Kentucky Life’s Veteran’s Day show honors Kentucky military men and women, visits Greenville’s Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center, Fort Knox and more In honor of Veteran’s Day, the next episode of Kentucky Life pays special tribute to the proud heritage of military men and women across the state. The program airs Saturday, Nov. 8 at 8/7 pm and Sunday, Nov. 9 at 4/3 pm on KET and Monday, Nov. 10 at 7/6 pm on KET2. First, host Dave Shuffett travels to the Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center in Greenville. The expansive facility – constructed on 8,500 acres of reclaimed strip-mining land – is used by the Kentucky National Guard for training. With barracks and quarters for nearly 500 troops, the site also features live-fire ranges, an obstacle course and a 4,200-foot grass runway. While there, Shuffett tries his hand at some of the training the troops must endure, including rappelling and operating sophisticated simulation equipment. The show’s historical marker segment takes a look at the career of Admiral Claude C. Bloch of Butler County. A graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1899, Bloch’s naval career spanned the Spanish-American War through World Wars I and II and included a position as Commandant of the 14th Naval District at Pearl Harbor, 1940-1942. Then, Kentucky Life travels to Fort Knox, to investigate its unique CAT (Canine Assisted Therapy) program, which pairs soldiers dealing with PTSD or mild traumatic brain injuries with dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes. Through their interaction with the dogs, many of the soldiers’ needs are proactively addressed: teaching the canines basic obedience skills allows the recuperating soldiers a chance to practice attention and concentration, visual and verbal processing, balance and motor skills, socialization and more. The program also spotlights Lexington native, artist and former Marine Tony Davis, who gives new purpose to discarded bourbon barrels by fashioning them into beautiful, utilitarian pieces including cutting boards, Lazy Susans, studio easels and more. Through his Lexington-based business Kentucky Knows, Davis brings old bourbon barrels “back to life.” In the show’s final segment, Amy Hess introduces viewers to 1972 U.S. gold-medal winning Olympic diver Micki King, who followed her Olympic success with an equally illustrious career in the U.S. Air Force. King, now a retired Air Force Colonel, was one of the first women to hold a faculty position at a United States Military Academy and the first female coach ever to coach a male athlete to an NCAA championship. (King coached Air Force divers to four national championships and was twice named NCAA Division II Coach of the Year.) From 1992-2006, King served as assistant athletic director and senior women’s administrator at the University of Kentucky. Now retired, she continues to give back to US Diving and to her adopted hometown of Lexington. Kentucky Life is a KET production, produced by Brandon Wickey. Segment producers for this episode are Matt Grimm, Jim Piston, Valerie Trimble, John Schroering and Amy Hess. KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, serving more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization on Twitter @KET and facebook/KET and at KET.org.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 15:18:56 +0000
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