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sports & entertainmentTourism,

n Curiosity, fasCination draw people to area natural wonder Page 2

n sense of the dramatiC: region is riCh in arts history Page 5

Second in a four-part seriesComing April 10: Education & technology ailyNews

Bowling greenD

ThriveSunday, April 3, 20162 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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For centuries, the area we now know as Mammoth Cave National Park has arguably been the linchpin that has brought people here, whether it be indigenous people mining for crys-tals deep in the cave system more

than 2,000 years ago, a 19th-century doctor who saw the cave as a possible holder of healing pow-ers for tuberculosis sufferers or present-day tourists and biologists who study and admire the rare bats, cave shrimp and other organisms that comprise the complex, flourishing ecosystem both on the surface and in the subterranean caves that render the word “mammoth” an understatement.This year, Mammoth Cave is observing

its 75th anniversary in the National Park System and commemorating 200 years since tours began being offered.

The poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1857 essay “Illusions” begins with a recollection of a tour of Mammoth Cave he made years earlier with a group of people who admired the Star Chamber, a portion of the cave in which cave crystals and soot from years of lanterns combine to produce the effect of a starlit sky on the ceil-ing.

Emerson noted that the chamber was “the best thing the cave had to offer.”

“The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to all natu-ral objects, and which shames the fine things to which we foppishly compare them,” Emerson wrote.

Johnny Merideth, a tour guide at Mammoth Cave for the past 20 years, said the allure that brought the first waves of curious tour-ists two centuries ago persists today.

“I think one thing is at its core, and that is caves are inherently interesting, myste-rious places, and there are people all over the world who flock to this spot to explore and study, and people come to tour and visit these mysterious places to learn where do

they go and what’s in there,” Merideth said.Last fiscal year, about 478,000 people vis-

ited Mammoth Cave or took part in some ranger-led activity there, part of a record-breaking 307.2 million visits recorded at all NPS sites in 2015.

The earliest evidence of visitors to Mammoth Cave’s 52,830 acres dates back between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago, the age attributed to sets of human remains and arti-facts such as torches and drawings that have been discovered there over the years.

The cave’s history as a tourist attraction has its roots in the early 19th century, when miners extracted saltpeter from the cave sys-tem to help make gunpowder during the War of 1812, Merideth said.

Mammoth Cave officially recognizes 1816 as the year guided tours began being offered, and Merideth said he recently came across a contemporaneous newspaper account in which the author remarked upon how people working in the area seemed to be oblivious to the natural beauty of the caves.

“There wasn’t the variety of tours that you have today, but the tours were overall much longer in that time,” Merideth said.

Never mind automobiles – rail travel was

On the frOnt:Top: Visitors tour Mammoth Cave’s Rafinesque Hall in 2013.

Daily News file phoTo

BoTTom: Visitors tour Mammoth Cave’s Echo River.Ray scoTT/Courtesy of Wm. Gross Magee

“The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to all natural objects, and which shames the

fine things to which we foppishly compare them.”— Ralph Waldo EmERson

See MAMMOTH CAVE, 3

By Justin storyjstory@bgdailynews.com

mammothmystERy

Curiosity, fascination draw people to area natural wonder

Top RighT: PeoPle dine in Great Relief Hall in a photo published by E. & H.T. Anthony & Co., circa 1866.

couRTesy of liBRaRy of coNgRess

Top lefT: PeoPle line up in the History Entrance.Ray scoTT/Courtesy of Wm. Gross Magee

AbOve:

decades in the future in those early days, and southcentral Kentucky held much more wilderness, meaning that the earliest visitors to tour the caves were affluent people with the means and time to make the journey.

The presence of saltpeter made the land more valu-able and raised its profile beyond the region, leading some enterprising landown-ers to trade on that reputation by charging visitors to tour the caves.

Franklin Gorin, a Glasgow attorney, bought the prop-erty for $5,000 in 1838. He sold the property the follow-ing year to Louisville doc-tor John Croghan, in whose family the caves remained for several decades.

Stephen Bishop, a slave that Croghan acquired in the $10,000 sale, spent the next several years exploring the cave system and mapping it, and is recognized as the first human to travel through large portions of the cave system.

“From about 1838 until about the mid-1860s, the majority of guides were slaves that would take people through,” Merideth said.

Croghan’s research into the well-preserved artifacts left over from previous centuries inspired him to build a sani-tarium to house patients with tuberculosis – Croghan’s specialty as a doctor and a disease that had no cure at the time.

“Tours would pass a bizarre scene,” a history of Mammoth Cave on the NPS website states. “Pale, spectral figures in dressing-gowns moved weakly along the pas-sageway, slipping in and out of shadowed huts, the silence of the cave broken by hollow coughing and muttered con-versations.”

Croghan’s belief that the air within the cave could improve patients’ health was not borne out, however, and Croghan himself died from tuberculosis in 1849.

The cave, however, remained in his family until the 1920s, and in the inter-vening years rail service would cause an exponential jump in the number of annual visitors, sparking further geo-logical study of the area and sowing a lodging industry to accommodate the thousands of sightseers.

The boom times fostered an environment known among park historians as the “Cave Wars,” in which own-ers of nearby cave proper-ties resorted to aggressive, and at times unscrupulous, sales pitches to lure visi-tors to caves on their land rather than the Mammoth Cave property owned by Croghan’s estate.

“Cave City and the sur-rounding area kind of grew up and thrived for several hundred years on the tour-ism impact of Mammoth Cave, especially during the Cave Wars,” said Sharon Tabor, executive director of the Cave City Convention Center and Tourism Commission.

In 1925, Floyd Collins, whose family owned Crystal Cave, was exploring Sand Cave as a potential spot for tourists when a heavy rock dislodged and landed on his ankle, trapping him in the cave. Rescue efforts drew widespread attention and

were thoroughly reported in the media of the time, but were ultimately unsuccess-ful, and Collins died after 18 days of entrapment.

It was in the early 20th century when support for making Mammoth Cave a national park gained traction locally.

“We were certainly one of the oldest tourist attractions, and the cave itself is incom-parable for its size and his-tory,” Merideth said. “There was a concerted effort on the part of a large number of citizens, organizations, busi-nesses and the railroads that were very involved in want-ing to make this a national park.”

The Mammoth Cave National Park Association was formed in Bowling Green in 1926, dedicated to acquiring the land that would be needed for Mammoth Cave to gain entry into the national park system.

Federal legislation passed that same year providing for the creation of Mammoth Cave National Park.

Using private donations at first and then receiving state funds, the association bought several acres of land for the park. Some properties were seized through eminent domain, and state legislation passed in 1928 allowed for land to be acquired through condemnation proceedings, resulting in the displacement of an estimated 500 families.

The NPS took control of land acquisition in the 1930s and by 1941, the minimum amount of land had been acquired to allow for the establishment of Mammoth Cave National Park.

Today, the park serves as an invaluable teaching tool that gives Kentuckians insight into their history and their environment. The Green River, which courses through the park, is an attraction in its own right for kayakers.

Travelers on Interstate 65 have a choice to make when the get off at Exit 53 in Cave City. On an average day, 1,500 drivers turn in the direction of Mammoth Cave, while 38 go the other direc-tion into Cave City, accord-ing to Tabor.

“That many vehicles is a tremendous impact on lodg-ing, dining and other expen-ditures for tourists in the area,” Tabor said. “Not many communities have the ability to have a 53,000-acre park in our backyard.”

According to the NPS, Mammoth Cave visitors spent an estimated $43.6 million in the region in 2014, with those expenditures supporting a total of 685 jobs, $21.3 million in labor income and $59.8 million in economic output.

Slightly more than half of that spending focused on restaurants and hotels, with transportation, gas, retail and recreation industries

each responsible for about 10 percent of spending. The remaining visitor dollars were spent on groceries and camping.

Tabor and leaders in other communities are looking to incorporate the park into a far-reaching plan to encour-age more exploration by tourists and healthier behav-ior among locals.

The Cave Country Trails project seeks to set up a network of connector trails among Barren, Edmonson, Hart and Warren counties.

Plans have evolved over the past year, and Cave Country Trails is receiving assistance from the National Park Service in developing the project and gathering public input.

When Mammoth Cave was envisioned as a national park, Tabor said one of the early hopes was that having that park would enhance the area’s outdoor tourism pos-sibilities.

“With the Cave Country Trails initiative, we’re con-necting 11 communities sur-rounding the park and revis-iting the original dream,” Tabor said. “We have an opportunity to create some-thing that will help more people in the area by creat-ing hiking trails, biking trails and paths that bring the park in closer to town ... and pro-vide an opportunity for the community to get out.

“One of our initiatives is to provide user paths for mul-tiple users, hikers and bikers out in the community.”

