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Employee Highlight: John Bright
John Bright is a Deputy Sheriff at the Scott County Police Department. He moved to Scott County in May of 2015 and first started working for the department in September of 2015. He knew he wanted to work in the police force since high school when he spoke to his school’s resource officer about the highlights and benefits of working in law enforcement. Bright graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from Eastern Kentucky University. After his graduation, Bright went to work for the Cynthiana Police Department where he attended the Department of Criminal Justice Training for 18 weeks. This training included basic law enforcement tactical practices, critical thinking, report writing, firearm training, driving skills, and other talents needed for a successful career in law enforcement.
As a Deputy Sheriff, Bright has several duties to ensure the safety of Scott County including patrolling roads for traffic violations, maintaining safe traffic conditions, responding to emergency calls, conducting criminal investigations, gathering physical evidence for preservation of the court, writing reports, servicing warrants, transporting prisoners, apprehending suspects, making arrests, interacting with the community even when it does not involve criminal activity, and so much more! He is thankful for all the rewarding duties and challenges he takes on every day in this profession and says that these challenges are what really drew him to love this profession.
When asked what his favorite part of the job is, Bright said, “I enjoy the camaraderie of the Sheriff’s Office as a whole. Every deputy here has a mutual mindset for the betterment and safety of the county.” His goals for 2020 are to grow as a Christian, expand his family, and continue to protect and serve the community to the best of his ability. Bright was nominated by County Sheriff, Tony Hampton because of his energetic attitude and diligence in always looking for new opportunities to excel in his career and become a better deputy for Scott County citizens.
Employee Highlight: Chris Runyon
Chris Runyon is the EMS Assistant Director of Quality and Assurance. He first moved to Scott County in October of 2017 and began working for the EMS Department in February of 2017. He has now had over 30 years of experience in Emergency Medical Services. Before starting in Ems, Runyon worked in the coal mines. His interest in this field began when he was asked to volunteer to go to EMT School. “I climbed on an ambulance for the first time in 1989 and I’ve been hooked ever since,” he says.
As the Assistant Director at GSCEMS, he has several duties and responsibilities such as maintaining Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement. He also is involved with in-house public education for paramedics, and he enjoys being able to be a paramedic himself on occasion.
Runyon says that there are many things he enjoys about EMS, but his favorite part of the job is being able to help others when they are in need. He is thankful to be able to serve alongside his brothers and sisters in such an admirable profession while helping citizens of Scott County as a team. Lastly, Runyon especially enjoys mentoring the new generation of pre-hospital healthcare providers while leading them to love EMS as much as he does.
As 2020 begins, GSCEMS will have their challenges to face, but Runyon says that his biggest goal is to be a positive force for effective change this year. Lastly, he says “I’m passionate about public service and consider it an honor to be able to serve the residents of Scott County.” Thank you for your dedication and service, Chris!
Employee Highlight: Honey
Meet Honey! She was the furry firefighter of Scott County from 2009 until January 1st of this year when she retired. The county first acquired dogs in 2004 when the Scott County Fire Department received a grant from State Farm Insurance sponsored by Steve Woodrum to receive an accelerant detection canine from Maine State Police’s Specialty Dogs.
The county’s first dog, Smokie, worked for the department until August 2009 when he retired and Honey took over. Smokie lived with Jim Kanavy and his family until he passed in 2013. Honey is a yellow Labrador retriever and has been working for the county since Sept 11, 2009 and has served the county for over 10 years. Honey has been nominated and competed in the American Humane Societies Hero Dog Awards and has traveled to Washington D.C. for that nomination.
All the dogs work and live with Jim Kanavy, their certified handler. Jim Kanavy is certified through the Maine Criminal Justice Academy as a Canine Team. He is also certified by the International Association of Arson Investigators and the National Association of Fire Investigators as a Certified Fire Investigator. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Arson Investigators which is a worldwide organization with over 10,000 members that covers over 80 states and countries. Lastly, he represents the public fire agencies with National Fire Protection Association’s Fire Investigation Units Committee. He trains them by giving a food reward with a passive alert signal. This means that the dogs sit when they find the source of odor and are rewarded for their good work by being given a treat. The dogs live with Kanavy when working and when they retire. They are trained daily 365 days a year, and they go on family vacations and trips when he goes.
Honey retired from duty on January 1st, and State Farm has given Mikey to the county to replace her. Mikey is a 6 year old Black Labrador, and he was received in October. Mikey is also going through his training requirements daily to prepare for the job and fill Honey’s shoes. Both Kanavy and Mikey will be traveling to Maine in a couple months to complete the certification training.
All the canines, with the support of the Fire Chief and the Fiscal Court, have been a huge asset for the County and the State. Up until last year, Honey was the only accelerant detection Canine in Kentucky. The dogs will often be called into other agencies to detect the crime of arson with their keen sense of smell.
