The regularly scheduled meeting of the Bowling Green - Warren County Bicentennial Commission held in the offices of Planning & Zoning, 1141 State Street, Bowling Green, Warren County, Kentucky, on Thursday, September 5, 1986, at 4:00 p.m.

Commissioners Present:
Mike Reynolds, Co-chair, Laura Harper Lee, Co-chair, Don Stringer, Earlene Chelf, Tommy Adams, Danny Whittle, Herbert Oldham, Gary P. West, Charles Hardcastle, Romanza Johnson

Also Present:
Julie Allen, Lena Sweeten, Stan Reagan, John Martin, Bill Schumm, James A. Dale, Jr., Scribe

After the meeting was called to order, motion by Don Stringer, second by Tommy Adams and unanimously approved to approve the minutes of the August 28, 1996, meeting.

MR. ADAMS: Treasurer's report. I filed letters last week with the city and the county. Kirby Ramsey told me it will take about seven days to get the money. I'm looking for a check tomorrow, first of the week. As soon as I get it, I'll get an account opened and get us some temporary checks. So if anybody needs any money, we'll be ready to give it to them.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Promotions & Publications. The logo, the rules and everything will be in the mail tomorrow with the deadline of being back in on 10-1. We're running just a tad late. The judging will be to 10-2. They will be presented on you on 10-3. We hope tentatively to have the unveiling of the logo and slogan on the 7th of October. It is tentatively set at the Chamber of Commerce at nine o'clock in the morning.

Mr. John Martin with the Daily News is in charge of our press releases and media relations. He's going to be here for a short time, and this is the reason that I wanted to go first so that these things would come.

At that time do you think we might have a little bit more news to come with it to have an event with that? Do you have think that we would maybe have a check from Mariah's if they do that?

MS. HARPER LEE: That would be a nice publicity if we could do that.

MR. HARDCASTLE: That's what our committee does. They're bright young people that does that sort of thing.

MR. REYNOLDS: We hope to have their checks by then. They said half of their proceeds from opening night are going to us, 20th and 21st of September.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Now, I was charged also, our committee, to do a public meeting for sometime or another. Mr. Whittle has been helping me. This is the fire station public meetings.

MR. WHITTLE: There are nine volunteer fire stations in total. They have their meetings on -- they have a general meeting once a month, each of them do. My experience in getting crowds together is to join it with their general meeting. It's much better participation than having a special called meeting. When I have a call meeting I didn't have to inconvenience anybody to open the door and that kind of thing.

Woodburn, Gott and Smiths Grove have theirs on the first Tuesday and first Thursday. That's already gone. It's too late to have one tonight anyway.

The next meetings would be the first Tuesday and Thursday of October which is Tuesday the 1st and Thursday the 3rd. That would be Woodburn, Gott and Smiths Grove. The others would fall on Monday and Tuesday of next week, being the second Monday and the second Tuesday. Barren River is on the third Monday. We could possibly get to Barren River on the third Monday of this month being the 16th.

We could end up having really all of them in October is what I'm suggesting except perhaps Barren River. We could have it the 16th. If we wait until October they would occur all in virtually the first eight days, all but two of them. Hadley is Monday the 14th and that should take care of it. We would have all of them done with Barren River on the 16th of September. The rest of them beginning the first week of October. That would get us some decent participation and get enough time that we could send out a notice. There are three in the city of Bowling Green.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Could we have those three in the city of Bowling Green before we have the ones in the county?

MR. WHITTLE: Yes, we could. We talked about having one at Potter-Gray, one at L.C. Currie for the west side of town and then in the City Hall in the Commission chambers; that being where you're invited from your Bowling Green neighborhoods. Those could get going as early as late next week or early the following week.

MR. HARDCASTLE: John, you're the PR guy. Don Stringer told me you were good. From the publicity standpoint how many days between when we announce the schedule and when we should start having them.

MR. MARTIN: The best thing to do would be to announce it maybe three or four days prior to the meeting simply because people don't plan that far in advance I found.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Is there any reason where to have the first one or anything like that? Do you need to build up for one? We had talked one time about having one at City Hall. We want to have this at City Hall because so much of this has been geared toward the county. We don't want anybody's feelings hurt and half the people live in the city of Bowling Green. So we want to have that.

One of the thoughts that Danny had was to have the last one at City Hall. That would be for everybody everywhere to kind of make up meetings.