Help from the state in promoting adventure tourism and designating Munfordville as a Trail Town are seen as crucial steps in the Cave Country Trails initiative. An appli-cation to the state tourism cabinet to confer Trail Town status to Munfordville, which allows for more state assistance in publicizing the city’s trails and outdoor tourism avenues, has been submitted.

Mammoth Cave National Park has proved to be an economic juggernaut for the area, and the main reason for that may be the same as what attracted Emerson and others here generations ago.

“We don’t really write diaries or things like that now, but people are shar-ing their pictures on Twitter and Facebook, telling about their experiences on vari-ous travel sites,” Merideth said. “They’re still writing about their experience in Mammoth Cave, and while we’re detached from the days of a horse and stagecoach and a lantern lit with burning animal fat, I think a lot of the underlying experiences are the same and our reasons for them are the same.”

— Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter at twitter.com/jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 3Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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From Page 2

MAMMOTH CAVE

A.V. OldhAm/Courtesy of Library of CongressTen women and a man appear in 1912 around the Consumptive’s Room in mammoth Cave.

mirAndA PedersOn/photo@bgdailynews.comHoRsebaCk RideRs travel along trails in 2010 as people wait for their turn on a zip line platform on at mammoth Cave adventures.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 20164 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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‘An urbAn oAsis’Local site has unique history, treasure trove of nature

Main photo: PeoPle eat and drink in 2013 during the Bowling Green-Warren County Humane Society Garden Party in the Cave. (Daily News file photo) top left: A group tours Lost River Cave in 2014 in kayaks. (Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.com) top middle: People eat and drink in 2013 during the 12th annual Spirits in the Cave event. top right: Jacob Rondeau, 7, of Rockfield peers into a tunnel in 2013 as he waits for his friend to emerge during Warren County Public Library’s summer reading kickoff event. (Miranda Pederson/photo@bgdailynews.com)

During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops were lured to the area for encampments. “It was a refuge in difficult times,” Cielinski said.

The experiences of the troops in the valley are docu-mented in their letters home and diary entries.

“It was notable enough for them to” write about it, Cielinski said.

And then there’s famed bank robber Jesse James. That James used the cave as a hide-out is a major piece of Lost River Cave lore. The James connection is also claimed by numerous other underground attractions across the country.

“If every cave that claims Jesse James had been there (was valid), Jesse James would never have been on the surface,” Cielinski said.

There is evidence, however, that the James-Lost River link “is a valid piece of folk his-tory,” she said.

According to the legend, James and his gang were on the run after robbing the Southern Deposit Bank in Russellville of $60,000 on March 8, 1868. A gang mem-ber had been hurt during the getaway and James person-ally went to the home of a local doctor and brought him back to the cave to treat the wounded man. The doctor’s wife wrote about the incident in her diary.

A more fully documented chapter of the cave’s history is its role for three decades as perhaps the country’s most unique nightclub.

“The nightclub opened in 1934 – the year after prohi-bition ended,” Cielinski said. The cave’s large rounded open-air dome was a perfect structure for such a facility, and it had natural air condi-tioning – the cave retains a steady 57-degree temperature even on the hottest days. “It was also mid-point between Louisville and Nashville” Cielinski said, and drew many well-known touring bands and singers – Dinah Shore, Tommy Dorsey and others – to the “Underground Nite Club,” as it was named.

The James link continued to be prominent in the night-club’s operation. The legend was that a trickle of water from the cave roof was what sustained James and his gang during their hideout. It was labeled by the nightclub own-ers as Jesse James’ Lucky

Spring – nevermind that the ground water dribbling into the cave wasn’t the purest of water sources.

“It was an excellent way to get them from the nightclub to the cave tour” for a nickel a pop, Cielinski said.

During that time, the private property owners of the valley and surrounding lands cashed in as much as they could on the site, promoting its (strict-ly unofficial) designation by Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the “shortest and deepest river in the world.” At the above-ground reception center off Nashville Road, a large sign beckoned travelers to stop and see not only the afore-mentioned river and the Jesse James hideout, but also the “Man That Turned to Stone,” which was the supposedly mummified body of a native American that was reportedly found in the cave. A photo of the “Man That Turned to Stone” in “The Spirit of Lost River,” a book published by the Friends of Lost River in 1992, shows what looks like a crude sculpture of a man gen-tly laying on his back.

The nightclub closed in the early 1960s, and the val-ley turned into a dumping ground for trash. Because of its low elevation and being downstream, trash and even toxic pollutants washed down into the valley. It was desig-nated a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Super Fund site for clean-up efforts, according to “The Spirit of Lost River.”

The land was eventual-ly donated to WKU, and in 1990 the nonprofit Friends of the Lost River was formed to cleanup and preserve the area. The Friends still maintain and operate the roughly 70 acre valley and surrounding lands.

“There was a concerted effort to undo the misuse of the cave. It was in terrible shape,” Cielinski said.

After years of cleanup, in 1998 the first modern cave tour on the underground por-tion of the Lost River was held.

Over the years since, many features and programs have been added, such as a butter-fly habitat area and butterfly house, a wetlands area, a trail system, a Junior Naturalist program, geocaching events, a gift shop, cave crawls, nature discovery camps, kay-aking tours and space avail-able – both in the cave and

in a space called The River Birch Room – for meetings and special occasions such as birthdays and weddings – about 40 couples hitched the knot at the valley last year, Cielinski said.

The Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom also opened recently and features kid-friendly ways to explore nature with an underground tunnel, gardens, natural art studio and climbing equip-ment made of timbers instead of plastic or metal.

Lost River now serves about 60,000 visitors annual-ly, Cielinski said, and is fund-ed largely by the tours and donations. It employs 15 full time, and during the summer hires dozens more part-timers.

The human visitors and workers share the valley with snakes, rabbits, foxes, over 200 species of birds, Bowling Green’s famed white squir-rels, and in the cave, craw-fish, crickets, fish and sala-manders.

That unique treasure trove of nature – in the heart of a small city – dovetails with future plans for Lost River, which include a nature cen-ter with classrooms, lab space and exhibits – “a place to learn more about nature,” said Cielinski, who started as a tour guide at Lost River 11 years ago.

On a recent windy and wet morning, Donna and Steve Feldman from Dacula, Ga., were among those taking the underground boat tour.

They were staying in Nashville when they saw a flier for Lost River Cave at their hotel and decided to give the boat tour a try.

As they stepped off from the flat bottomed boat, Steve Feldman said he was most impressed by the cave’s his-tory.

“It’s a great thing to share with others,” Donna Feldman said, a sentiment echoed be Cielinski.

“It’s a resource to get Bowling Green and surround-ing areas unplugged,” she said. “It’s an urban oasis – a place to get in touch with nature.”

— For schedules and more information about Lost River Cave, visit lostrivercave.org.

— Follow city govern-ment reporter Wes Swietek on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNgovtbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.

Ancient game hunters, Civil War soldiers, noted big bands, toddlers chasing butter-flies and even (according to local legend) famed bank robber Jesse James found sanctuary at the unique urban oasis known as Lost River Cave and Valley.

Today best known for its underground boat tours, Lost River Cave and Valley in Bowling Green has a unique history and role as a nature preserve and tourist attraction serving tens of thousands of area residents and tourists annually.

Centuries before a famous sinkhole swallowed eight Corvettes at the National Corvette Museum, the roof of a large cave system collapsed, forming a karst valley which became known as Lost River Valley. A mostly underground river flows through the valley, revealing itself in several “blue holes” in the valley (so named because the mineral content in the water often tints it a distinctive blue) and in a swiftly flowing river near the cave entrance.

The first people to call the valley home were “Paleo Indians. This was a great place for big-game hunting,” as animals were drawn to the water, said Katie Cielinski, Lost River Cave’s

community impact and donor relations coordinator.When European settlers arrived in the

area, they found the rapidly rush-ing water perfect for water

mills, and a succession was built starting in

the early 1800s – the last

one burned down in

1915.

BY WES SWIETEKwswietek@

bgdailynews.com

Public Theatre of Kentucky has a rich history. It began with the Alley Playhouse in 1963 with indi-viduals who loved theater and saw a need for it in Bowling Green, according to information provided by producing director Amber Turner. Under the direction of Dr. Russell H. Miller, and with lots of support from Western Kentucky University, the former warehouse on Morris Alley was named after the famous theater in Houston called Alley Theatre. The Alley Playhouse stage was “in the round” as 135 canvas director chairs served as seating for patrons. After the death of Miller in 1969, the Alley Playhouse closed its doors and once again became a warehouse.

Following her graduation from Western Kentucky University, Marci Woodruff continued her education, receiving her Ph.D. from Florida State University.

She pursued a career in higher education, holding teach-ing positions at University of Pittsburgh and Bloomsberg State University. At Bloomsberg she became familiar with a small professional theatre that prospered in that quaint community. To establish such a theatre became Woodruff’s dream. She and three young actors moved to Bowling Green and founded PTK in 1987.