Employee Highlight: Kara Oliver
Kara Oliver has lived in Scott County for her entire life. After Graduating from Scott County High School, Kara went to nursing school for a while until making her way back to Scott County to start working in the court house. She is now the Personnel Officer for Scott County Fiscal Court. She is in charge of payroll, retirement, benefits, sick and vacation time, and the wellness program for all county government employees. People are always coming in and out of her office to ask for help regarding their paychecks, benefits, or anything in between, and she always leads them to the right place with a smile. Kara enjoys her position because she gets to meet and talk with so many different people, and when she is not working, she enjoys spending time with her daughter.
Kara has always been a dedicated employee, but with all the recent changes with payroll and benefits, she has been working extra hard to make sure all employees are happy and accounted for.
Legacy and Legends Scholarship
What this means for Scott County
The Legacy and Legends Scholarship applies to any graduate of Scott County High School or any resident who has lived in Scott County for over one year. It is a full tuition scholarship which only leaves a student to cover the costs of room, board, and any fees. This scholarship is the only scholarship that can be given by the college to a student, but the student can cover their additional costs with outside grants and scholarships that they may receive. The total cost of attendance for a year at Georgetown would be approximately $11,600 for a student receiving this scholarship making college highly affordable for eligible students. Each student still has to meet all the normal requirements for entrance into Georgetown, live on campus, and remain on good standing in their 4 years of enrollment. The money for this scholarship comes from the same place as all other scholarships: the generous gifts of donors and alumni.
Scott County is not the only county receiving the Legacy and Legends Scholarship. Just this week, it was announced that Owen County will also be able to apply. There are actually four other counties that will be able to receive this full-tuition scholarship, but at the current time the other two counties cannot be disclosed. All four of the counties have a deep historical connection to the college. Scott County being the home of Georgetown for all these years, and Owen County for having a strong connection to the family of former President Mills. They decided on these four counties also due to financial reasoning. The goal was to reach students of counties who do not usually come to Georgetown. Dr. Jonathan Sands Wise, VP of Enrollment Management, says “It doesn’t help us to simply give a much bigger scholarship to students we were already getting. We need to get new students by doing this; that is how we help our current student body.” The current students enrolled at Georgetown that are from each of these counties will be receiving free housing equivalents to the dual occupancy standard housing cost once the scholarship is installed. Georgetown hopes that these students will see that this is a big scholarship coming their way that they had not originally planned on, and that they could not be grandfathered in because it would not help the current student body nearly as much due to real money that would be lost. Frustrations from these students are understood and recognized, and Georgetown hopes that this significant scholarship for them will help with potentially $15,000 being given to each county’s currently enrolled students.
The college had gone through a rough patch of declining growth in previous years, and they have now hit a point where growth is stable. They just enrolled the largest freshman class since 2011, but there is still major growth that needs to happen in order to develop Georgetown to the standard they wish to achieve. Sands Wise speaks on the necessity of this scholarship saying, “We need to grow to begin to do the other things we want to do and to begin living up to what student expect when they come here in terms of housing, food, class options and trip options, and that requires growth.” Sands Wise and the other members of the board project that they will have enough beds to house the immediate effects of the scholarship considering that the historic enrollment had been around 1300 students and currently there are just over 900. Long term, having new students coming to campus will allow the college to begin working on housing facilities that are shuttered, like Knight Hall, and potentially building new housing facilities. These options will be further discussed once the new students are enrolled.
This scholarship came about with the new president of Georgetown College, Will Jones. He had experience with a scholarship like this with his previous college, Bethany. He came in with plans to implement the same thing for Georgetown. In one of the faculty’s earliest meetings with President Jones, he asked Dr. Sands Wise to begin crunching the numbers and seeing if it was a real possibility for the college. They had to calculate the current number of enrolled students from these counties, what kind of scholarships those students already receive, and what it would look like for the college if they did this. They also had to make estimates of how many students it would bring in and what kind of reach they could get with counties and students that normally would not come to Georgetown. Efforts to communicate with the current students and their families are being discussed currently, and town hall meetings will be had in order to have their questions answered. Meeting times and sign ups will be announced this week.
“We really wanted to make sure that we did a program that was good for every student,” says Sands Wise, “We have been able to talk through what this would be able to do for all our students, and most of them are able to see ‘This is good for me too.’” Dr. Sands Wise and those developing the scholarship say that there will be major growth for the college allowing them to begin working on existing facilities immediately that need updates and renovations and give them the ability to control cost of attendance. Next year, they will be able to freeze tuition and keep it at the same rate for all returning students. There will be a fee applied to all students’ bills (even those receiving the scholarship) of $990 which is considerably less than they have raised tuition in recent years. Tuition for next year will not go up, but other costs will for every student. These costs will not increase more than they have historically, but it will increase by 2-3%. Without the influx of new students to Georgetown, tuition would have been raised, but thanks to this scholarship, tuition will stay the same. By bringing in these new students that would not have come to Georgetown in the first place, the college will actually be able to charge current students less. The goals of this scholarship are large, but the faculty behind these decisions are confident that they will be accomplished.
