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For 124 Years The Voice Of The People Of Hancock CountyThursday, February 23, 2017

VOLUME 124 NUMBER 08 • HAWESVILLE, KENTUCKY

By Dave TaylorThe mystery of the booms has been solved, and it’s

not what anyone thought it was.Believe it or not, the origin is about 30 miles away, at

a coal mine in Lynnville, Indiana.Last Thursday evening, on the night that a Clarion

article dispelled some rumors about the booms but leftthe origins unknown, another large boom shook homesin Lewisport and beyond, prompting requests for thispaper to dig deeper and find an answer.

The previous article checked out a few theories andfound only that the sheriff ’s department had in fact foundsome people shooting Tannerite, which are explosivetargets, but backyard explosions didn’t explain largerbooms like the one on February 16 that shook homes 10or more miles apart.

The Clarion looked into other theories, from naturaloccurrences like ice quakes, earthquakes and skyquakes, to manmade causes like sonic booms and blast-ing at Mulzer Stone or the Rockport Power Plant, or con-struction at Aleris.

Mulzer and the Rockport Power Plant both deniedany knowledge of a cause for the booms, and Ft. Knoxdidn’t return calls to say whether they’d been flying overthe area above the speed of sound, although that’s nolonger legally allowed. Aleris also said they hadn’t beendoing anything that would cause a big boom.

Temperatures had been too warm for ice quakes, andmeteorologist Wayne Hart couldn’t find any satellite evi-dence of any disturbance in the skies.

The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden,Co. didn’t have any information on any earthquakes in thearea, nor did the Indiana Geological Survey.

Finally, a seismologist with the Kentucky Geological Sur-vey found proof that the February 16 boom did occur.

Seth Carpenter said he receives calls every few weeksabout unexplained booms, most of which don’t registeron the KGS seismographs, but that he’d take a look.

“Normally I would just write this off as a man-madething but since it’s got people’s attention I’ll look into it alittle more in-depth,” he said.

“I do have something, actually,” he said, looking at achart from one of the two nearby seismic stations.

“It’s pretty clear,” he said, on the graph from the sta-tion in Sacramento, Ky.

“Frankly I didn’t expect to see anything.”The signal started at 5:20 p.m., he said, which matches

the approximate time that a boom had been reported inLewisport.

The boom was not a natural earthquake, and likelynot a natural occurrence at all.

“Whatever this thing is it’s extremely shallow,” he said.The best news, though, was that he had enough in-

formation that he could give a general idea of the loca-tion of its origin.

“I think that we can say that it occurred in southernIndiana,” he said. “About 25 miles northeast of Evans-ville. That’s an approximate location.”

The types of things that could cause a boom at a shal-low level that could radiate over such a large area werefew.

“A blast, for example,” he said. “A detonation, or acollapse of a structure, including a mine collapse.”

But, he said, “the way that the waves look, in someways it resembles a more routine mine blast, even forthe level of shaking.”

Calls to the city halls of Oakland City and Princetonyielded no results, and people there said they hadn’t

Hancock County hasbeen buzzing about its boy’shigh school Hornet basket-ball team, which has turnedin a record-setting season.

Head coach Dar ren

Lynam’s team set a regularseason wins record by finish-ing 25-4, besting the boysteam that went 23-5 in 1963.That team went on to be-come region champions.

Social media has been fullof praise and support for thisyear’s team, which ran itsrecord to 26-4 on Tuesdaynight with a win overCloverport.

The Hornets look to be-come district champions onFriday night when they takeon the Green Wave of MeadeCounty at HCHS. Tip of ftimes is 7:00 p.m.

Hornets spark a buzz.... set school record! Mystery solved: source ofthunderous booms found

By Dave TaylorRecent Kenergy bills

have been the subject of pub-lic scrutiny and scorn, andmany have pointed to the in-stallation of new remotely-read meters as the culprit,but Kenergy officials say theire is misguided.

Social media posts andreal-life conversations havebeen peppered with accusa-tions that recent spikes inbills have coincided with theinstallation of the newmeters, with some question-ing their accuracy.

Those meters are not theproblem, said Kenergyspokeswoman ReneeBeasley Jones, and theyhave actually been installedfor much longer than somepeople think.

Kenergy began installingthe new meters one and ahalf years ago, she said, sosome homes have had themthat long.

While the new meterswere installed and manyhomes had them for morethan a year, the readingswere still done by the cus-tomer until November of lastyear.