During the 1980s and into the early 1990s PTK per-formed at the Capitol Arts Center, the former Leachman Auto Building and the storefront at 912 State St. Whit Combs, a friend and former mentor of Woodruff, was a constant supporter and adviser to the project. He and his wife, Gerri, often opened their home to the many guest artists that Woodruff brought to the theatre. Woodruff, the resident company, guest directors, actors and design-ers, WKU and community talent, produced plays that become known for their high standards and quality.

Ironically, the 1993-1994 season marked the begin-ning of a new era for the Public Theatre of Kentucky. It was the first season in the newly renovated Phoenix Theatre and was the first season without Woodruff. Newly designed by Tom Tutino, the old Alley Playhouse was christened the Phoenix Theatre and opened with Beau Jest. The Phoenix Theatre was named after the bird from Arabian mythology that lived for 500 years, burned itself to death and rose out of its own ashes to start another long life. The phoenix is symbolic of life

that goes on forever.It was during this season that the board of directors

maintained the PTK without the services of an artistic director. Combs took on many of the responsibilities of that position.

The following year, Mike Thomas became artistic direc-tor of theater. Popular and charismatic, Thomas dubbed himself “Mr. PTK.” Many new innovations and commu-nity outreach programs were started during his tenure. In December 1996, Combs died and PTK lost its dear friend and staunch supporter. The Whit Combs audito-rium in the Phoenix Theatre was dedicated in honor of his memory.

Before the decade came to a close Thomas took a position in Frankfort and Mark Funk became artistic director. Funk’s association with PTK began in the early years with Woodruff. Before becoming artistic director, Funk had served as actor, musical director, director and assistant to Thomas. Funk’s directorship gave needed continuity to PTK.

The millennium was ushered in at PTK with Alexis Combs McCoy, Combs’ daughter, as artistic director and Delia Brown as producing director. Beginning with the McCoy/Brown tenure, a number of innovative addi-tions came to PTK, including the Sunburst Youth Theatre, which involves youth of this community in theatre activi-ties and public performance.

In January 2002, Brown took over the responsibilities of artistic and producing director at PTK. In the past year PTK has grown to include even more outreach programs for southcentral Kentucky. The After Hours Series is very popular and has brought new audiences to the theatre. The Mondays @ 7:00 New Play Reading Series, in which PTK will present staged readings of original scripts, fur-ther promotes theatre in this region.

Bowling Green welcomed Woodruff to the Phoenix to direct “Crimes of the Heart” during the fall of 2001. After her many years at The Public Theatre of Kentucky, this was her first production in the Phoenix Theatre. From 2011 to early 2015, Jenny Wells took over from former director Brown. In April of 2015, Turner was named the producing artistic director.

Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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SENSE OF THEDRAMATICRegion is rich in arts history

Story by AlySSA HArvey | AHArvey@bgdAilynewS.com

From the early days of the Capitol Arts Center as a vaudeville house in the 1890s to the Regal Cinemas Bowling

Green 12 and the Regal Greenwood Mall Stadium 10 today, Bowling Green has a lot to offer in the arts.

Miranda Pederson/photo@bgdailynews.comFountain Square Players rehearse “Dearly Beloved” in 2009 at Phoenix theatre.

According to “A Salute to Theatre in Bowling Green” by Nancy D. Baird and Carol Crowe-Carraco, Bowling Green has been welcoming to the per-forming arts. They describe Bowling Green’s early 19th century theaters as “crude, makeshift edific-es.” Enterprising individuals could turn any vacant building that could accommodate performers and

an audience into a theater. Seating, heating and light-ing arrangements were primitive. The programs given in Bowling Green antebellum theaters included spec-tacles, dancing, recitation, pantomime and combination animal-dramatic performances as well as true drama. There were also melodramas, farces and comic operas. Shakespeare and Sheridan were favorites, but local authors fared well.

Because performances were long, they started early. Admission was 25 cents to a dollar, being raised to keep out undesirable people. Blacks and ladies not received in society sat in segregated sections. Sometimes unac-companied ladies were refused admission. Traveling theatrical companies and amateur groups performed regularly in Bowling Green. There were several amateur groups. Showboats also provided entertainment.

Bowling Green’s first building for theatrical productions was Odeon Hall. The original three-story building was erected in 1866 by John Cox Underwood, according to “Our Heritage: An Album of Early Bowling Green Kentucky Landmarks” by Irene Moss Sumpter. The first perfor-mance there was a piano recital in 1869. Later there were local talent plays, minstrels and Broadway shows making stops between shows in Louisville and Nashville. After it was purchased in 1887 by Pleasant J. Potter it became The Potter Opera House. The building was later renovated for business. At one time it was the home of BB&T bank. The building still stands at the corner of Main and College Streets and is currently not occupied.

The Capitol began as a vaudeville house in the late 1890s before being renamed the Columbia Theatre, according to the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center’s website at theskypac.com, which operates the Capitol.

According to information provided by Miranda Clements, Greenways coordinator of the City-County Planning Commission a series of theaters have occu-pied the site since the Columbia Theatre opened in 1911. Remodeled and renamed the Capitol Theatre in 1920, this building was razed in 1938 to allow construction for the present structure. Owned by the

Crescent Amusement Co. of Nashville, the Capitol was the fourth theater in Bowling Green run by the company. Closed as a theater in 1972, the Capitol reopened in 1981 as the Capitol Arts Center. This building is one of the few Art Deco structures found in the area.

The Columbia Theatre was redesigned as a movie house in the mid-1930s and presented movies for more than three decades before it closed in 1967, according to the SKyPAC website. After being vacant for more than 10 years, a group of citizens formerly known as the Bowling Green-Warren County Arts Commission purchased the building. After reopening in 1981, the building was man-aged by the Capitol Arts Alliance for 30 years. See ARTS, 6

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Another place for youth to perform is Xclaim! Helmed by founding executive director Christopher Cherry, Xclaim! pro-vides a place where school-age children and teenagers can not only perform in

plays, but learn the skills they need to become good actors. Weekly acting, voice and dance lessons are offered for fees, and participants learn backstage production as well. Everything is through donations, sponsors and social activities.

— For more information, visit xclaiminc.com.

xCla

im!The Princess Theatre was owned by the Crescent

Amusement Co. and opened in July 1914, accord-ing to information provided by Clements. It may have been one of the first theaters built in Kentucky for the express purpose of showing motion pic-tures. After operating for more than 40 years as a theater, the Princess at 430 E. Main St. closed in 1957 and was remodeled in 1959 for retail use. Several retail operations occupied the build-ing until 1980. The theater, which is now known as the Princess Building, once again houses several businesses.

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ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 5

BG OnStage developed in 2009. It’s first name was the Art Education Task Force, said Elise

Charny.“That proved to be a

mouthful, so we changed it,” she said. “We are mainly a school-based group.”

It started with visual arts and dance, Charny said.

“We wanted to get kids involved,” she said. “The kids showed more interest in theater, so we became a theater company.”

BG OnStage is commu-nity theater with classes, workshops and produc-tions, Charny said.

“Our smallest class size is 10, but the cast can be as many as 40 people,” she said.

It’s not just for children, Charny said.

“We have a lot of adults that come and perform in our pieces,” she said. “We have ages 6 to adult.”

The goal of BG OnStage is to promote education through theater, Charny said.

“We like to get on

stage, but there are tools to learn like ensemble work, leadership and pub-lic speaking,” she said.

BG OnStage has per-formed a variety of plays, including “Junie B. Jones,” “James and the Giant Peach,” “Anne Frank” and “Charlotte’s Web.” They do their productions at WKU’s Van Meter Hall Auditorium, which lends itself to big productions, Charny said.

“It’s nice to get them while they’re young and watching them go through their teen years,” she said. “We have fun with our adults, too. They’re either serious or they enjoy being there.”

Charny hopes to do the musical “Sweeney Todd” with mainly high school students and older this summer.

“We had a lot of educa-tors and teachers in the community who wanted to be in our productions, but they had to be in their classrooms,” she said.

Charny fondly remem-bers the musicals she did with Fountain Square Players.

“Fountain Square Players used to have a summer musical every year. I participated in four of them,” she said. “It was usually in late sum-mer or early fall.”

All kids need theater, art and some enrichment, Charny said.

“It allows them to see through the eyes of some-one else, which helps the grow as people,” she said. “Arts are being taken out of schools.”

— For more information, visit bgonstage.org.

Fountain Square Players has been around in a sense since 1977. With the help of Combs and Bill Leonard of WKU’s Department of Theatre, a group set out to bring the defunct Alley Players back to life as the Warren County Community Theatre, according to information pro-vided by FSP historian Elizabeth Honeycutt, who also manages the theater group’s rehearsal space.

