PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - When Alison Lundergan Grimes and Mitch McConnell walk out on the stage at the Fancy Farm picnic on Saturday, it will mark only the second time the two have appeared together at the same event - and it might be the closest thing to a debate Kentucky voters get to see.
Both candidates say they want to debate. And both have committed to scheduled debates, just not the same one.
Fancy Farm, with its armies of sign-toting, noisy hecklers, may not be the best place to judge a candidate. But with the speeches broadcast live statewide on Kentucky Educational Television, it gives Kentucky voters the best chance so far to see the candidates side by side.
“It’s hard to understand what’s going on with the yelling,” said 57-year-old Laurel Copeland, a Grimes supporter who said she plans to attend the picnic Saturday, adding she would like to see the candidates at a debate where she can “actually understand them.”
Grimes’ finished up her “Road to Fancy Farm” bus tour Friday by stopping at an old service station in Paducah that has been converted to a campaign office. After the event, Grimes told reporters she is ready to debate McConnell.
“We have accepted the KET debate (on Oct. 13), and we’re still waiting to hear from him,” she said.
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PRINCETON, Ky. (AP) - Every day it stays dry, it robs more yield from Greg George’s parched corn and soybean fields in western Kentucky.
He says it’s been about two months since many of his fields in Caldwell and Lyon counties got their last good soaking from a rain.
So far, milder summer temperatures have spared him from the prospect of even paltrier yields. Still, George predicts much of his corn will muster yields of 100 bushels an acre. That’s well off last year’s 185 to 190 bushels per acre in what was one of his best grain crops ever.
The outlook for Kentucky’s upcoming harvest depends on where farmers live.
In north-central Kentucky, a much-needed rain recently perked up Doug Langley’s corn and soybeans at a time when they were suffering.
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OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) - The Experimental Aircraft Association says a pilot who died in a crash near the organization’s annual fly-in convention in Wisconsin was from Kentucky.
The EAA says 74-year-old Jim Oeffinger (EF’-ing-er), of Versailles, Kentucky died when the custom-built Breezy airplane crashed and caught fire at Wittman Regional Airport adjacent to the EAA grounds Thursday morning.
EAA spokesman Dick Knapinksi (nah-PIN’-skee) says the passenger in the plane who was injured is 21-year-old Jennifer Woloszyk, of Elmhurst, Illinois. Woloszyk is hospitalized in serious condition. Knapinski says Oeffinger was an EAA member.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. The AirVenture convention in Oshkosh draws about a half million people to the weeklong event.
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BYRDSTOWN, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says a Kentucky man has been arrested in the deaths of a father and son whose bodies were found at their family-owned store.
A statement from the TBI says 34-year-old Joshua Clay Pyles of Monticello, Kentucky, was arrested early Friday on two charges of first-degree murder. Police say he killed 58-year-old Dan Dowdy and 22-year-old Cody Dowdy late Wednesday at the Sugar Shack, which is located in Pickett County along the Tennessee-Kentucky state line.
The statement says investigators quickly developed information that led them to Pyles, but it doesn’t go into detail.
Police are still investigating the motive for the killings.
Pyles was being held in the Pickett County jail without bond on Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he has an attorney.
Pickett County Sheriff Dana Dowdy told media outlets he is related to the victims, who will be missed by the community.
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