of the offices and warehouse at 928 Nandino Blvd. to settle two mortgages totaling more than $3.9 million.

        Wallace's and its founder, former Gov. Wallace G. Wilkinson, went into bankruptcy reorganization in February. Most of Wallace's assets have since been sold to offset its debts of $152.3 million.

        W. Thomas Bunch II, attorney for Area Bank, said the property has been appraised for as much as $4 million. If it sells for that price, he said, some money could be left over for Wallace's other creditors.

        The Nandino building — once the center of a 39-year-old company with 90 college bookstores and 1,800 employees — has been vacant since Aug. 23, shortly after Wallace's furniture and other property was auctioned for $570,000.

        Wallace's attorney, Tim Robinson, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge William S. Howard on Thursday that Wallace's wanted to surrender the building to Area Bank, but talks had foundered.
       

Mother leaves court as son's killer speaks

        RICHMOND — A mother walked out of a courtroom on Thursday as her son's killer was apologizing for his crime.

        Before Christopher McGorman Jr. could get out the words “I'm sorry for what I've done,” Matilda Raney got up from her seat and left.

        Mr. McGorman, 16, was in Madison Circuit Court and sentenced to life in prison for the January 2000 shooting death of his high school classmate, Larry Raney. Mr. McGorman will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years.

        During the trial, jurors watched a 45-minute videotaped police interview in which Mr. McGorman described how he'd shot Mr. Raney in the back of the head, dragged his body out of a barn and left it in a cornfield.

        Mr. McGorman was 14 at the time of the shooting behind his home in Clark County.
       

Kids say driver used stifling bus to punish

        PIKEVILLE — When Lisa Cantrell's children were late from school Wednesday, she feared the worst.

        Her panic quickly turned to anger when her children got off the school bus. She said they were soaked in sweat and begging for water.

        Ms. Cantrell and other parents claim bus driver Randy Fuller disciplined his young riders by pulling off the road Wednesday afternoon, ordering all the windows up and remaining parked for about 30 minutes.

        “Some kids were scared and they cried,” 10-year-old Curtis Cantrell told the Appalachian News-Express of Pikeville. “It got really hot inside — probably more than 90 degrees — I was sweating and it was hard to breathe.”

        Mr. Fuller declined to comment on the allegations Friday.

        Max Thompson, an attorney for the Pike County school board, said Mr. Fuller pulled off the road because children were being unruly.
       

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