“The idea was that there could be a place for grown people who still loved play acting. There are lots of children’s theater now,” she said. “When we got here there was only was the Red Stocking Revue and the Alley Players had been here but were defunct. The Western Guild had been here but was defunct. The Red Stocking Revue had a gala once a year.”

WKU provided direction, fund-

ing and space. “A Thurber Carnival” was presented in June. A second play, “Spoon River Anthology,” followed in late July. Two more plays were produced in collaboration with WKU the next summer. In 1978, the name was changed to Fountain Square Players. Articles of Incorporation were filed and the first “season,” 1978-79, came to pass.

The fledgling group had to find a place to perform. During the first three full seasons, plays were produced at various plac-es on WKU’s campus, at Warren County Courthouse, at State Street United Methodist Church, in different stores in the vacant Bowling Green Mall and in the Holidome motel. In April 1981, the Capitol Arts Center allowed the group to present “Little Mary Sunshine” in the renovated Capitol Theatre building. They stayed at the Capitol for the 1981-82 season, opening with “Our Town.”

“We had a courtroom drama there,” Honeycutt said of the courthouse. “I think we had one twice.”

Next was the quandary of where to build the sets. Members’ garages were quickly outgrown and borrowed spaces needed to be used by others. A successful production of “Annie” brought in enough money for FSP to buy a scene shop and studio at 313 State St. The mortgage was burned in the summer of 1989.

“We’re not just actors,” Honeycutt said. “We have to per-form in other areas, too.”

In August 1993, Public Theatre of Kentucky allowed FSP to use the Phoenix Theatre, which was the old Alley Playhouse, to pro-duce “The Cemetery Club.” Several other plays were also produced there.

In 2001, just before their reviv-al of the play “Farndale Avenue Housing Estates Dramatic Guild’s Production of ‘A Christmas

Carol,’ ” the Capitol suffered damage to its ceiling and they had to find another home. Van Meter Auditorium, the old court-house and the old Bowling Green Junior High were some of the plac-es FSP performed at before they returned to the Capitol. Funding caused them to move back to the Phoenix, where they’ve been since 2006.

Bill Russell, who died last year, was a guiding force for FSP for a long time, Honeycutt said.

“He helped build sets and cos-tumes. He wrote a play that we did, a musical,” she said. “He directed a lot of them. He won a Jefferson Award last year.”

FSP has been a haven for all types of people, Honeycutt said.

“We’ve fostered some people who have made it a career,” she said. “We do it just for fun.”

— For more information, visit fountainsquareplayers.org.

While Horse Cave Theatre, which later became known as Kentucky Repertory Theatre, is no longer open, it had a major impact on southcentral Kentucky.

As longtime artistic direc-tor Warren Hammack said in October 1977, after one sea-son of Horse Cave Theatre: “live things grow,” accord-ing to information provided by Sandra Wilson, execu-tive director of the Horse Cave/Hart County Tourist Commission. The theatre had started on vision and faith. It had played to over 9,000 people in its inaugu-ral year. “Candida,” “Mary, Mary” and “The Glass Menagerie” had been artis-tic successes.

The theatre was incor-porated Oct. 22, 1975. It began as a dream in the mind of a native son. Tom Chaney had grown up in Horse Cave and became involved with theatre at Georgetown College as part of the Orlin and Irene Corey era at that small Baptist

college in the bluegrass region. With a friend in 1966, he began dreaming his dream of a theatre in his hometown which would educate and entertain local children and adults as well as tourists who came to visit nearby Mammoth Cave and other attractions of the area.

In 1975, Chaney returned to Horse Cave as a dairy farmer after stints as col-lege instructor, theatre technical director and edi-torial writer. Bill Austin, a local businessman who owned the largest tourist attraction in Horse Cave, liked Chaney’s idea of a theatre and put his resourc-es behind it. Together they looked about to recruit a director to join them in the task of changing their dream to a community dream with money and muscle behind it.

Hammack had shared theatre at Center College with Chaney, going on to Europe and the Dallas Theatre Center to study and winding up in Los Angeles.

He was available and excited about the Horse Cave project. According to Hammack’s report to the board of directors on Oct. 31, 1977: “It (HCT) came into being at that time (1975) primarily because of the vision and work of two people, Tom Chaney and Bill Austin. I had become actively involved about two months prior to the mile-stone event (incorporation) ... . From that time until now I see the life of Horse Cave Theatre springing from and resting on one thing: faith ... faith in the idea and faith in each other.”

The prospectus of the the-atre as set forth by Austin, Chaney and Hammack rest-ed on several pillars: an audience of tourists in cave country and local residents within a 250-mile radius; a true repertory season with different plays performed on succeeding nights; a professional company who are members of Actors Equity Association; and a promotion staff to get the word out.

Funds were raised for the first season with a $150,000 line of credit at the Horse Cave State Bank, backed by pledges from scores of area busi-nesses, individuals and even children. The estimat-ed budget was $150,722, including renovation of the building, salaries, publicity, travel, sets and costumes, etc. The Austins donated the rent of the building and paid for its renovation.

From the first sea-son a Children’s Theatre Workshop was held. By the fifth season there was an outreach production for students. Volunteers assisted professionals with costumes, sets, props, box office duties, ushering and a hundred other tasks. Actors and technicians from around the country enriched the life of Horse Cave and the surrounding area by living and working here.

Hammack began a series of new plays he called Kentucky Voices, plays by Kentuckians or about

Kentucky. Most of them were developed in playwrit-ing classes at the theater.

The theater continued to expand, purchasing the orig-inal building and its neigh-bor and creating offices, a costume shop, a rehears-al hall and ample back-stage space. The season also continued to expand, extending through October and occasionally offering a Christmas production.

Hammack retired in early 2002, after completing 25 seasons of directing and acting and building the theatre. Robert Brock was artistic/producing director from 2002-11.

The theater was making its final curtain call in 2012. Kentucky Stages artistic director Ken Hailey made an offer to buy it after moving its operations to the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center. The organization tried raising money through Indiegogo, a fundraising site, but didn’t succeed. Citizens First Bank in Bowling Green now owns the property.

PTK does four to five Mainstage productions and three to four Sunburst productions per season. There is also a summer arts camp, Turner said.

“The kids produce their own show and have guest speakers such as Broadway the Clown and Alice Gatewood Waddell,” she said.

PTK always tries to get the community involved, Turner said.

“For example, Wendy’s of Bowling Green has really helped us get the word out about our show (‘Inside Out Atlas’),” she said.

The Phoenix Music Series showcases local and regional musicians. The After Hours Series usually features edgier productions. Turner also wants to collaborate with someone like Yellowberri to start a movie night.

“Our auditorium is a perfect place to set up a screen and show movies in an intimate setting,” she said.

Turner hopes to expand PTK’s reach into acting lessons.

“We’re doing improv les-sons right now. We’re look-ing at doing outreach in the schools,” she said. “We’d do whatever workshops they want us to do rath-er than have the children bussed to our facility.”

Getting ready for a sea-son takes a lot of work, Turner said.

“I read a lot of scripts. We invite some of the local directors to sub-mit scripts,” she said. “A couple of board mem-bers read scripts. Then you have to think about what the audience wants to see – drama, comedy, new, classic.”

Turner is excited to be producing director.

“I can’t wait to see the season I had a chance of choosing unfold,” she said.

— For more information, visit ptkbg.org.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 20166 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

THR6

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From Page 5

ARTSFountain Square PlayerS

HorSe Cave tHeatre

BG onStaGe

Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center is one of the latest on the arts landscape in Bowling Green. The 74,500-square-foot SKyPAC opened its doors March 10, 2012. The organiza-tion came about after a group of people saw a need for something larger than the Capitol. State Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, secured $6.7 million in the state budget for seed money for SKyPAC. There was also additional fund-ing, including county tax revenue bonds being paid for with a special motel tax and Bowling Green’s Tax Increment Financing district for the project. There were also naming opportunities to raise money. Even though it has gone through financial turbulent waters, SKyPAC has recently celebrated its fourth season.

Shows such as “Million Dollar Quartet,” which tells of a jam session with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash at Sun Record Studios in Memphis, help bring people in, said SKyPAC Executive Director Jan Zarr.

“We’re bringing in top-quality enter-tainment where people don’t have to drive out of town,” he said.

There have been education and out-reach programs. such as Blues in Schools, presented by the Kentucky Blues Society.

“We’re reached 50,000 students and educators in the last four years,” Zarr said. “We continue to expand in neighboring counties. One reason is the Duncan Hines Festival proceeds.”

SKyPAC has contributed to Bowling Green and Warren County’s economy, Zarr said.

“We bring people into Bowling Green that go to eat in restaurants, go to shop and get gas,” he said. “For ‘Annie,’ we were able to provide wardrobe people and stagehands.”

Zarr wants SKyPAC’s reach to be beyond its walls.

