Features

It was standing room only during the Friday and Saturday performances of “Grease” this past weekend in the Sam Simpson Auditorium at Carroll County Middle School.

In fact, Saturday’s tickets were sold out and hopeful theater-goers were asked to return for an extra showing Sunday afternoon.

And it seems the wait was worth it. Audiences were treated to an impressive production with fabulous sets, excellent costumes and outstanding singing and dancing by the actors, all middle- and high-school students.

As businesses deal with the realities of a national recession, Carroll County Chamber of Commerce members got some hands-on advice on how to make their way through the economic downtown.

Speaking Tuesday, Jan. 13, to the chamber membership meeting at General Butler State Resort Park, David Oetken of Louisville offered five steps to survive the recession.

As director of Greater Louisville Inc., that city’s Chamber of Commerce,  Oetken said his job is to assist businesses with funding and running their operations.

To say Jim Mitchell is one in a million was definitely an understatement last week.

Mitchell, a 12-year veteran of the Kentucky State Police, was among more than two million people who crowded into Washington, D.C. on Jan. 20, with most there to witness the inauguration festivities as Barack Obama became the nation’s 44th president.

By LORRIE KINKADE

The Trimble Banner

While her Trimble County Lady Raider teammates were fighting for a win on the court Jan. 10, Hannah Ball was parading across a stage in the Galt House’s Grand Ballroom as a contestant in the Miss Kentucky County Fair pageant.

Although Ball, the 2008 Miss Trimble County Fair, did not place at the state competition, the experience was one she said she would never forget. And hopes to have again.

You might say Jim Ebert’s life is full of highs and lows.

Ebert, director of Carroll County’s Camp Kysoc, took former county resident Skylar Cannon hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on Nov. 28.

Two weeks later, on Dec. 11, Ebert helped fulfill another disabled hiker’s dream – climbing to the highest summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

On Friday, when the doors of the Carroll County Public Library open after the New Year holiday, it will be just like every other day, but with one major difference: director Jarrett Boyd no longer will be the captain of the ship.

Boyd is retiring as of today, Dec. 31, after more than 26 years at the helm, during which time she steered the facility from a small library with few customers to a state-of-the-art library with computers, a staff of nine and a budget 10 times larger than when she arrived in 1982.

Costumed street dancing, a mariachi band, a Spanish-language Mass and a dinner combined Thursday for a colorful celebration honoring the tradition of the Lady of Guadalupe.

Glowing candles lighted the way for a huge procession of faithful, who walked around the block where their church, St. John Catholic Church, is located.

The group was escorted by Carrollton Assistant Police Chief Steve Abbott, who also had also escorted a caravan of participants from Warsaw, Ky., to Carrollton.

It’s been an elusive goal for Jim Ebert, but on Friday, Nov. 28, he and another team of hikers successfully took Skylar Cannon to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Skylar, 13, a former student at Cartmell Elementary School in Carrollton, was born with spinal muscular atrophy – a terminal disease that has left her without the use of her arms or legs. She and her family now live in Shelbyville, Ky.

Downtown Carrollton is being dressed up in new winter finery to give a festive atmosphere for the holidays.

City workers Troy Harrell, Dennis Webster and Billy Aldridge were wrapping evergreen garland around lampposts on Main Street on a cold, raw day last week.

Webster was hoisted up and down in a protected cage in the bucket of the city’s loader, first taking down the historic-marker flags attached to the lampposts. In the meantime, on the ground, Harrell was preparing the garland for Webster to attach to the posts.