Somebody will put together the guts of the news release.

MS. ALLEN: Next Thursday from 5:00 to 7:00 is the big United Way kickoff. Keep that in mind if you're planning something.

MS. HARPER LEE: Okay. We talked about trying to get in touch with Southern Living or somebody like that at some point. I don't think we ever resolved anything. I don't think we ever came to a decision on what we're going to do. I think that's a good idea.

The one thing I do know about working with Southern Living is they need a really long lead time. If I'm not mistaken at one point when I was working with Hobson House they had to wait a year and a half for the publicity. That might be something we need to check on real soon. I think that would be something we need get on our calendar really soon.

Okay. I went through the minutes you can tell. Good Morning America. We talked about that, too. What did we decide on that?

MR. HARDCASTLE: Clyde Payne says he thinks he can get it done. It's just a matter of deciding when we want and when we don't want.

MS. ALLEN: In getting Good Morning America here, any time they want to be here, we'll make it work. They will tape, and it will appear several months later.

MR. WEST: I met with Proctor & Gamble about six week ago in regard to the Duncan Hines festival that we've got slated for next June. In the proposal I was asking for some goods, asking for money. I gave them different levels of participation.

One of the things that corporations are looking at is what they can get in return for their money. And one of the things I had slated in the proposal was the possibility of a Good Morning America Duncan Hines deal like this. I don't know if this is something that we can tie in and work together on this thing to do, because the Duncan Hines Festival will be in fact going on when the Bicentennial is going on. We're hoping to make this an annual event.

We've got financial commitment from First American bank for a three year commitment on this. We're really going to try to move this along. It would be nice if we could tie this in. I just wanted to let the committee know that I had made this proposal to Proctor & Gamble.

MS. ALLEN: Gary, you're talking about bringing someone in and doing a remote from here, a story line about Bowling Green, the Duncan Hines Festival.

That's done separately than, "Hi. I'm in Warren County, Kentucky. We're celebrating our 200th birthday."

That's done by a traveling camera crew. There's a couple from different regions of the country. They go out and tape. And it appears three weeks, six months later.

I think we can look into doing both. Let's check on both. Let's get the most out of either or both.

MS. HARPER LEE: What about Kentucky Living? Who can we contact at Kentucky Living for promotion on that?

MR. WEST: Brook and Barbara Elliott do a lot of writing. They're based in Richmond. They travel all over the state. We had them in here for three days last month. We can handle that.

MS. HARPER LEE: The other thing we talked about is the C-SPAN. I like the idea, if we can, to get C-SPAN bus here.

MR. HARDCASTLE: They will be here November 14th, but they will only be here four hours. Sarah Glen Grise told me they're committed to Moss Middle School for four hours.

MS. HARPER LEE: On November 14th.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Sarah Glen Grise has been trying for years to get the C-SPAN bus here. This is a stop between Louisville and Nashville is what it is. They are going to stop for four hours. Whether they broadcast anything from here, I don't know.

Mr. Schumm is here. You may have met him. He came to our committee meeting yesterday with a proposal. Our finance man is not here yet. If you've got a few minutes, why, he would like to make a presentation.

MR. SCHUMM: Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Hardcastle have heard this before. I'll be real brief because I don't want to take too much of your time.

My wife Jill is an artist. She's put together posters as a business. She's become very successful. These are great fund raisers. The first one she did was this one for Bowling Green High School. It sold extremely well. The second one was done for the Corvette Museum which is obviously a bunch of memorabilia. She's just completed one last week for the Country Music Hall of Fame; give you an idea of that, even more memorabilia styled. And she's going to do another one for Western Kentucky.

But our proposal is to try to do something like this as a fund raiser more than anything else. I don't have any idea how many prints the Commission would want to buy.

I can deliver them in volumes. A minimum at 1,500 of them for $2.75 and recommend that they be sold for at least $10.00. That gives everybody an opportunity to buy one. It doesn't make it too expensive.

I really think that this will raise enough money to propel it into something that would be more important later on, like the first of the year or spring.

MS. HARPER LEE: I have one or two questions about the content. There are some things I think that are very representative. Would we have input into what the makeup is?

MR. SCHUMM: Sure. I would highly recommend that. Ray Buckberry would have a lot of input there. Earlene over at the Western Kentucky museum would have a big input obviously. Anybody else that would have ideas, of course. I mean because there's a lot of people that know a lot more about the history of Warren County, Bowling Green than I do. We would want that input.