“We want to become more than an arts center. We have a much larger

reach than we’ve had in the last four years for the BRADD region,” he said. “We want to make a better quality of life for people in this region.”

Zarr wants to bring more educational opportunities to more than just kinder-garten through 12th-graders. He wants to reach seniors, adults and young adults as well.

“They can have that experience,” he said.

When kids walk into the theater during school day performances, “they think they’re in the Taj Mahal,” Zarr said.

“We’re bringing students in the arts and giving them the opportunity to have something we hope will last them a life-time,” he said.

The shows are part of the educational outreach. An example that Zarr remem-bers is the Pink Floyd Experience.

“We saw hundreds of parents, but I was surprised at how many young peo-ple 12 and up came to that show,” he said.

SKyPAC isn’t solely for the arts. It has been used as a venue for nonprofits and commercial businesses who want to rent space for meetings or other events. People have also had weddings, show-ers and trainings there, Zarr said.

“The facility is to be used by the com-munity. We want to make it more so,” he said.

It is also a space for schools in the BRADD region, Zarr said.

“There are up to four every year (that can) use the main hall, the Capitol or smaller spaces for free through contrib-uted funds that come in on an annual basis. We send out applications to all the schools. They have to apply for it,” he said. “They have to answer certain questions. We look at how it will affect the community of that school.”

— For more information, visit thesky pac.com.

— Follow features reporter Alyssa Harvey on Twitter at twitter.com/bgdn features or visit bgdailynews.com.

SoutHern kentuCky PerForminG artS Center

Though Sarah Nuse, as the owner of Tippi Toes Dance Co., must keep track of 26 locations across the country, she still teaches children to dance. Once a week, she goes to Briarwood Elementary School after school lets out to teach about 20 students, including her two daughters, to dance.

Gathered in the library, where the tables and chairs were rearranged to form a wide open space, the chil-dren, either barefoot or wear-ing pink dance shoes, spread out, each confining them-selves to what Nuse called a “dance square,” a patch of the carpet roughly 2 feet square.

“We’re going to try a new Tippi Toes song,” she said in a cheerful voice when the children quieted down, “but it’s kind of tricky because it gets faster and faster.”

In a moment, the lesson started with a funky, upbeat number as Nuse led the stu-dents through several exer-cises and stretches. The stu-dents responded energetical-ly, shaking their hips, touch-ing their toes and stretching their arms skyward.

Square OneNuse founded Tippi Toes

when she was 18, not think-ing it would be a permanent career. At the time, she was a student at the University of Oklahoma working to get a communications degree.

“The short of it is I had just gotten fired from waitressing because I decided to go to a football game instead of go to my job,” she said. “And I had just bought a car and so I needed quick money.”

At the time, she was no stranger to teaching dance. She had six years of expe-rience, having offered dance classes for children in her

neighborhood since she was 12.

“I charged the moms in the neighborhood for me to teach their kids,” she said. “It was like $5 a day. I made nothing, but at 12, it seemed like a lot of money.”

Nuse started dancing when she was 2.

“My mom was a dance teacher, so it’s been in my blood since I was born,” she said.

unique featureSWhat she considers to be

the feature that makes Tippi

Toes unique, its lack of a fixed location, like the com-pany itself, was originally the product of necessity, she said. When she founded the company, she didn’t have the means to buy or rent a building to hold classes in so she decided to take the class-es to schools and day cares throughout Norman, Okla.

Throughout Tippi Toes’ existence, the company’s ability to provide classes at places where its students would already be has given children a chance to dance when their families might

not have otherwise been able to find the time.

“Our goal at Tippi Toes is to instill a love of dancing for kids but also to be a con-venience for parents,” Nuse said. “At the end of their long work day, their children have already danced because we’ve already brought dance into the location where their kids have been all day.”

Kyleen Baptiste, owner of the Bowling Green Tippi Toes franchise, said the com-pany’s commitment to bring-ing dance to where its stu-dents already are makes “an

incredibly huge difference” to many busy families.

Tippi Toes also sets itself apart by striving to make dancing fun for kids rather than focusing on competi-tion, Baptiste said.

“I think it’s very encourag-ing for children of all skill levels because love of dance is something all children have and we want to nurture that,” she said. “We want it to be challenging but we also want every child to feel like a superstar and that they can dance.”

Tippi Toes offers classes

to children from 16 months old to 12 years, Baptiste said. Tippi Toes’ 16-month-old students take classes that teach the basics of ballet like vocabulary and stances.

“At that point, what you’re doing is a lot of music and dance repetition,” she said. “Baby ballet class is going to look very different from a kindergarten-through-third-grade hip hop class.”

After the lesson in the Briarwood Elementary library, Trish Sherrod, whose

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Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.comSarah NuSe of Bowling Green teaches a lesson Tuesday with Tippi Toes Dance Co. at Briarwood elementary. Tippi Toes was featured on the television show Shark Tank and is currently filming a commercial in Bowling Green.

Tippi Toes franchises bring dance fun to kids from coast to coast

See DANCE, 8

daughter, Madison, a kin-dergartener at Briarwood, has been taking Tippi Toes classes since last autumn, was among the group of par-ents who had come to pick up their children.

Madison got involved with the program because sever-al of her friends were doing it and has grown to love it, Sherrod said.

“I think she likes how it’s more than just ballet,” she said. “It’s a little bit of ballet, a little bit of jazz, a little bit of hip hop.”

Nuse and Tippi Toes’ other instructors focus primar-ily on making the programs engaging for kids, Sherrod said. “They’ve really made it fun for her,” she said.

Brian Martin, who was there to pick up his daughter Anna Rose, said Tippi Toes coming to his daughter’s school is a blessing for his busy family.

“With both parents work-ing, it’s good to try to limit activities to where they already are,” he said.

Before she was a student at Briarwood, Anna Rose attended Tippi Toes class-es at the child care center La Petite Academy for two years.

Martin also said the class-es have made their students more outgoing, he said. “I think it makes them more well-rounded, not as embar-rassed to do stuff in front of people,” he said.

More than danceAt Tippi Toes, Nuse does

more than simply operating the business side of things and teaching one class every week. She also comes up with the lessons that are used in Tippi Toes classes from coast to coast and mak-ing sure instructors are up to speed on dances and other parts of the curriculum.

“The classes that you see in Bowling Green are the same ones that are in Washington, D.C., and California.”

She is also heavily involved in creating the music her classes use, having penned four albums since 2007, the

newest of which, a children’s hip hop CD, is due out in October. The music in these albums, which she described as energetic and positive, is designed to be used in Tippi Toes lessons.

“We do everything as very original from our music to the way that we train our teachers,” Nuse said.

SpreadWhile still in Oklahoma,

Nuse had to relocate when her husband Adam landed a job in Kansas City. Rather than moving the entirety of her operation, though, Nuse left a manager in Norman before she left and started a new branch of Tippi Toes in Missouri. Between then and 2014, she’s also been sta-tioned in Corpus Christi and Memphis.

In January 2014, Adam became the Bowling Green Hot Rods’ general manag-er and the Nuses moved to Bowling Green.

Everywhere she’s been since starting her company, she’s left a Tippi Toes loca-tion in her wake. In addition, the business has attracted interest across the country,

leading to numerous other Tippi Toes franchises through the United States, including Daytona Beach, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.

In 2011, Nuse and her sister Megan Reilly, who works with the company as a nutritionist, competed on “Shark Tank,” an ABC real-ity competition show where entrepreneurs make pitches to “shark” investors, who then decide whether or not to invest in their ideas.

Their appearance on “Shark Tank” netted Tippi Toes international attention, Nuse said. Since then, she’s gotten calls from people wishing to open up Tippi Toes franchises in India, China and Saudi Arabia.

Nuse is still unsure wheth-er or not franchisees will be bringing Tippi Toes to any of these countries.

“We’re not really seeking international business out, but there’s been a lot of inter-est,” she said.

For now, Nuse has her eyes set on Nashville, she said, adding that she hopes she can find someone inter-ested in opening up a fran-chise there.

“That’s a huge market where there’s nothing like this so I think it would do really well,” she said.

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter at twitter.com/Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 20168 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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PHotos by Austin AntHony/photo@bgdailynews.comAbove: Megan Reily of Ormond Beach, Fla., teaches a lesson Tuesday with Tippi Toes Dance Company at Briarwood elementary. Tippi Toes was featured on the television show Shark Tank and is currently filming a commercial in Bowling Green. below: Simayia Cardwell, 5, of Bowling green, dances during a lesson with Tippi Toes.

From Page 7

DANCE

LocaL teams stack up athLetic accompLishments

ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 9Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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What comes to mind when you think of sports in Bowling Green?

Is it Western Kentucky University’s basketball team advancing in the NCAA Tournament? Or is it Bowling Green High School’s football team running roughshod over another oppo-nent, securing yet another state cham-

pionship? Or maybe it’s the players on the city’s minor league baseball team trading in their Hot Rods uniforms for a day and taking the field as the Bowling Green Cave Shrimp?

