Kentucky by Heart: Visit with Versailles elementary students, teachers provides uplifting experience

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

What’s there to love about Kentucky? My aim was to answer that question recently when I spoke to a group of 90 fifth grade students at Southside Elementary School, in Versailles.

I arrived excited after Franca Tolliver, a Southside teacher, contacted me about being a part of their series of activities designed to inform and foster good vibes for their state. Credit Franca and her teacher colleagues for having the children well-prepared for my appearance. Students’ behavior was splendid and, as I discovered later, the students had already been exposed to stories in my Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes for Kids book.

Things were in place for productive learning, and our time together went something like this.

March Madness hoops time was just getting started, so I began by asking this loaded question: “How many of you love the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team?” Hands shot up and there were sounds of cheering. “That’s great,” I said, “and today, we’re going to talk about lots of other things there are to love about Kentucky.”

My interest in Kentucky, I shared, came from our family taking day trips around the state when I was a child, and how that built passion for teaching about the state as a fourth grade teacher.

From there, I talked about the distinct land regions of our state, and mentioned that one of the smallest, the Knobs, is fascinating. The roundish hilltops of the area reminded me of “giant anthills,” I said, and that if someone ever wanted to produce a science fiction film called The Attack of the Giant Ants, a producer might use them as scenery for the anthills. That drew some grins and then I shifted to the western tip of Kentucky, the Jackson Purchase Region. That’s where one finds the New Madrid Fault Line, and I told them about a huge earthquake that happened there in the early 1800s, where “it was so powerful that reports stated that it rang church bells in Boston, Massachusetts, over a thousand miles away.”

That drew some looks of amazement.

I asked about Jackie Robinson, who pioneered the inclusion of Blacks in Major League baseball. “He was not a Kentuckian,” I said, “but let me tell you about a friend of his who was from Louisville . . . and for whom I have a personal connection.” Since Jackie Robinson is a popular biography read for elementary students, the kids wanted to know more.

I related the story of how Pee Wee Reese befriended Robinson, and on a night in Cincinnati when Reds’ fans were unmercifully berating him with racist taunts, the very popular Reese walked up beside Robinson and put his arm around him, signaling his unabashed acceptance. Reports are that it quietened the crowd, and assured Reese of a place in baseball history (as well, of course, as being enshrined in the MLB Hall of Fame for his playing performance).

To follow that, I related my personal anecdote of meeting the aging Reese at a cystic fibrosis fundraiser in Louisville. A group picture was taken and the former baseball star stood next to me. Looking at the picture later, I was happily startled to realize that he also had his arm around my shoulders. My fifth-grade audience thought it was pretty cool. Perhaps they thought that, at my age, I was a figure in one of their history lessons!

I emphasized that Kentucky has good-hearted people and shared the story of Kendall Harvey, a senior citizen from Adair County who had little formal education but was masterful at using his hands to build and make gadgets. After retiring from independent construction work because of health issues, he gained a fulfilling post-retirement by creating three-wheel bicycles from spare parts and giving them to people with disabilities. Before his death, the humble gentleman gave away 157 “three-wheel” blessings.

A teacher responded that her students had read about a couple of other heroes in the Heroes for Kids book. As mentioned earlier, good teacher prep connects the dots for productive learning.

We discussed some of the state’s symbols, such as the state bird (cardinal) and the state animal (gray school), and then I wrapped it up by taking questions from the wonderful audience. Here are two, with answers:

After asking students how many were interested in becoming writers, many held up their hands. I gave them two bits of advice. First, the best way to become a good writer is to become a GREAT reader… and that means reading things one likes but also interspersing some subjects not especially interesting at first. Doing so helps build a good fund of knowledge.

Secondly, I emphasized that writing is a process, not a sloppily done group of words put down with little thought. I left them with this mantra, which they repeated with me as a group: “It’s not how you write that’s most important, it’s how you REWRITE.” (As an illustration, I mentioned that I wrote my first book 37 times!)

Hopefully they were uplifted by my sharing that day; for sure, I was uplifted by them and their teachers. I could live on “Kentucky by Heart” experiences.