Right now we're working on five weeks as a delivery date.

MS. ALLEN: The Program Committee has two separate subcommittees. One deals with the community organizations and individual ideas that are proposed to the Commission. Alisa Carmichael is a chair of that subcommittee. They have a recommendation to the Commission to vote on. Actually it is Lena Sweeten's topic to work on.

MS. SWEETEN: Okay. Many of you are familiar with the walking tours of the city and the Smiths Grove historic brochures that are given away. Laura approached me about putting together a driving tour for the county and the city, because we did not have a lot of brochures that spotlight county resources.

My idea is to emphasize the vernacular architecture in the county, the local builders who were involved in the designing and building it. I have three sections, Richardsville, down to Woodburn and over in Smiths Grove and Oakland. I'm going to separate the tour into those three sections. I haven't decided how I'm going to handle the city yet.

It's going to be printed on this size paper with a few photographs and a little blurb about the history of that part of the county and then the next one.

This is about the vernacular architecture and buildings. I'm going to go to the Builders Association next month to their board meeting to ask them to sponsor the project, because it seems like a natural for them to do for their program.

We're looking at a cost of about, maximum $2.00 per brochure. I thought about selling them, but it's not the kind of item that would probably sell well.

MR. WEST: We're working on a Duncan Hines state byway brochure that would go through the two counties and Mammoth Cave 85 miles that we're working on.

Another thing that we're planning on, we want to do a cassette that could match up with this that people could plug this in and as they drive along point out certain things.

MR. WEST: I was in Elizabethtown this past week understand for a class reunion. There's a walking tour in Elizabethtown that's done every Thursday night in costume and character. They had General Custer, Jennie Lynn who sings. It was unbelievable. It would be worth going up on a Thursday night and seeing them walk through the history. They're in character and telling you what happened and how they died and the building that burned. They're pointing out and you're seeing all of this. It's something to see. We might want to consider something like this, particularly during the Bicentennial effort, a reenactment of the characters, particularly in the downtown area that we have. Who visited here, who lived here, what buildings were here. You could have Mariah Moore.

MS. HARPER LEE: Any more discussion about it? Someone want to make a motion?

ACTION: Motion by Charles Hardcastle, second by Gary West to proceed with a driving tour brochure for the city and county.

MS. ALLEN: Next the other subcommittee that works on the special events, we have some good news to report. We've been working hard on getting the birthday bash off. We are definitely scheduled to seat about 500 people at the Bowling Green Warren County Convention Center. It's going to be Tuesday, December 10th.

Today David Garst confirmed with me that he would donate the space to us. All we had to do is pay for food and drinks. He would donate the space with us so that he's now our sponsor. We're talking to people about bands. We're looking at doing like a piano player, violin or something, a nice sit-down dinner. We're wanting to roll out a big tiered birthday cake the sparklers, candles and everyone toasting Champaign. Cutting the cake.

A program maybe a video or slide show, a nice program to formalize the dinner with the Judge and the Mayor hosting the evening. Inviting the Governor, United States Senators, our Congressman, selling corporate tables for $1,500 and individual tickets at $100 a person. We would seat about 500 for the evening.

After all the formal dinner and programs are over the band will make it a bash, make it a party celebration. People can kick up and enjoy it and dance a little bit.

I'm talking to Eddie Barber. We're hoping to have three other sponsors. Those three sponsors will divide up the cost of the food. So that hopefully most of the ticket money that we raise will actually go to the Commission.

MS. HARPER LEE: The Program Committee will be in charge of whatever the program is going to be for the evening, the slide presentation or whatever.

MS. ALLEN: Steve Ellis and I are chairing this event. So we're actively recruiting people, different talents. We'll probably ask for help from our Research Committee to help us give some correct historical facts that we want make sure that are part of the evening.

The other thing that the event committee is working on is the mock legislation. Judge Buchanon, we're actually going to be meeting further on that next week. It is scheduled for Saturday December 14th. So it's exactly 200 years from the day that it was signed.

Right now everything is in the hands of the Jaycees concerning the Christmas parade. They're in charge of promoting this as their annual event. Their theme is going to be 200 years of Christmas.