Maybe it’s none of the above, which isn’t necessarily surprising for a city that has a number of athletic accom-plishments.

Of all the local sports, WKU ath-

letics likely has the highest profile to outsiders. WKU athletic director Todd Stewart said that perspective would make athletics the “front porch” of the university to people who might be watching the Hilltoppers on TV some-where.

“Whether it’s fair or not, I think people do form their first impressions based on the success of an athletic pro-

gram, and that’s a huge responsibility that we take very seriously,” he said.

WKU athletics raised its collective profile by joining Conference USA in 2014. Stewart characterized the move at the time as a “transformational moment that will elevate” the univer-sity and its athletic programs.

By JUSTIN STORYjstory@bgdailynews.com

Joe Imel/jimel@bgdailynews.comWestern KentucKy quarterback Brandon Doughty celebrates Dec. 5 after the Hilltoppers defeated southern Mississippi 45-28 to win the conference usA championship in Bowling Green.

See BANNER, 10

Daily News file photoBowling green’s Ben Kline jumps to avoid lake County’s Jeremy lucas after forcing him out at second base in 2013 during a Hot rods game at Bowling green Ballpark.

For the major sports, the move to the new conference translated into increased television exposure and rev-enue for the football team, which has won consecutive bowl games and finished the 2015 season ranked nation-ally. For men’s and women’s basketball, C-USA member-ship has the potential benefit of increasing the opportu-nity for at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament.

“I think the more excited your alum-ni are, the better you feel, the more engaged you are in a number of areas – TV, ticket sales, sponsorships, con-cessions, parking, all those areas,” Stewart said. “I think any time either one of those sports is play-ing in postseason play ... they both certainly have a major impact. I think pro-longed athletic success can help with enrollment.”

WKU men’s basketball has seen its share of recent postseason success, includ-ing two victories in the 2008 NCAA Tournament high-lighted by a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Ty Rogers in an opening-round win over Drake.

Four years later, WKU pulled off a comeback vic-tory over Mississippi Valley State with President Barack Obama in attendance.

Hot Rods Heat up summeRThe Hot Rods became

a part of the city’s sports establishment by making bold plays for attention.

A name-the-team contest ahead of the team’s inaugu-ral 2009 season brought the Hot Rods into existence, but a What Could Have Been Night promotion that year saw the team take the field for one game as the Cave Shrimp, one of the alterna-tives to Hot Rods that fans could have voted on as the team name.

That was voted Best Promotion for that season in a fan poll on the official website for Minor League Baseball.

Hot Rods General Manager Adam Nuse is entering his third season with the team and is over-seeing a rebranding of the franchise that includes new logos and new uniforms that trade out red and yellow for orange and blue as the team’s primary colors.

“Changing the look and the feel, you can never get your number one back, but this is an opportunity to get people out to the ballpark and see it firsthand,” Nuse said.

Minor league baseball teams often rely on eye-grabbing promotions or amenities to supplement the on-field action.

Bowling Green Ballpark added a playground for chil-dren last year, and Nuse said he is looking forward to see how the ballpark and the retooled Stadium Park Plaza will mesh together on game nights.

Other upcoming promo-tions include a 3-D fire-works night and a promo-tion in which the team will play a game as the Bowling Green Bootleggers.

“These days with social media you get feedback quickly on a lot of things, and community involve-ment is a big part of our mis-sion here,” Nuse said.

The Hot Rods use the ball-park for 70 regular-season games each year, but a con-certed effort has been made in the past couple of years to have the stadium host addi-tional events, like concerts or other sports.

Last year, the ballpark hosted the Hot Rods or other events on 123 nights. Nuse said he hopes to have 150 events there this year.

pReps, etc.Any native Kentuckian

knows that basketball is the center of the state’s sporting universe, and Lexington’s Rupp Arena is the destina-tion that high school boys’ basketball teams all over the state aim to reach.

The city’s boys’ basketball teams have had an extraor-dinary track record, with Warren Central winning the 2004 state champion-ship and earning the runner-up trophy in 2005 amid a run of several consecutive 4th Region titles for the

Dragons.Bowling Green High

School was the state run-ner-up last season in boys’ basketball, the school’s best finish, and is the three-time defending region champion.

Prep basketball has pro-duced stars over the decades like Darel Carrier, Kenny Britt, Daymeon Fishback, George Fant and Chane Behanan in boys’ basketball and Clemette Haskins and Sese Helm on the girls’ side.

The city for several years hosted the girls’ state bas-ketball tournament, held

at WKU’s Diddle Arena from 2001-15.

For all the hoop dreams dancing around in kids’ heads, though, Bowling Green is the final destination for high schoolers seeking out glory on the football field.

Houchens-Smith Stadium on WKU’s campus hosts the state football champion-ships, known as the Gridiron Bowl.

Bowling Green and South Warren high schools cap-tured state football titles in their respective classes this past season. This was the first major state champion-ship for the Spartans, while the Purples won their fourth championship in five sea-sons.

Houchens-Smith will host the state football champion-ships through 2018.

KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett said in an email that WKU, the spon-sors, local businesses and staff at the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau have helped foster a welcome and sup-portive environment.

“Additionally, the size of the stadium at WKU is a huge plus in that it is large enough to accommodate our crowds, but small enough to create a great intimate atmosphere to maximize the experience for the students,” Tackett said. “The playing surface at any potential site would likely be the same, but the close confines and small stadium atmosphere have been one of the very positive points mentioned by our coaches and partici-pants.”

Other noteworthy local prep sports accomplish-ments include Greenwood High School’s undefeated state championship fast-pitch softball season in 2013 and Bowling Green High School’s 2014 state cham-pion boys’ soccer team.

In youth sports, the Bowling Green East Little League All-Stars made a respectable showing in last year’s Little League World Series, advancing to the third round.

High school and youth sports can be the center of gravity in a smaller commu-nity, but a successful team can also raise the profile of a larger community.

“People from all walks of life, all levels of education and across all incomes join together to root for a com-mon team with the same goal in mind,” Bowling Green East coach Rick Kelley said. “When it involves our youth and live televi-sion, it goes to a whole new level and completely off the charts. It becomes a daily topic of conversation, the games are ‘must-see’ televi-sion and everyone is in awe of the players’ skills, their poise, their confidence and their pride in representing Bowling Green, Kentucky.

“Youth sports are a vital piece of this community. Our youth must develop skills of teamwork, self-con-trol, sportsmanship and ded-ication if they are to succeed as productive members of a community.”

Some area sporting events satisfy certain athletic nich-es:

•The Bowling Green Inline Hockey League has been active since 1995, holding youth, high school and adult matches at Basil Grififn Park.

•The Vette City Vixens roller derby team has devel-oped a loyal following since 2009, skating home bouts at the Skate Box against teams from other cities.

•The Bowling Green Bandits semi-pro American Basketball Association team plays a fast-paced brand of basketball.

— Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter at twitter.com/jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 201610 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

From Page 9

BANNER

Julian TackeTT

ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 11Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Warren County Parks & Recreation Department B ASEBALL / S OFTBALL U MPIRES

T RAINING O UTLINE 2016

WCPRD and local youth leagues will be looking for youth baseball and softball umpires. Competitive

wages offered by leagues per game.

Individuals who are interested should attend an informational

meeting on March 28, 2016 or April 4, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. at

Phil Moore Park.

Day/Date Time Topic Location

Mon. 3/28/16 6:00 p.m. Training on Field Moore Park Field 1

Mon. 4/4/16 6:00 p.m. Training on Field Moore Park Field 1

Mon. 4/11/16 6:00 p.m. Mechanics Test Parks Office

Mon. 4/18/16 6:00 p.m. Scrimmages Various Sites

Additional training will be offered for any new umpires on the following Sunday Afternoons (2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.) as needed in March 20th and April 10th. This training will focus primarily on mechanics and positioning of umpires.

Assignments will be emailed by assigners as soon as game schedules are made.

Kris Fields Athletic Coordinator

Warren County Parks and Recreation Department

F IELD A TTENDANTS T RAINING O UTLINE 2016

WCPRD is looking for individuals to fill 30 field attendant

(Part-time Position - Seasonal Only) positions to keep score during

baseball and softball season. Applicants must be 14 years of age or older.

Organization meeting: Tuesday, March 29, 2016�•�6:00 p.m.

