150th Kentucky Derby saw one of the best finishes in event’s history

Wow! Saturday’s 150^th running of the Kentucky Derby had one of the best finishes of any derby that I can recall watching.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Mystic Dan (18-1 odds) beat out Sierra Leone (9/2 odds), to win the Kentucky Derby by a nose with third place finisher Forever Young (7-1 odds) sandwiched in between them in a photo finish.

In live time, pretty much no one could tell which of the three horses had won the derby. It took a few minutes for track officials to declare Mystic Dan the winner over Sierra Leone by a nose with Sierra Leone beating out Forever Young for second by a nose.

I found myself wondering for the first minute or two after the race ended about whether the race might be a dead heat, i.e., a tie. That would have been something for the ages.

This year’s race proved why the Kentucky Derby is often called “the most exciting two minutes in sports.”

Something tells me that Williamsburg resident Phillip Perkins, who is an unofficial Kentucky Derby historian, probably had a ball watching this one even if he wasn’t there for it in person.

Phillip went to his first Kentucky Derby at the ripe old age of 12 when he and his brother hitchhiked there, and at one point he had a streak of attending 71 consecutive derbies. I don’t know how many he got in all before the streak ended during the pandemic.

Long about 2017, Phillip’s grandson, Cody Perkins, and his wife, Sarah, had a one-of-a-kind sports coat embroidered for Phillip with the names of every Kentucky Derby winner since 1875. Tammy Detillier, a former student of Perkins, spent three months embroidering the coat with the name of each Derby winner.

From the pictures I saw on Facebook Saturday, Phillip was once again wearing the coat, which he brings out for special occasions.

If you are reading this Phillip, I hope you had a great time Saturday and will still be with us for the 151^st running of the Kentucky Derby next year.

Now to touch on a couple of other topics before I conclude this column.

• Best wishes to Steven and Susan Jett. Steven stepped down this month as the South Union Mt. Zion Baptist Association Director of Missions, and Susan stepped down as the secretary of the organization. The couple came there 8.5 years ago after working in international missions for 25 years.

The couple isn’t exactly retiring, just slowing down a little bit, which is something that they have both earned.

Steven plans to continue teaching part time at the University of the Cumberlands. Susan plans to continue as the director at Emergency Christian Ministries, which means that Steven will still be helping out there too.

• Back in November 2022, nearly 100 people turned out for a town hall style meeting over the U.S. Forest Service’s proposal for clear cut logging of about 1,000 acres in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Jellico Mountain area.

With the exception of forest service officials, there was a clear consensus from pretty much everyone else, who spoke out at the 2022 meeting, that clear cutting is a terrible idea.

“I find it disgusting. Clear cutting on steep slopes should be outlawed,” said one person, who identified himself as a former logger during the 2022 meeting.

This Thursday (May 9) at 6 p.m., there will be another town hall meeting at the Merry Jeffries Community Center in Williamsburg to discuss the new draft environmental assessment for the Jellico Mountain project, which isn’t a whole lot different than the original proposal.

I would encourage anyone remotely interested in the local environment to attend Thursday’s meeting, and to log onto www.fs.usda.gov/goto/dbnf/jellico to leave a public comment for the forest service about the project.

The comment period will last through May 24, 2024, and the current estimated decision date is scheduled for sometime this fall.