{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"The News Journal","provider_url":"https:\/\/qa.thenewsjournal.net","title":"Out and About Kentucky Style: Legendary Al Smith remembered &ndash; The News Journal","type":"rich","width":600,"height":338,"html":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"pbcDgkRswR\"><a href=\"https:\/\/qa.thenewsjournal.net\/out-and-about-kentucky-style-legendary-al-smith-remembered\/\">Out and About Kentucky Style: Legendary Al Smith remembered<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/qa.thenewsjournal.net\/out-and-about-kentucky-style-legendary-al-smith-remembered\/embed\/#?secret=pbcDgkRswR\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" title=\"&#8220;Out and About Kentucky Style: Legendary Al Smith remembered&#8221; &#8212; The News Journal\" data-secret=\"pbcDgkRswR\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\/* <![CDATA[ *\/\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/* ]]> *\/\n<\/script>\n","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/qa.thenewsjournal.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WEB-2-col-Al-Smith.jpg","thumbnail_width":403,"thumbnail_height":480,"description":"My first encounter with legendary journalist and KET host Al Smith was in late 1973, where he was publishing the Logan Leader newspaper in Russellville. At the time I ran a monthly advertising publication out of Bowling Green, but printed it in Indiana. I wanted to get closer to home, so Russellville filled that need. In doing so, Al and I became friends, and frequently saw each other in our travels across Kentucky. Al passed away on March 20, 2021, at the age of 94. In December 2002, Kentucky Monthly Magazine\u2019s publisher Steve Vest asked me to do a feature story on Al. I must admit to being a bit nervous about the assignment. After all, he had spent a lifetime interviewing people in high places for newspapers and television. Still, I was up for the challenge. Arriving at his beautiful townhouse in Lexington, on the corner of Clay and Central, not far from Woodland Park, Al and his wife Martha Helen greeted me, and after some small talk he led me into his well-appointed den. The room looked like a set for one of Al\u2019s TV shows. A mantled-fireplace with shelves full of books on each side, it couldn\u2019t have been a more perfect setting for an interview. In the 2003 March issue of Kentucky Monthly, I wrote the following story which was published: Al Smith likes to talk. He likes to talk a lot. For most of his 75 years he has made a living by talking. A veteran newspaper and broadcast journalist, he is in his 29th year of hosting and producing \u201cComment on Kentucky,\u201d on Kentucky Educational Television\u2019s longest running show. If a list was compiled of all the awards, chairmanships, co-chairs, honorary degrees and special recognitions directed his way, there wouldn\u2019t be enough space here to find out what makes him tick, and how he managed to do a one-eighty with his life. From overcoming a self-destruction life stye, to achieving an impeccable reputation, that included Presidential appointments, Smith\u2019s life could very well be a case study of an underachiever who finally made good. As a 15-year-old in 1942, he won the National American Legion High School Oratorical Contest and a college scholarship. He even toured the United States talking about patriotism and the flag. His future \u2014 a bright one \u2014 was ahead of him. Although born in Sarasota, Florida, Smith spent a good portion of his youth on a farm in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just north of Nashville. He never got around to using that scholarship. Instead, after graduating from Castle Heights in 1944, he did what a lot of young men his age did then, he joined the Army. Two years later he enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. \u201cI spent most of my time in the neighborhood saloons and would on occasion go to class,\u201d recalls Smith. \u201cAnd by the fall of 1947, I had decided college was interfering with my life.\u201d He dropped out of school and was soon on a bus headed for New Orleans, seeking fame and fortune. Upon being hired as a copy boy at the Times-Picayune, he became the fourth generation journalist of his family. He was 20-years-old and making $20 dollars a week. \u201cThis was my journalism school and I learned the business at the copy desk,\u201d he said. Smith eventually became state editor, but was still encountering the same problem he had at Vanderbilt \u2013 alcohol. \u201cI was fired,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I moved over to the other paper in New Orleans, The Item, and worked my way up to assistant city editor.\u201d He lost that job, too. He had been in New Orleans 10 years. Smith returned to Tennessee, and after spending 30 days in a VA hospital drying out, life was not good. \u201cI got a call that the newspaper in Russellville, Kentucky was for sale,\u201d said Smith. \u201cThe Evans family owned the paper and I thought I\u2019d go up there and work a little bit. I needed a job.\u201d The \u201cbig city reporter\u201d arrived in Russellville by bus in 1958. He wasn\u2019t overly happy to be there and the locals weren\u2019t all that impressed with him either. He rented a room in the old Kaintuck Hotel, and although not the classiest place, it did provide him with access to local bootleggers to prop up his alcohol habit. It was a habit that at age 31 had already caused him to drop out of college and cost him two newspaper jobs in New Orleans. In Smith\u2019s mind, Russellville may not have been the end of the line, but from his status in life he could see that the line wasn\u2019t very long. \u201cI actually thought I\u2019d only stay a month and ended up staying 22 years,\u201d he laughs. Ailene Evans, the widowed owner of the News-Democrat, was so desperate for an editor when she hired Smith that she bought his story that he would stay until the Nashville Tennessean called. They never did. Smith says that those years in Russellville are what made him whole again, what gave him a sense of community, what allowed him to develop his insight on education, the arts, historic preservation, economic development, libraries, health care, and of course, politics. But most important, Smith gives credit for the years he spent in Russellville for saving his life. \u201cIt\u2019s where I had a life change,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s where I quit drinking and got serious about a lot of things . . . I got control of my life.\u201d Ten years after arriving in the Logan County town with only a small suitcase, Al Smith bought the News-Democrat. During those years he had a lot of help. \u201cIt was a friend who made me go to an AA meeting that saved my life,\u201d he said. I had a serious problem. \u201cI was a drunk.\u201d It was in 1967 when Smith married his wife, Martha Helen. She was a social worker, and the year before it was a chance meeting [&hellip;]"}