Basil Griffin Park Office (2055 Three Springs Rd)

Day/Date Time Topic Location Tues. 3/29/16 6:00 p.m. Field Training Griffin Field 2

Scoreboard Training Parks Office

2055 Three Springs Rd

Tues. 4/5/16 6:00 p.m. Makeup from Class #2 Parks Office

Thur. 4/7/16 6:00 p.m. Makeup from Class #3 Griffin Field 2

Daily News file photosabove: Western KentucKy quarterback Brandon Doughty runs with the football during the Hilltoppers’ 45-28 win Dec. 5 over southern Mississippi to win the conference usA championship in Bowling Green. below left: Bowling Green High school’s football team celebrates its 2013 state championship at Houchens-smith stadium. below right: south Warren High school’s cameron Buckner (19) and Jacob Wilde hug Dec. 6 after the spartans defeated Johnson central for the state championship.

While most people aren’t think-ing about swimming during the cooler months of the year, staff members at pools and water parks are still routinely going out to those drained pools and dry slides to get them ready for summer.

At Russell Sims Aquatic Center, there’s been a bit more activity in recent months.

Adam Butler, recreation division manager at the Bowling Green parks department, said Russell Sims staff members use the time the park is closed to get it ready for the summer, which always includes some kind of tune-up.

“The facility’s 16 years old, so

there’s always something that could use improvements,” he said.

This winter and spring, the main project has been renovating the restrooms and retiling the entrance to the aquatic center, parks depart-ment Director Brent Belcher said.

“We felt like for our customers, it was time to give them something better,” he said.

The new tiles will be slip-resis-tant, Butler said. “It’ll be a lot safer for customers, less chance of them slipping,” he said.

This should do away with the need to put mats down over the existing tile, Butler said. These mats have been a problem in the past because, while they prevent slipping, they trap dirt and make

the facility harder to clean. Next winter, staff members will

need to paint the pool, something that must be done every four years or so because the paint gradually cracks and wears away, he said.

The park is also changing the for-mat of season passes, Belcher said. Formerly the size of a credit card, this summer they will be small enough to fit on a keyring, he said.

This year, the Russell Sims staff is also changing the sand in its fil-ters for the first time, Belcher said.

“We really hadn’t needed to until this year,” he said, adding that this is a normal lifespan for filter sand, he said.

Russell Sims opens around Memorial Day, according to the

city of Bowling Green’s web page, though it does not give a specific date.

Charlotte Gonzalez, general man-ager at Beech Bend Park and the attached water park Splash Lagoon, said while the park is “not very excit-ing” in the winter, it does undergo preparations for the upcoming sum-mer. “Our pools are all drained,” she said. “We’ve basically got con-crete holes for our pools.”

Staff members are painting the pools this year, Gonzalez said. The painting is typically done in April, though it depends on how the weather is expected to be, she said.

“Some of these are very large painting projects so you need three to five warm days in a row,”

Gonzalez said. While the park is closed for the

winter, machines vital to its sum-mer operations like pumps and fil-ters are shut off, hibernating in a storage building on the property, Gonzalez said.

Meanwhile, someone is always at the park, making sure every-thing stays quiet, she said. “We have someone here 24 hours a day watching over it,” she said.

Gonzalez said she is eagerly awaiting Beech Bend’s May 7 opening and Splash Lagoon’s May 21 opening.

— Follow Daily News report-er Jackson French on Twitter at twitter.com/Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 201612 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Bowling Green ... Geared for tourism!

Tourism is booming locally with growth in our region surpassing that of the entire state. Check out these results from the Bowling Green Area Convention & Visitors Bureau’s 2014-15 fiscal year.

Nearly $388 million visitor spending in Warren County

4,207 tourism jobs supported

Nearly 900,000 VisitBGKY.com page views

205,483 Bowling Green Area Visitors Guides distributed

37,349 visitors personally served

145 groups and events personally serviced

$355,320 value of earned media mentions

22 million reached through print & online mentions

11.5 million reached in print ads

2.3 million reached in online campaigns

Bowling Green Area Convention & Visitors Bureau 352 Three Springs Road Bowling Green, KY 42104

270-782-0800 • 800-326-7465 VisitBGKY.com

Do you belong to a group or association that holds meetings or events? We’d love to keep you close to home and host it

in Bowling Green! Contact us to learn more!

Water parks gearing up for summerBy JACKSON FRENCHjfrench@bgdailynews.com

Austin Anthony/photo@bgdailynews.comKass shrum of Scottsville does a front flip off the diving board in 2015 at Russell Sims Aquatic Center.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 13Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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ThriveSunday, April 3, 201614 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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CAVE CITY — When Scott Briggs of Horse Cave isn’t working at his fac-tory job, he can frequently be found contributing to Kentucky’s extreme metal scene.

He does that sometimes as a musician but mainly an independent record pro-ducer. As owner of Velocity Studios, which he operates out of the basement of his father’s Cave City home, he has recorded, mixed and mastered about 20 albums.

Briggs said he started Velocity Studios “out of necessity.” In 2007, he was a member of the now-defunct death metal band Aeons of Eclipse when the group decided to record an album.

After agreements with two studios fell apart, Briggs decided to try his own hand at recording the album, he said. “It didn’t work out ... so I decided I’d figure it out myself,” he said.

This decision was moti-vated partly by the high cost of recording material with professionals and partly by a feeling that no existing studio in the area could do extreme metal justice, Briggs said. He also figured know-ing how to produce recorded material would be a valuable skill, he said.

“Doing it myself would be an investment if I learned it well,” he said.

So he got to work on learn-ing the trade from sources on the Internet and buy-ing equipment. “I have no formal education on any of this,” Briggs said. “It all came from forum boards and tutorials on the net. The wealth of information that is free is mind-blowing.”

Since getting his studio set up, Briggs has added to or upgraded practically every piece of recording equip-ment he has and can’t esti-mate how much money he’s put into the business.

Originally, the studio was in his barn, a cluttered space where Aeons of Eclipse would practice. Eventually, he moved it into his father’s basement after his father suggested the idea.

Though his father is “more of an Eagles, The Band and Bob Dylan-type guy,” he doesn’t mind having the stu-dio in his house, Briggs said.

When the studio was built in the basement, it was made to be as close to soundproof as possible, he said.

“It’s not 100 percent, but it isn’t bothersome whenever someone is playing in there,” he said.

RecoRding in pRogRessGorgy, a Franklin-based

death metal band, is in the process of recording its sec-ond full-length album with Briggs and third overall.

Kelly McCoy, the group’s guitarist, said the band laid down all the guitar tracks for the album in one four-hour session in January. Briggs, who served as Gorgy’s drummer from roughly 2013 to 2015, is currently work-ing on writing and record-

ing drum parts to go with the guitars, he said.

“Prior to us recording, he’d never actually heard any of these guitar parts,” McCoy said. “So he’s taking his time to make sure to write appro-priate parts to everything that we have so far.”

Gorgy endured a frustrat-ing recording process at the Bomb Shelter, a Nashville recording studio where the band recorded its 2011 debut album, “Birth of Damnation,” McCoy said. The producer they worked with had plenty of experi-ence working with tradi-tional rock and indie musi-cians but had trouble figur-ing out what a death metal band might want an album to sound like.

“There are aspects to extreme metal that it seems that mainstream engineers don’t always understand,” McCoy said. “Scott just gets it.”

He also said Briggs takes the guesswork out of record-ing, adding that once they’re done recording, Briggs han-dles the rest, though he will send samples to the band to determine any additional changes that might need to be made.

Though the band has yet to record bass parts, vocals and guitar solos, McCoy said the members are expecting their third full-length, a con-cept album titled “Sexually Transmitted Disfigurement,” to be released this summer.

TRying someThing newAbominant, a death metal

band that’s been operating out of Elizabethtown since 1993, with 10 full-length albums under its belt, had plenty of experience with traditional studios and also found that Briggs’ back-ground as a longtime metal

fan has been more valuable than the experience of less specialized professionals.

The band recorded six albums at Falk Audio in Louisville between 1998 and 2008, said Mike May, the group’s bassist. “Over time, I think it got to be kind of a cycle with us, and one that we needed to break,” he said.

The engineers at Falk didn’t understand or accom-modate the group’s desire for a rougher, dirtier sound qual-ity, he said.

“I personally butted heads with the guys for trying to overproduce and clean us up too much, which was not only counterproductive for us, but also very expensive for something we did not want,” May said.

Seeing that a change was needed, Abominant sought out Briggs after hearing and liking his work on “The Hour of Desolation,” the Briggs-produced Aeons of Eclipse full-length debut. Worried about working with someone new so long after settling into a routine, May didn’t know what to expect but figured that Briggs, as a member of numerous metal bands over the course of his life, probably knew the sort of sound Abominant wanted.

Over the course of record-ing three albums at Velocity, one of which has not yet been released, Abominant has grown confident in Brigg’s ability to handle their mixing and mastering without the band’s guidance, which they couldn’t do at Falk.

“It is so very nice to walk away from the stu-dio, the songs, each other and let Scott handle things at his own pace,” May said. “Nothing will burn you out on songs or even the band (more) than having to hear the songs, the mistakes and

the cleanup for hours at a time, over and over and over and over.

