Fatcow Icon
News
City commission approves grant money for water project
The Hazard City Commission met Monday night to discuss Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, open bidding for the solid waste transfer project, and promote Hazard City Police officers. The commissioners passed two resolutions concerning CDBG funds. The city’s water system rehabilitation project is using funds from the CDBG, which, according to the CDBG’s website, is a grant meant to be used to benefit low- and moderate-income pers...
full story
Fire_breaks_out_at_former_Trus_Joist_plant0_1363870147.jpg
Fire breaks out at former Trus Joist plant
Firefighters with the Grapevine-Chavies and Hazard fire departments responded to a fire inside the former Trus Joist building Wednesday at the Coalfields Industrial Park. Officials on the scene said the fire started as workers were disassembling pieces inside the building, though firefighters were able to get the fire under control without injuries shortly after arriving. Photo by Cris Ritchie | Hazard Herald
full story
4BZ3_health_rankings2.jpg
Health rankings reveal Perry as second unhealthiest county
HAZARD — This year’s “County Health Rankings” have been released, and once again Perry County ranks as one of the least healthy counties in the state. Out of 120 counties, Perry has taken the 119th spot with Floyd County beating it out for the least healthy county in Kentucky. This is the fourth year the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute have conducted this report, which ranks the ove...
full story
<p>photo by Cris Ritchie | Herald file</p><p>Former Magistrate Randy Bailey, pictured above at left during a fiscal court meeting in 2006, was hired by the fiscal court as the county&#8217;s pro tem on Tuesday.</p>
Former magistrate named county’s judge pro tem
HAZARD – The Perry County Fiscal Court this week appointed former Magistrate Randy Bailey as the county’s new pro tem judge. Judge-Executive Denny Ray Noble had intended to appoint his wife, Brenda, to the position of pro tem, but noted during a meeting of the fiscal court on Tuesday the county ethics commission ruled against Mrs. Noble’s appointment, a ruling he said was fair considering the county’s ethics ordinance which states that coun...
full story
Grand jury returns indictments against 25
HAZARD — A Perry County woman was indicted this month on allegations that she took money from the Hazard nursing home. Deborah Joseph, 39 of Sassafras, was indicted on one count of theft by failure to make required disposition of property. Joseph allegedly retained refund money for purchases made for the Hazard Nursing Home for her own personal use on January 17 of last year. Her bail was set for $20,000. Jessica Noble, 24, of Booneville,...
full story
<p>Timothy Fugate</p>
UPDATE: Sex abuse trial ends with plea to lesser charge
HAZARD – A Perry County man accused of subjecting a 9-year-old girl to sexual contact pleaded guilty to an amended charge one day after the trial had started. Timothy Fugate, 38, was originally indicted in June 2011 on one count of first-degree sexual abuse, a Class C felony that could have brought up to 10 years in jail, after the juvenile told police that Fugate inappropriately touched her in the bedroom of a mobile home on Little Grapevi...
full story
<p>Allison Cooper, vista for the Kentucky Mountain Health Alliance, helped young volunteers at STAR Land in January get box gardens ready to be placed at the Perry County Public Library as part of a gardening initiative Pathfinders of Perry County started earlier this year.</p>
Communities team up to plow through bad eating habits
HAZARD — Spring is on its way, the season of growing and new life, and volunteers with Pathfinders have found a new way to help the community better itself while also showing off their green thumbs. Jenny Williams, chair of the board of directors for Pathfinders of Perry County, said she, Karyn Knecht, and Allison Cooper, both Vistas working with Pathfinders and the Kentucky Mountain Health Alliance respectively, have come together in just ...
full story
<p>The egg from the Herald&#8217;s annual Great Easter Egg Hunt was found on Wednesday, March 13.</p>
Clues explained from this year’s hunt
DWARF – After five weeks, The Hazard Herald’s annual Great Easter Egg Hunt came to a close last week when Bonnyman residents Derrick Adams and Ashley Bishop turned in the egg and certificate to the Herald’s office. Adams said he only began looking for the egg on the morning of Wednesday, March 13, after reviewing the first five clues. After checking a couple spots along Ky. 476, he said pulled over near Augustus Court in Dwarf and found...
full story
Coyote bill awaits governor’s signature
FRANKFORT – Gov. Steve Beshear will likely sign into a law a bill filed by state Rep. Fitz Steele and passed during the General Assembly’s ongoing session earlier this month. House Bill 60 was enrolled and delivered to the governor on March 11, and will expand nighttime hunting of coyotes in Kentucky. Steele said he filed the bill to help quell Kentucky’s population of coyotes, an animal which Steele noted has become a nuisance for landow...