MR. WHITTLE: Let's go back to the public meetings. Judge Buchanon has volunteered his services to arrange for meetings at each of these fire stations. We've come up with a schedule of the 12th, next Thursday, having a meeting at L.C. Currie and Potter-Gray. I'm almost sure that those can work, and we'll have those confirmed in the morning.

Then for the Monday, Tuesday and Thursday the 16, 17 and 19th; we'll cover all nine volunteer fire stations.

Then on the following Monday, the 23rd, have one final meeting at City Hall for everybody who missed their neighborhoods. So with Mike's help and his staff calling up the fire chiefs we can do this schedule.

MS. HARPER LEE: Old business. We've talked about the need for professional staff. I think this is the time to do it. What's the feeling?

MR. HARDCASTLE: I still think, as I did last week, that Judge Buchanon out of the graciousness of his heart should give us Julie and assign her work to somebody else, like Reagan; and take enough money out of our budget to hire a temp.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: I'll tell you what I will do. We'll give you all the time we can. We have already talked about hiring a temporary person to kind of help fill in the blanks with them. I cannot say, "This is all you're going to be doing for the next three months, Julie."

MR. HARDCASTLE: But it will be her first priority.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: I can give her first priority, yes.

MR. WEST: We realize this has obviously taken on a life of its own, this event. It's something that I think that when a person gets up at eight o'clock in the morning they've got to think Bicentennial until 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon.

None of us right now have the time to think about this thing, maybe an hour before the meeting, start getting your thoughts together, an hour after.

MR. STRINGER: We need someone full-time.

MR. HARDCASTLE: An operating officer.

MS. HARPER LEE: What do we want to do? I think that's the thing to identify.

MR. WEST: I see this as someone who is coordinating these committees every day.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: I'll give you a temporary person full-time.

MR. HARDCASTLE: What we want of this Commission is a Gary West, what he is to the Tourist Commission. They have a board that oversees and makes the final decisions and sets the priorities like a board of directors of a corporation. He is the operating officer. And the board of directors sets the policy and approves certain actions that they do. But the operating part of it is the operations officer and can make the routine plays like the press release. They see that that press release is put out. They consult with the board and say, "Hey, what do you want to do on this?" This is what I propose.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: We do have the expertise in our office between Stan Reagan and Julie Allen to the care of those things. But now I can't put everything off on Stan or everything off on Julie. Both of them have made the comment that they want to be involved in this as deeply as possible.

I'm willing to give them the latitude in their jobs here to perform whatever services are necessary. I just don't want to sit here and promise you something I can't fulfill.

I personally feel that they can fill the job description that you're asking for.

MR. WEST: Why are we directing all of this burden just to the county? Doesn't the city need to be involved also?

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: I can't speak for the city, but I believe that the commitment from the city's perspective is strong.

MS. SWEETEN: This is all I do for the city. 15 hours a week is what I work. That's all they have in the budget.

MR. HARDCASTLE: They can work together as a team.

MR. WHITTLE: Well, I'll back up Charlie in saying we ought to hit up Judge Buchanon to give us somebody. But what I am wondering is if there's not somebody else that's in this community that is employed who could be granted a three to six month sabbatical like Dan Cherry with Operation Pride.

Could we find somebody at the hospital or at Greenview or at the Fruit of the Loom or Houchens or at one of the banks, B.G. Chemical or at the school board or some place who has someone who knows who is the chief or could find out who is the chief at Richardsville and call him up and arrange a meeting? If it's somebody that comes in here from Kalamazoo, they don't even know what a volunteer fireman is.

MR. STRINGER: We've got three people here who are already integrated into what we're doing. So I think it would be much preferable if we can get the assistance we need from these three individuals rather than bringing in someone.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: If there was that perfect person, Danny, that we could justify their pay -- and we've talked to some pretty good people. But we really can't justify what their requirements are.

MR. WHITTLE: There are people trained to do this. They have a formula they follow. They don't have to have lead time.

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: I would be willing to look at any type of consulting personnel that you're talking about to help us. I do think it was Stan, Lena and Julie. We've got a pretty good focused groups of people that can help us. We can provide a clerical person.

MR. STRINGER: We've got the individual. It's just a matter of getting their hours shuffled.

MR. HARDCASTLE: My proposal was, if you will do this; I don't think Julie would get mad. A couple of months, you looked at someone. You found someone that you thought that we ought to hire those; that she wouldn't get mad if you said okay.