“To say we trust him would be an understatement,” he said. “We trust him more than we trust ourselves.”

A hobby, noT A businessKentucky’s extreme metal

community is small, mean-ing that bands from all over the area come to Velocity

Studios when they feel the need to record. This causes business to range unpredict-ably from heavy to nonex-istent.

Briggs doesn’t do much to advertise his studio, but word of mouth and return customers provide him with business throughout the year.

Though he would rather produce albums for a living than any “normal” job, he

doesn’t think of his role as a record producer as a job.

“I have never really approached it as a business per se,” Briggs said. “More as a hobby that I can occa-sionally make a little side cash from.”

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter at twitter.com/Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.

Cave City studio specializes in extreme metal productionsBy JACKSON FRENCHjfrench@bgdailynews.com

Submitted PhotoSAbove: Scott BriggS owns Velocity Studios, which he operates out of the basement of his father’s cave city home. Right: Briggs records a solo from Jacob Wilson (right) of Somer-set heavy metal band old Wolf.

Where central Kentucky has hosted many travelers on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Bowling Green is forging a name for itself as a place where one can find locally made beer, wine and spirits.

Enthusiasm for a red wine of a fine vintage, a bourbon or gin appealing to an adven-turous palate or a robust, fla-vorful beer has translated into a from-the-ground-up industry of sorts here made up of DIY enthusiasts who love the work that goes into making a good drink and sharing the results of their efforts with people who enjoy a high-quality product.

“We are taking some of these really hot tourism assets and extending the reach,” said Vicki Fitch, director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Before 1960, Bowling Green had what one might call a checkered history with alcohol. Sandwiched around the Prohibition era were numerous wet-dry votes in the city that led to taps open-ing in some year and beer barrels being junked in other years.

The city has allowed alco-hol sales since the vote in 1960 to go wet, but it has only been within the past few years that there has been a development of a beverage industry meant to bring in visitors.

“It fits right in with culi-nary tourism, with the diver-sity of our restaurants here,” Fitch said. “A lot of visitors like to visit more home-owned and operated restau-rants that they don’t have in their own communities, and the fact that some of our bars serve products that we have made right here all makes it fit really well together.”

Downtown holds the epi-center of the local spirits industry, with the employees at Corsair Artisan Distillery experimenting amid barrels of aging whiskey, develop-ing flavors meant to make a strong impression.

That willingness to tin-ker has led to small-batch

creations such as the Hopmonster whiskey, dis-tilled with hops that normal-ly make themselves known in a craft beer.

Other products of theirs have earned plaudits in magazines focused on the spirits industry and more general publications, and Corsair, which also has a Nashville facility, distributes its creations in more than 30 states as well as the United Kingdom.

A 2014 economic impact study from the University of Louisville found that craft distilleries, which produce on a small scale, are still in a relatively embryonic stage in Kentucky, though there is a market to be captured among consumers of spirits.

“According to our survey of KDA members, craft dis-tilleries combine to employ 127 people with salaries totaling over $4 million,” the study said. “Most are still at the stage where they are pro-ducing a very modest num-ber of barrels, but altogether they have invested about $30 million in land, buildings and equipment since 2008, and expect to invest another $25-$30 million during the next five years.”

Dueling Grounds Distillery in Franklin is anticipated to open in the spring and sell two kinds of clear whiskey, as its bourbon ages in barrels in preparation to be sold at least a couple of years from now.

Corsair is a stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Distillery Tour, created by the Kentucky Distillers’ Association to raise aware-ness of the industry.

“We might see connois-seurs who know everything about our product and are excited to get something that’s not in their market, and we might see someone who was just walking downtown and saw we did this,” said Aaron Marcum, head distill-er in Bowling Green, about people who come through during tours.

Living on the vine

Small-farm wineries have flourished in Bowling Green and surrounding communi-ties, thanks to special elec-tions that have produced favorable results for growers who want to sell and pack-age their wines.

Crocker Farm Wines in Simpson County, Cave Valley Winery in Park

Mammoth Resort and Green Palace Meadery in Barren County, which makes wine from honey, have established themselves in recent years. In Logan County, Carriage House Vineyards will be able to move forward with plans to bring in new cus-tomers after a special elec-tion March 22.

Reid’s Livery Winery in Alvaton was among the ear-liest small-farm wineries in the area and has become the most accomplished, accu-mulating about 150 medals at state, national and interna-tional contests, per founder Rex Reid’s estimate.

The winery, however, sprang forth from humble beginnings.

Reid had brought black-berries and other fruits to farmers markets for some time, and wine was initially looked at as a way to add value to his farm.

After deciding to go commercial in 2008, Reid improved his product thanks to the help of state agricul-tural officials with knowl-edge about the ideal condi-tions for growing grapes and berries for wine.

“It’s grown from the first year, when I think I made 130

gallons to then this past year I made 1,500,” Reid said. “That’s not a lot in winery standards, but it’s probably above average in Kentucky with licensed wineries.”

The winery’s website touts the 2011 black raspberry wine, which took the 2013 Kentucky Commercial Wine Commissioner’s Cup for the best boutique wine.

Five of Reid’s wines won medals at last year’s Commissioner’s Cup.

“I had to start from scratch several years ago, and I made wine as an amateur and gave away what I didn’t drink,” Reid said. “As far as that goes, when we went com-mercial, I like to think that I made better wine that I did in 2008 ... . We’re either just real lucky or we’ve managed to put together a little bit of knowledge about it, that’s for sure.”

It’s only been in the past year that Reid has kept a guestbook for visitors to sign, and the far-flung points of origin – California, Peru, Canada – illustrates the potential for a local winery to develop into a focal point for tourism in the area.

Currently, the Kentucky Grape and Wine Council

counts 14 wineries in south-central Kentucky. Statewide, there are about 60 small farm wineries, and about 113 pro-ducers growing 550 acres of grapes.

Reid said he hopes a Kentucky wine trail can be established in the near future to help bring attention to the region’s wine industry.

“We always try to recom-mend other venues in town people would be interested in,” Reid said. “We’re one little part of (tourism), but the more things you have for people to do when you get here, the more people you draw.”

Brewed Attitude

A scan of the bars at a number of downtown restau-rants tells you that there is a captive audience for lovers of craft beers.

While there is no short-age of drinks on tap for the fans of microbreweries and at least one Facebook group dedicated to craft beer enthu-siasts in the city, local beer-making endeavors have met with mixed results.

Blue Holler Brewing Supplies has reached the market of home brew-ers who enjoy beermaking as a hobby, but Bliss Ave Brewing Co. was open for just a few months downtown last year before going out of business.

White Squirrel Brewery, however, appears to be flour-ishing as it approaches its first full year at its Broadway Avenue location.

Conceived a few years ago by its three co-owners, the bar and restaurant takes its name from the white squirrels that are a common sight on Western Kentucky University’s campus.

The brewery produces an India Pale Ale, a nut brown and a German-style Kolsch beer, and also rotates season-al beers such as a Scotch Ale.

Co-owner Sean Stevens has been brewing beer for 18 years. He told the Daily News in May that the secret to brewing beer is “a little OCD, consistency and an attention to detail.”

— Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter at twitter.com/jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 2016 15Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

THE YEAR WAS 1947.

Harry S. Truman was President, and a candy bar cost five cents. Air Force Pilot Chuck Yeager flew the first U.S. airplane at

supersonic speed, and you could get a meal in a restaurant (including dessert) for about a dollar.

Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball.

And here at home, in 1947, 93 WKCT went on the air and began its first year of broadcasting to South Central Kentuckians.

In those early years at WKCT, we were charmed by the live broadcasts of Jo and Russ Fisher.

We sat on our porch swings on warm summer nights entertained by the melodic sounds of Joe Marshall and his Roving Ramblers with their special guest Jerry the Bear.

And at 8 o’clock on Sunday mornings, we enjoyed the gospel sounds of the Crusaders as we got ready for church.

Jo and Russ Fisher along with their son broadcast their live radio

show from the WKCT studios.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE WE STAY THE SAME.

Sure, we’ve seen some changes since 1947. Prices are skyrocketing. No more “pony prizes” or free water. Modern radio technology seems like science fiction when compared to then. And the days of bringing live bears into crowded studios are long gone!

But one thing remains the same. WKCT’s commitment to bringing you up-to-date news, sports and weather every day of the year...from 1947 to the present and into the future.

In 1960, WKCT broadcasted live from the Southern Ky. Fair (no small feat at the time).

Visitors of the WKCT booth registered to win a pony and saddle. Many met the reigning Miss USA and picked up some free ice water to cool themselves down.

From Page 13

CHEERS

Daily News file photoDiane ReiD of alvaton pours a glass of wine in 2013 at Reid’s Livery Winery in alvaton.

ThriveSunday, April 3, 201616 Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

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