Christmas 2019
Scott County is getting into the Christmas spirit down on Main Street! Every year, a tree is donated to be displayed in downtown Georgetown and decorated for Christmas by several departments of the county. This year’s tree was donated by a citizen on Bunker Hill Drive and it is currently being assembled and decorated outside the court house. The Scott County Road Department, Georgetown Public Works, and Georgetown-Scott County Tourism Commission come together every year to put on an amazing Christmas tree display for citizens and visitors alike. This year, the Georgetown-Scott County Parks and Recreation also assisted with ornaments to be put onto the tree.
Kayla Moses- Employee Highlight
Kayla Moses is a Deputy Jailer for the Scott County Detention Center. She grew up in Scott County and went to SC High School before going off to Ohio where she studied and played basketball for the University of Dayton. After graduating, she came back to Scott County and has been here for 6 years working in the jail. She has several responsibilities as deputy jailer such as intake of inmates which includes fingerprinting, medical scanning, taking pictures, and making sure they do not have any sort of contraband on them. Once inmates are taken in by the jail, Moses ensures the safety and security of all inmates making sure there are no fights or unusual activity and by doing searches of the area for contraband.
The job can be dangerous, but Moses always stays on her toes and is prepared for anything that might come her way and says that she likes the unpredictability that comes with the job. She deals with so many inmates in a day and never knows what they could be thinking or feeling in that moment. Some might be combative while some might be very emotional and scared. She knows how to communicate with the different types of inmates saying, “you’ve got to give respect to get respect… it’s all about how you talk to people.” She says that some people just have a bad day, get caught up in the wrong things, and make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean they do not deserve the same respect or that they are all bad people.
Moses says that she has grown a thick skin working in her field, and she enjoys almost all aspects that come with the job. She works the 12 hour night shift most days of the week; 7pm-7am. The hours can be tough, but she still enjoys what she does in serving Scott County. She is excited for new challenges and goals she has set for herself and hopes to continue up the ladder in her field to possibly work in the Federal level.
Weisenberger Mill Bridge Project
The final design process of the Weisenberger Mill Bridge has officially begun and the project team is moving forward with the single lane bridge alternative after 6 years of planning and preparation. Magistrate Chad Wallace has stood behind the citizens of his district (District 3) to work in voicing their concerns and developing their plans for this new bridge.
The delays were due to the federal funding process, environmental reports, and historical preservation. The purpose of the project is “to provide a safe structurally sound crossing on Weisenburger Mill Road over the South Fork of Elkorn Creek, while limiting impacts to the surrounding environment.” This project will also improve response times for emergency services for these citizens.
The new bridge parts were built in a factory in Chattanooga, TN and brought to Woodford to be assembled. The new bridge was moved into place this afternoon.
Scott County Fiscal Court is excited to see the effects this project will have in improving the quality of life for both Scott County and Woodford County Citizens.
Rural Broadband
Expanding Broadband Internet is an important issue for all citizens whether it is for farmers in our rural areas, students trying to submit homework, or anyone trying to do work from home. Adequate internet is important to our county, and the Scott County Fiscal Court is working to bring greater access to Broadband to a wider range of our community.
Judge Covington has made it a priority to meet with several Internet Service Providers over the past months trying to expand access to broadband in the rural parts of our county.
In 2007, the Green River Area Development District (GRADD) in Western KY formed a public private partnership with an Internet Service Provider (QWireless) and seven counties from the GRADD. The partnership was developed to provide high-speed internet to residents of the seven counties focusing on the rural areas in these counties. The project is now called ConnectGradd and covers some 2,660 square miles and has approximately 2000 subscribers.
Judge Covington initiated a meeting that was hosted on November 20th with representatives from the GRADD and local elected officials from the BGADD. Jiten Shah of the GRADD shared their story of how they have expanded options for Broadband connectivity in their communities by using a Direct Wireless solution for providing connectivity. Direct Wireless uses existing structures (water tower, 911 radio towers and other existing infrastructure) to transmit a signal to provide broadband to the home.
Judge Covington has spearheaded the push with the BGADD to create a similar project in Central Ky and Scott County.
Leadership at the Bluegrass Area Development District intends to propose at the Dec. 18th Board meeting to advertise a Request for Information “RFI” from Broadband companies to propose plans to provide Broadband in the Rural areas of our BGADD counties.
Real ID Documents
Scott County residents can go to Frankfort to get the Real ID.