All but one Kentucky county in red zone as of September 13, 2021. Over 8000 deaths associated with virus.

Positivity rate 13.70%

A youth free day is cancelled for this Saturday.

Due to the rising COVID-19 numbers in our region, and considering that a majority of our sponsors and vendors work in healthcare or emergency management, our partners have made the difficult decision to postpone Saturday September 18th Pediatric Day 2021 until Nov. 13.

Statement from Dr. Donald Shively, Superintendent, Paducah Public Schools:

"Paducah Public Schools began the year with Level 3 COVID-19 mitigation strategies due to the surge in COVID-19 cases. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics continue to recommend masking for all students. Therefore, the Level 3 mitigation strategies will remain in place.

All students (ages preschool through grade 12), staff and visitors are required to wear a mask or face coverings that cover their nose and mouth at school, on the bus, and on district property when indoors.

Everyone in this building will mask up or go home according to state mandate.

Hickman County Schools, a system that prided itself on community support and educational pride has run into the 21^st century world of division along ideological lines. A special meeting of the School Board brought out a gym full of angry anti masking parents, teachers and community members.

And it wasn't pretty.

Changes are in store for the Purchase because census data show gains and losses in unexpected areas. We break down the gains and losses in towns and counties of the most western Kentucky counties.

We break down the numbers in text, charts and zip code map.

...there was one TV show that would pick me up once a week, make me laugh, cry, wonder what it all meant. This window into my new world was simply called "That Was the Week Was.' News events, art, songs, drama were presented and expressed in bundles of humor and satire.

Now, in this year of 2021, I sit here trying to just exist in a new world that seems to be changing every 10 seconds. The old me has become the new me. I read more. I think more. I do art. I build models. I collect stamps.

Fancy Farm Picnic Pavilion the "Dem side" usually filled was empty.

With Fancy Farm's St. Jerome's Picnic over for 2021, the organizers of The Political Speaking (TPS from now on) are probably just glad it's over. Until next year. The complete abandonment by state Democratic elected officials and poohbahs cut the crowd down by more than half.

Is it time to change?

Library extension with children\'s museum will open later this year.

Sometimes a dream is so big it pulls a whole county into it. Such was the dream Hickman County librarian Laura Poole envisioned for a children's museum in Paducah. Funding wasn't forthcoming so that the Paducah dream was shelved.

When Laura began working at the Hickman County Library in 2013, she again started thinking about the children's museum. This one would be part of the library she managed and open without charge. As the idea spread, help and helpers started coming.

To the Editor:

I am a wife who, more times than I would like to count, has sat with her husband as a tube down his throat breathed for him. I have listened to the whoosh whoosh of oxygen being pushed into his lungs as he slept in a medically induced coma...

The bleating of the "freedom" lovers is drowning all else out...Freedom without responsibility is selfishness.

...The very achievements of Roman civilization hastened conditions for its collapse. The interconnectedness that the Roman empire achieved created ideal conditions for the pandemics that would overwhelm it...

...It is the impact of the virus on our belief systems that are the most intriguing.

Just as climate change and pandemics undermined a ruling Roman worldview, COVID has shaken the modern faith that we can reshape our natural world as we please...

Editor's Note: Why I love historians. Our story doesn't repeat but it may have more verses and a chorus.

Ivan and Mary Potter shopping in Hazel KY

Meet the husband and wife team responsible for West Kentucky Journal.

Editor's Note: Updated - Ivan Potter retired from the Clinton City Council as of January 1, 2017.

WKJ now has over 6000 articles and 2.5 million yearly views.