full story
<p>Timothy Fugate</p>
Trial begins for sex abuse defendant
HAZARD – The trial of a Perry County man accused of subjecting a 9-year-old girl to sexual contact began in Perry Circuit Court this week. The grand jury indicted 38-year-old Timothy Fugate in June 2011 on one count of first-degree sexual abuse after the juvenile told police that Fugate inappropriately touched her in the bedroom of a mobile home on Little Grapevine Creek in March 2011. Fugate has maintained his innocence, and was released...
full story
<p>Sheriff John K Blackburn</p>
UPDATE: Sheriff charged with DUI in official vehicle
STANTON — Floyd County Sheriff John K. Blackburn found himself on the other side of law enforcement in Powell County Sunday night, after being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Blackburn, 62, of Prestonsburg, who currently serves as president of the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association, registered a .202 on a breathalyzer — more than twice the legal limit — and was arrested in Powell County Sunday night, after other motorists r...
full story
Accountability bill for special districts heads to governor
FRANKFORT — Kentuckians can expect to see much more accountability in their state government after a bill was passed and delivered to the governor’s desk last week. House Bill 1, sponsored by House Speaker Greg Stumbo, would make it mandatory for special taxing districts, including public libraries, EMS boards, fire districts, and soil and water conservation districts, to provide more information about what is happening with the tax money t...
full story
D8RI_Graph_Line.jpg
Jobless rates spike in Perry, other eastern counties
HAZARD -- While jobless rates for the state of Kentucky fall to some of the lowest numbers seen in years, the rates in Southeastern Kentucky continue to rise — and at exceedingly steep rates in some counties. The unemployment rate for the state has fallen from 8.8 percent in January 2012 to 7.9 percent in January 2013, the lowest it has been in four years; Perry County, though, has seen an increase in unemployment for that same time frame, goi...
full story
Woman gets 7 years for U Bet theft, escape cases
HAZARD – A Hazard woman could serve several years in prison for her part in the theft of over $17,000 from a local business, along with two subsequent escape attempts. Sharon Hensley, 33, appeared in Perry Circuit Court on Thursday where she was sentenced to serve seven years in prison. She was one of four people who staged a theft in June 2012 on Dawhare Drive as Christianne Clemons, a former employer of U Bet, was taking a deposit to a lo...
full story
Study links poor health to mountaintop mining
A study that compared the health of Floyd Countians to residents of Rowan and Elliott counties concludes that there is a link between mountaintop removal coal mining and overall poorer health of those living in close proximity to such mining operations. The study, “Personal and Family Health in Rural Areas of Kentucky With and Without Mountaintop Coal Mining,” authored by Dr. Michael Hendryx, of the Department of Health Policy, Management a...
full story
Lilli Nichole Hurt
New trial date given in attempted murder case
HAZARD – The trial for a woman who allegedly stabbed two people and attempted to stab another while trying to rob a Perry County business was delayed until September. Lilli Nichole Hurt, 20, of Bonnyman, has been lodged in the Kentucky River Regional Jail in Hazard since Sept. 27, 2012, after police said she entered the BP station on Grapevine and attempted to take money from the store’s cash register. During the course of the robbery, poli...
full story
Jobless rates spike in Perry, other eastern counties
HAZARD — While jobless rates for the state of Kentucky fall to some of the lowest numbers seen in years, the rates in Southeastern Kentucky continue to rise — and at exceedingly steep rates in some counties. The unemployment rate for the state has fallen from 8.8 percent in January 2012 to 7.9 percent in January 2013, the lowest it has been in four years; Perry County, though, has seen an increase in unemployment for that same time frame, g...
full story
<p>photo by Amelia Holliday | Hazard Herald</p><p>Cynthia Chrisitan, right, gets ready to have her pulse checked at the Perry County Public Library on Wednesday for the heart health screenings offered by UK&#8217;s Operation Heart.</p>
UK students offer health screenings during spring break
HAZARD — Heart health in Eastern Kentucky has been an issue addressed many times by many organizations and physicians in the last two decades; however, heart disease rates in this area still double that of the state as a whole. As part of the college’s Operation Heart community service event, “Hearts for KY,” University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy students and faculty volunteered to spend part of their spring break in Hazard earlier thi...