Kenergy: meters notto blame for high bills

“Members still read themuntil November of last year,and nobody said anything,did they?” she said. “Youdidn’t see a lot on Facebook.You didn’t hear a lot untilOctober, we told them ‘Youdon’t have to read yourmeter any more.’”

If the meters had beenreading too high, it shouldhave shown itself in themonths that members wereturning in readings from thenew meters.

Complaints about thenew meters star ted, shesaid, in January when thefirst larger bills arrived,which contained some rateincreases, the removal of alarge monthly credit, andhigher use due to coldweather.

The meters are accurate,she said, and are tested atthe factory according toKentucky Public ServiceCommission requirements,and spot tested again byKenergy, and must be within2 percent high or low.

“We continue to test themout in the field now,” shesaid.

Kenergy isn’t breaking

new ground with the meters,she said, and is actually oneof the last utilities in the stateto install them.

“Kenergy was the last util-ity, I believe, but at least thelast co-op in the state of Ken-tucky to get digital meters,”she said. “There are just ahandful nationwide that stillallow their members to readtheir own meters.”

For those who are skep-tical of the new meters, theycan continue to mark downtheir readings, and they cancompare them with the bills.

They can also request ameter be checked to see ifit’s faulty.

Customers have to pay a$52 deposit, but a Kenergyworker will come out and re-place the meter and make anappointment for the cus-tomer to come watch theirmeter being tested.

If it fails the customergets their deposit back, butif it passes, the charge stays.

Customers might bewrong about the cause oftheir issues, but they are notwrong about having higherbills.

Those higher bills come

via several causes that Jonesand Kenergy have laid outpreviously: higher usage dueto colder weather; the end ofa monthly credit that hadbeen paying a previous rateincrease requested by BigRivers to of fset the loss ofthe Centur y Aluminumsmelter from its system; a 3percent Kenergy rate in-crease; and a billing gap re-covery, which adds a day ortwo to each month’s bill.

“If they didn’t use onemore kilowatt hour thanthey ever had before, theirbill would be approximately30 percent higher anyway,because of those factors, notcounting weather,” saidJones.

The billing gap recoveryhas been put in place to getpayment that was misseddue to the billing methodsprior to the remotely readmeters.

“The very first month thatyou used electricity fromKenergy, you did not receivea bill,” she said. “We sent apostcard for a meter readingonly.

“Then after anothermonth of use, we sent you abill for your first month ofser vice that you used,” shesaid.

The second month thecustomer was paying for thefirst month of use, and thebilling remained about a

By Dave TaylorLewisport could buy the

former Lewisport Elemen-tary School and turn it intoa government building, or atleast that was the pitch byone council member atThursday’s city councilmeeting.

Mary Hawkins broughtup the idea of the city doingsomething with the formerschool, which sits at 400 2nd

Street, mostly unused and inneed of a renovation afterbeing sold as surplus in2005.

She’d been reading amagazine article about howother cities in the state hadrestored historical buildingsand had historical districts,she said, and it made herthink the city should try tosave the school, which dates

to 1938.“I don’t know if there’s

any grant money or anythingout there,” she said. “Theydid beautifications for citiesyears ago on grants for his-torical buildings and I thinkwe did that maybe for thefarm museum.”

Lewisport had turned ahistorical building on 4th

Street into a farm museumin the 1990s with a $1 millionstate grant, taking a shell ofa building and completelyrenovating it.

“That’s a WPA projectand that’s historical land-mark,” she said of theschool. “If there’s any waythat we could get money tohelp, even with the centerportion.”

The old school, built bythe Works Progress Admin-

istration, a nationwide pro-gram to build infrastructureand provide employmentduring the Depression, stillmeets the specifications tobe used as a storm shelter,she said, so it would haveone use immediately.

“If our alarms go off wehave no place for people inthis city to go for shelter,”she said.

Councilwoman Mar yRummage, who served asone of the principals in theschool, said she knows ofpeople who would be willingto help restore the building.

“I’ve been contacted by…individuals who are talentedenough that they would helpbe involved in what renova-tions that there might haveto be done, some plumbing,wiring,” she said.

“Me too,” said Hawkins.The city taking on the

project by itself might be toomuch, Rummage said, butwith private help it couldwork.

“It is probably one of thefew WPA projects that is inas good of shape as it is in,”she said.

“The gym floor probablyjust needs to be sanded andpolyurethaned,” she said.“The biggest expense thatbuilding will have is updat-ing the heating system.”

