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ECTC hosting Korean culture and conversation classes

Elizabethtown Community and Technical College will again offer a Korean culture and a Korean conversation class through the college’s Community Education Program.

“We have designed this class just as an introduction to Korean culture and language, mainly to help people who want to learn a little bit more about the Korean folks that are going to be coming into the area with BlueOval and some of these other entities from South Korea,” said ECTC Chief Workforce Officer Darrin Powell. “Just trying to help people learn a little bit about their customs and a little bit about their language so they can just make basic introductions and just learn to interact with them a little bit easier.”

The goal of the class is to ease the transition for both Korean transplants and local workers who will be working at BlueOval SK and improve communication. Powell says the class is a look at the basics to encourage friendliness and hospitality.

“Basic greetings, you know, ‘hello,’ ‘thank you,’ those kinds of things, just basic informal greetings that people might want to do, basic conversation,” Powell said. “As far as culture, just a little bit about their culture, some of the authentic dress that they might wear, those kinds of things, and a little bit of the differences between our culture and their culture will be pointed out.”

The classes will cost $25 and will be held in Room 112 in the James S. Owen Building on ECTC’s campus. The Korean culture class will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. March 13 and 20 or from 6 to 8 p.m. on April 9 and 11. The Korean conversation class will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on April 14 and 24 or from 6 to 8 p.m. on May 7 and 9.

Contact the ECTC Workforce Solutions Office (270-706-8700) to register or for more information.

Nolin RECC sending five area students to Washington D.C.

Five area students will be heading to Washington D.C. this June as part of Nolin RECC’s Washington Youth Tour.

Central Hardin High School students Heaven Carpenter and Regan Raifsnider, Elizabethtown High School students Grant Shearer and Anna sumrall, and homeschool student Samuel Teipen will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the nation’s capital that will include visits to sites such as the Smithsonian Institute, Arlington National Cemetery, the U.S. Capitol, and the National Zzoo, and a visit with Kentucky’s congressional delegation.

“Nolin RECC is proud that these students will be representing our service area,” said Nolin RECC Communications Manager Sarah Fellows. “They join over 1000 other students from cooperatives around the country traveling to Washington for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” 

The selected students are high school juniors whose parents receive services from Nolin RECC and were selected based on review of a submitted essay, an in-person interview, and their knowledge of electric co-ops like Nolin.

Attorneys for Brooks Houck file for change of venue

Attorneys for Brooks Houck have filed a motion for a change of venue.

In a motion submitted to the Nelson County Circuit Court Thursday, lawyers for Houck are requesting the trial be moved to either Boyd County or Daviess County. Houck is charged with Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence following his arrest in the investigation into the disappearance of Crystal Rogers.

The motion states that Houck cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial in Nelson County or any county in Central Kentucky “due to the significant prejudicial pretrial publicity this case has received.” Houck’s lawyers also feel spillover coverage of the death of Rogers’s father Tommy Ballard will impact the case, including the fact that prosecutors argued during a bond reduction hearing for Houck that his brother Nick Houck is the primary suspect in that case.

The motion states that shortly after Rogers’s disappearance law enforcement named Houck the lone person of interest in the case and released portions of Houck’s interview with police to the media. Included examples of pretrial publicity in the motion are signs that have been placed around Bardstown and Nelson County related to Rogers’s disappearance that say Houck is the main suspect, the local newspaper the Bardstown Standard publishing more than 200 articles about Houck, and extensive media coverage from news outlets in Louisville and Lexington. Lawyers also cite a court decision to grant Houck a change of venue for a case involving unrelated charges against Houck in 2018 that moved that case from Nelson County to Warren County based on publicity from the Rogers investigation.

The motion states that Boyd County is ideal and Daviess County is a suitable alternate as they are located outside of the Louisville and Lexington TV markets and are less than three hours from Nelson County. Houck’s lawyers say “there is no ‘pattern of deep and bitter prejudice’ against Brooks present in Boyd or Daviess County.”

The change of venue motion will be argued during a hearing scheduled for March 21. That is the same day the defense for Steven Lawson, who is charged with Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence following his arrest in the Rogers investigation, is scheduled to argue a motion to dismiss based on claims that Lawson was offered immunity.

Hodgenville Police ask parents to talk with kids after incident at McDonald’s

The Hodgenville Police Department is asking parents to have a chat with their kids about behavior following an after school incident at the Hodgenville McDonald’s.

“There’s not a lot for our kids to do after school, and all the schools except for the ALES (Abraham Lincoln Elementary School) right down the street are all basically in that corner, so that’s a real popular place for the kids to go hang out after school, the McDonald’s, the Burger King area over there,” said Hodgenville Police Chief James richardson. “And that’s fine, and everybody, all the employees, the administrators, everybody is okay with that. They understand and they enjoy having the kids there, but we’ve been having a lot of problems lately with kids being disrespectful, verbally abusive.”

That’s Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson.

The incident that sparked the response was on March 4 when a physical altercation broke out on the property, resulting in five juveniles being charged with Disorderly Conduct and Fourth Degree Assault and being trespassed from the McDonald’s.

Richardson is asking parents to remind their kids to be responsible.

“We just wanted to put out to the community ‘hey, have a chat with your kids,’” Richardson said. “And the world we live in right now with everything that’s online, our verbal skills and the ability to talk to people and have compassion for people is greatly affected by the fact that everything is online and no longer face to face, and people forget that they can say things or can’t say things to their face that they can say online because it doesn’t come across the same way, or it’s going to hurt their feelings and make them mad, and then you start a fight.”

The HPD says students that see something out of hand should contact a parent or the school resource officer.