full story
Trial pushed back again for Leslie man
HAZARD — The trial of a Leslie County man indicted on multiple sexual abuse charges has received another continuance. Jerry Joseph, 55, of Cutshin, was indicted in October 2011 on 20 counts of first-degree sexual abuse for allegedly using force to sexually abuse another person several times from 2007 to January 2011. Joseph’s trial was originally set for Dec. 10, 2012, but was pushed back to March 11. At that time, the current Assistant C...
full story
Vicco opting against reality TV deal
VICCO – Officials in Vicco say a reality show on day-to-day life in the city will not be forthcoming, and all negotiations for one have halted. Vicco gained national notoriety early this year when the city council approved a fairness ordinance that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, making Vicco, a town of just over 300 people along the eastern border of Perry County, only the fourth city in the state...
full story
<p>photo courtesy of WSGS</p><p>Flood waters covered Hazard&#8217;s downtown area on March 12, 1963, after four inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period.</p>
Hazard marks 50th anniversary of ‘63 flood
HAZARD – It was 50 years ago this week when just over four inches of rain fell on Eastern Kentucky in a span of 24 hours, resulting in what was called then the second worst natural disaster in Hazard’s history, behind the flood of 1957 which ravaged Perry County just six years before. The Hazard Herald reported on March 14, 1963, that Hazard was among the towns hardest hit in the flood, as the Kentucky River crested at 37 feet, only two f...
full story
<p>Cris Ritchie | Hazard Herald</p><p>Police in Hazard say they seized approximately two ounces of marijuana and different pieces of drug paraphernalia during an arrest Sunday on Jordan Street.</p>
Hazard men charged with selling marijuana
HAZARD – Two Perry County men were arrested and charged with trafficking in marijuana this past weekend. Police had previously received several complaints about a residence on Jordan Street prior to Sunday evening, noted Det. Adam Baker with the Hazard Police Department. That’s when officers returned the house while responding to a noise complaint. Baker said when he arrived at the residence he heard children playing inside, and when a ma...
full story
Assault case against Perry man dismissed
HAZARD – An indictment against a Perry County man alleging assault was dismissed last week in Perry Circuit Court. Freddie W. Messer, 39, of Hazard, was indicted in February on charges of second-degree assault and DUI, after it was alleged that he was driving under the influence when he collided with another vehicle on March 31, 2012. Messer was in court on Thursday when Commonwealth’s Attorney John Hansen made a motion to dismiss the cas...
full story
Local_school_districts_prepare_for_sequester_cuts0_1363032421.jpg
Local school districts prepare for sequester cuts
HAZARD — Sequester, sequestration, the “snowquester.” No matter what news channel has been on in the last few weeks, Americans have been bombarded with the fact that their country is on the brink of a financial meltdown. The sequester, which took effect on March 1, is a set of automatic spending cuts — to the tune of $1.2 trillion over the next nine years — put into law by the Budget Control Act to apply pressure to Congress to come up with...
full story
Shivani Pampati (left) and Josi Stidham awaited their results during the 39th Annual Harvard Speech & Debate Tournament at Harvard University last month.
Hazard students rank nationally in debate competition
HAZARD — Imagine giving a speech in front of a room full of your peers, however, you know none of them because you are the only one there representing your state. Now imagine that speech is part of an invitation-only, national competition in which you have to debate everyone you are giving your speech in front of. Now, imagine doing all of this as a 16-year-old. Josi Stidham and Shivani Pampati, both juniors at Hazard High School, had just ...
full story
Kentucky’s jobless rate falls below 8 percent
FRANKFORT — For the first time in more than four years, Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted preliminary unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent to 7.9 percent in January 2013, according to the Office of Employment and Training (OET), an agency of the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet. The revised December 2012 state rate was 8 percent. Kentucky’s unemployment rate has not been below 8 percent since November 2008 when it was ...
full story
State child care cuts could take a toll locally
HAZARD – Administrators with child care agencies across Kentucky are bracing for a round of funding cuts that some say will ultimately cost the state more in the long run. Officials with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced in January that child care assistance to low-income families would be reduced to help shore up an $86.6 million budget hole for the Department of Community Based Services. As a result, no new app...
full story
Weather
Sponsored By:

Lottery
Sponsored By:

Stocks
Sponsored By:

Gas Prices
Sponsored By:

Featured Businesses
Recipes
Sponsored By: