News Journal has published local histories

I am not much for surfing the Internet, looking at Facebook, Twitter and all the other Apps there are with input from subscribers which contains inaccuracies, especially with historical facts.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

But this past week it was brought to my attention that there had been several inquires about the history of Corbin. I checked out the site and found hardly anybody had complete information about Corbin’s history. The moderator of the site even said that, “a few have tried, but none were really any good. Few actual facts, just repeats of rumors and stories.”

I took offense to that statement because 20 years ago the staff of this newspaper did months of research collecting pictures and information for the 100th anniversary celebration of Corbin. We printed and distributed 10,000 copies of the book and it was well received.

I took some sample pictures of the pages in the book and posted them on Facebook. It drew several likes and comments.

This newspaper also did a 100th anniversary edition of our newspaper 17 years ago. Again, we did research and reached out to the community for pictures. Of my 35 years on the job here at this newspaper it is one of my favorite editions.

We had a multitude of stories and pictures of Whitley County and the city of Williamsburg. I treasure my copy of that edition of the newspaper.

It is sad to hear comments like “why is it called Campbell Field, speaking of Corbin’s football field, and who was Harry Taylor and why is the award given in his name? There were even remarks suggesting that the name of the field be changed to someone “everyone” knows.

To help answer some of the questions, I have told our staff to see if it is possible for us to convert our history book so it can be placed on our site on the Internet. Because of the change of software and other technical problems it will take some doing, but in the near future hopefully it can be done.

While on the subject of history let me mention the Southeastern Kentucky Fine Arts Association. I recall a conversation I had with Betty Comer some time back about the future of the program.

For many years Betty Hamilton did a wonderful job of directing the Association. Then after she passed, Betty Comer took on the task of directing the program. For over 50 years the Fine Arts Association has offered the best programs ever to this area. The worry though is when Betty is no longer able to continue, who will step up to do a time consuming and difficult job?

We need the Fine Arts Association along with information for those interested in our history. This newspaper has published three books dealing with our history while I have been the publisher. Two were pictorial books, called “Reflections” and the other was the Centennial Edition of Corbin’s history, along with the special edition of the County’s history.

There is another book that we had a part in that contains a lot of history. It was “The Boys from Corbin” written by Gary West. It is a fantastic book that deals not only with sports, but also historical facts and human interest stories.

There are others who have written about the history of Corbin and Williamsburg. Years ago John L. Crawford, publisher of the Times-Tribune, wrote an interesting book about Corbin’s history. More information can be found at the local libraries.

Thousands of copies of that book have been sold. I have saved four copies of the book for next year’s 100th anniversary of Corbin’s football program at which time we will have a contest to give away the copies.

I have lived in this area all my life with exceptions of time at school and a couple of years in Henderson and I have collected several boxes of documents and pictures. It does please me that there are still some people who are interested in our history and we want to share as much as possible.