Just like on the publicity thing. When you're doing publicity, no one is really necessarily coordinating that and getting it done. If we had Julie and she's coordinating and meeting with the committee, we'll get things done.

MS. HARPER LEE: Julie and I basically did that today on the phone. And it's very extensive.

MR. HARDCASTLE: She's doing the job now. She just doesn't have the title.

MS. CHELF: It needs to be somebody who is focussed and can spend a great deal of time dealing with this. If we go out to have meetings at the fire stations and encourage participation, this thing is going to really grow. It needs to be somebody who is focussed on this activity.

MR. OLDHAM: Much depends on how extensive you want our Bicentennial. I can see it both ways. But I also can see that if the committee structure functions like it's organized here, I can also see a temporary individual doing it like Julie if the committees function like they're supposed to.

MR. ADAMS: We could assign one of these three people to each committee. Let them be the staff person; I guess, sort of like we've been doing. But my experience with that is that you've got to have one person. Whereever the buck stops. If you've got three different ones, it's hard to pin it down.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Volunteers wear out in about six weeks.

MS. HARPER LEE: Let's do this. This is something that I don't think we're going to resolve. It's already after five o'clock at this point. Let's do this. Next week everybody identify what they think Julie or Stan or Lena or some other person we haven't mentioned would do for a committee. Okay? Not just in general, specific things they could do for that committee. And we'll see how far we are next week.

MR. HARDCASTLE: We need that coordinator between the groups that knows what's going on. We need to have one person that we can look to.

MS. HARPER LEE: Let's identify those specific things for next week. Identify those things that this person or persons should do.

I think that we're seeing a need for some of the Commission members to meet with some of the other committees. I asked Ray Buckberry this week if he would be willing to help with the Research Committee. He said yes. I asked Danny. He said yes.

Several of you last week gave me drafts of mission statements. We still need a mission statement. Julie and I have been working on a mission statement. Let's get the mission statement done and off the table.

JUDGE EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: It seems like we're too hung up on the mission statement. I think that our goals are fairly clear. I think we need to promote our community, create enthusiasm and excitement about our heritage and about the quality of life that we enjoy here today and why we enjoy that quality of life today and the special things about people in our past that made Bowling Green Warren County what it is today.

Make sure that we utilize this to promote our community to the outside world, across the region, the state and nationally for tourism's stake, to attract business here.

I think that we can get multiple uses for this other than just to have a birthday party. I think this birthday party can be something that can not only celebrate the past but can lead us into a brighter future. Can you put that in ten words or less? I can't do anything in ten words or less.

MS. CHELF: One, build lasting improvement. Two, increase regional tourism and national media intention, stressing a business environment. Enhance the community's heritage and future potential, involve all citizens of Bowling Green Warren County.

MS. HARPER LEE: That's more than adequate. That describes what we want to do, and it tells us basically how to do it.

MS. HARPER LEE: Any other business we might have? Mike, do you have anything else?

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: One of the things Ray was talking about, about creating a contest which would possibly develop into a tour of the biggest and oldest trees in Warren County.

That's something Dr. Martin and the Research Committee -- I really and truly think that the idea of this Bicentennial Minute or Bicentennial Thought or whatever on a daily basis can be something that is a daily reminder, a way to utilize people, the Daily News. Put it out over WBKO, the radio stations. We can coordinate it at no cost through all the media.

MR. HARDCASTLE: Clyde Payne was wanting to sell it. "The Bicentennial Minute brought to you by J.C. Bradford."

JUDGE-EXECUTIVE BUCHANON: It's amazing what you find right here in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in the Daily News from 1930's, 1940's just that -- they're interesting facts. You pick something on any given day in the history of Warren County, whatever day it is, you say 34 years ago today or 27 years ago today or 200 years ago today. You can find something that is pretty interesting to most of the people in the community every single day.

That's a good way for the media to join in on this. The media can start tomorrow on this, and it would really bring to the attention of everyone that we're still breathing our Bicentennial on a daily basis.

MR. WHITTLE: I'm still gun hoe for a grand finale December 14th fireworks display between the bridges. We'll have details on that and chair by the next Thursday.

MR. WEST: I thought of something. Go to these radio stations and TV stations, whoever and sell these spots and see if they would agree to give the Bicentennial Commission half of what they sell for to go toward funding. We'll make some money out of that.

MS. HARPER LEE: Meeting adjourned.