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• Building on historical lore
  After a while, the Rev. James Clark's kitchen table started to look like a museum exhibit.One by one, he laid out the arrowheads, delicately notched and chipped, the bounty of childhood afternoons and grown-up work in the fields where the retired minister and farmer has lived his life. Even more rare were the rocks that had been carefully shaped for grinding corn, or the dark hard stones shaped like tomahawks.Every year after plowing, the Native American artifacts would appear, working their way to the surface from the depths of thousands of years of dirt and history."These are just ones I'd see looking off the truck," Clark said.Clark's farm sits in the middle of a lush plain in eastern Clark County called the Indian Old Fields. Known as the site that Daniel Boone saw when he reached nearby Pilot Knob, the roughly 3,500 acres had been inhabited for thousands of years before by Native Americans who lived off the ample game, clean waterways and flat land for crops.
• Parkette closes for renovation
  Lexington's Parkette Drive-In has closed for about 60 days for a planned renovation, one of its owners says.The 1950s-style restaurant on New Circle Road closed at the end of business Saturday night, and should reopen when the work is complete, said businessman Alan Stein, one of the investors who took over the Parkette in 2003.However, Stein did not rule out selling the restaurant, if someone wants to buy it and maintain it as the Parkette."Our goal is to turn it back into its old glory and keep it as the Parkette," he said. "But we've received a number of offers to buy it."The Parkette was opened by Joe Smiley in 1951, on a gravel road off Liberty Road, several years before New Circle Road was built. Over the 56 years since, it has become a Lexington landmark and an institution among area residents who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.
• Holiday closings
  Federal offices: Closed Jan. 1Urban County Government: Closed Jan. 1Fayette District and Circuit Courts: Closed Dec. 31 and Jan. 1Garbage: Residents who normally receive garbage, recycling and yard-waste service on Tuesdays will receive service Jan. 2LexTran: Closed Jan. 1
• A Lesson in Montessori
  There are no desks in this school. No designated nap or snack times either.Math lessons often revolve around beads. One way children learn geography is by listening to foreign music. And pupils need not ask permission to use the bathroom.Welcome to Creative Montessori, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary next month. Although the school has a Nicholasville address now, it was established at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Clays Mill Road in Lexington in 1998."I named it Creative Montessori because some people tend to interpret Montessori very rigidly," said director Susan Vorhis.Students here are exposed to art and drama, and with 15 students and three teachers, it is the smallest of the Montessori schools that serve Lexington. Most are in the central part of the city. Creative is in the basement of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, just across the Jessamine County line, and is the only Montessori within 2 miles of south Lexington.
• 10 banks to fall under one name
  Corbin businessman Terry Forcht owns 10 banks with 10 names in 11 Kentucky counties.His customers can do business at any of them, but they might not know it or might not remember the names of other Forcht banks.That's about to change.The banks -- scattered from near Louisville to Lexington to south-central Kentucky -- are being renamed Forcht Bank, he announced Saturday.The holding company that operates the banks will be called Forcht Bancorp, instead of First Corbin Bancorp, and all the banks will be brought together under one national bank charter, instead of 10 individual charters.
• Cemetery searcher helps put grave sites on the map
  Elwood Tackett often finds himself hunting for cedar trees and Easter lilies along Greenup County's hillsides.Tackett is looking for old, hidden family graves -- and often the best way to find them is to look for the plantings people once used to mark burial sites.In four years, Tackett has helped the county's Genealogy & Historical Society archive about 35,000 names in more than 600 Greenup County cemeteries.Some of the cemeteries have historical markers dating to the 18th century.The cemetery preservation effort began in an attempt to identify cemetery locations and has since expanded to include a searchable database.
• ATV-related deaths rise
  Robert Parks says he has learned his lesson after an all-terrain vehicle crash last spring left him with a broken collarbone and other injuries.Parks has sold his ATV and vows he won't ride one again. His granddaughter and her friend were not injured in the crash, but he received 16 stitches in his head and suffered a leg wound that required surgery."It's a hell of a way to learn," Parks said. "I put a lot of burden on my family."Parks, 51, is one of more than 260 people in Kentucky hurt this year (through Nov. 1) while riding an ATV, 26 more than in 2006.There have been at least 30 ATV-related deaths this year -- more than twice as many as occurred five years ago and nine more than in 2006.
• Lincoln Co. coroner fills many civic roles
  When Lincoln County residents hear the name Bill Demrow, it's easy to relate it to the funeral home business, the county coroner's job or last year's citizen of the year.It's true Demrow is all these things, but to wife Debbie and others in the community, he's much more. Debbie calls him her best friend and says he's truly a hometown hero."I don't know the definition of what that is," he says modestly.Demrow has long been active in civic endeavors, including chairing the fund-raising effort for the new Fort Logan Hospital and serving in the past as chief of the Waynesburg Fire Department.In 1986, the department had just one truck and it wouldn't start. In his time there, the department built a new station and accumulated new equipment and trucks. He quit as fire chief when he became coroner. He has been coroner or deputy coroner for more than 30 years.
• Around Kentucky
  BEDFORDSTATE TROOPERS KILL MAN WHO WOULDN'T DROP KNIFEA Trimble County man was shot and killed Saturday by two state troopers, Kentucky State Police said. Darrell Corley, 39, approached Sgt. Howard Rice and Trooper Kyle Moffett with a knife while they investigated a call, state police said. When Corley refused to drop the knife, the troopers shot him, state police said. Corley was pronounced dead at the scene. State police said the troopers were called by a woman, who said Corley was violating a domestic violence order. Rice, a nine-year veteran, and Moffett, a two-year veteran, were placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.PASCAGOULA, MISS.TEEN DIES ON VOLUNTEER TRIP
• Bill would unmask donors to legal defense funds
  Governors who set up legal defense funds would be required to file periodic reports listing the donors and the amounts they contribute under a proposal that will go to lawmakers next month."I think people have a right to know who's giving," said state Rep. Darryl Owens, D-Louisville, who is sponsoring the legislation. "This basically allows more transparency in terms of who is contributing."The issue drew keen interest in this year's election because former Gov. Ernie Fletcher refused to release the names of contributors to his fund, which was set up to cover legal fees after a grand jury indicted him. Fletcher lost his re-election bid to current Gov. Steve Beshear who made the legal defense fund an issue in the campaign.Fletcher, the only Republican elected governor in Kentucky in more than 30 years, had won the seat in 2003 on the promise that he would clean up state government. Instead, he ended up indicted on charges that he violated Kentucky law by improperly rewarding Republicans with protected state jobs at the expense of Democrats. The charges were eventually dropped in a negotiated settlement.But politically weakened by the indictment, Fletcher lost his seat in a lopsided vote to Beshear, who made ethics reform a centerpiece of his campaign. Beshear spokeswoman Vicki Glass said the new governor is supportive of Owens' measure and has already proposed other ethics reforms as well.
• Georgetown man to be featured during Rose Parade
  Sandy Hickey will see her son again when the Rose Parade rolls on New Year's Day.Paul Hickey, who would have been 35 on Tuesda