“But you couldn’t build abuilding and put a heatingsystem in it for what you’vealready got,” said Hawkins.

“By the time you tear thatone down you’re going to bespending that kind of moneyanyway,” added councilmanWes Pate.

The city wouldn’t have togo alone, Rummage said, be-cause there are others whowould help.

“There is a group ofpeople that probably wouldbe very interested in gettingsupport from the city to getit renovated and have thegym like they used to,” shesaid.

The Hancock County Li-brary had talked about buy-ing the building, with theplan to tear it down and builda new library branch on theland, and Hawkins won-dered if there was a way toincorporate them into a newplan.

“If they built a buildingthey’re going to have to payfor heating anyhow,” shesaid. “They could pay us renton it.”

There are other agenciesthat could come use theformer classrooms once itwas restored, she said.

“We’ve always tried to geta branch of food stampsdown here, or social ser-vices, a building down here,a license branch down here.If they’re just down here oneday a week,” she said.

“We would have to look atpossibilities of what we coulddo besides a library,” shesaid.

Finding other agencieswilling to move in would al-low the city to collect rent,she said, which would makethe project more feasible.

“I’m just trying to think ofa way that if we did do it howwe could generate incomeon it and we wouldn’t just be

Lewisport talks ideas for old school

See KENERGY on page 2

See MYSTERY on page 2

See LEWISPORT on page 2

Fans watch intently as Hancock County players Jacob White and Brenden Lewis try to trap Cloverport’s Max Dubreeduring 11th District Tournament action at HCHS Tuesday. The Hornets play Meade County in the championshipgame at seven o’clock here tomorrow night. —Clarion photo by Steve Wimmer

PAGE 2 Hancock Clarion, Hawesville, Ky., Feb. 23, 2017

Obituaries

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Pauline C. RobertsPauline C. Roberts, 82, of Maceo passed away on Mon-

day, February 20, 2017 at OwensboroHealth Regional Hospital. Pauline wasborn on January 11, 1935 in HancockCounty the daughter of the late Iva andMary Dorothy Mattingly Cambron.She was a member at Dawson Memo-rial Baptist Church, retired from Gen-eral Electric in Owensboro and a mem-ber of Local 783 AIW. She enjoyed fleamarkets, her garden and flowers andwas always ready to lend a helping hand whenneeded. She was preceded in death by her husbandEverett Roberts and brothers and sisters Charles EstilCambron, Elizabeth Kelly, Grace Rafferty and BarbaraBoehmann.

Surviving are five sisters, Bertha Finney, Maggie“Wiggie” Lillian Craig (Wayne), Mary Ann Hubbard(Larr y), Edith Bennett (Terr y) and Brenda Brown(Junie); four brothers, Robert Lee Cambron (Connie),Clyde Cambron (Anita), Joseph Cambron (Debra) andJimmy Cambron (Ann) and several nieces and nephews.

Services are at 11:00 am Thursday, February 23, 2017in the Taylor Chapel at Gibson & Son Funeral Home,Lewispor t. Burial will be in Lewisport Cemeter y.Pauline’s family will greet friends from 9:00 am until ser-vice time Thursday at the Funeral Home. Memorial con-tributions may be made to the charity of your choice.Online condolences may be left for Pauline’s family atwww.gibsonandsonfh.com.

Wanda Elizabeth JacksonNugent

Wanda Elizabeth Jackson Nugent, 86, of Hawesvillepassed away on Thursday, February16, 2017 at Oakwood Health Campusin Tell City. She was born in HancockCounty on March 14, 1930 to the lateCoy and Addie Fitzgerald Jackson, Sr.Wanda was a member of Mt. EdenBaptist Church and was retired fromGeneral Electric. She enjoyed makingcross stitch quilts for her family, lovedher flowers and spending time withher family. She was preceded in deathby her husband, Charles “Twenty” Nugent, Sr.; two sons,Donald Ray Nugent and Charles “Sonny” Nugent, Jr; twosisters, Vivian Johnson and Delores Board.

Survivors include her daughter, Gail (Keith) Corley;three sons, Billy Joe (Carolyn) Nugent, Gerald (Judy)Nugent and Gary “Red” Nugent; 17 grandchildren; 38great grandchildren; seven great-great grandchildren;three brothers, Coy Jackson, Jr., Billy Ray Jackson andCletus Jackson along with many nieces and nephews.

Funeral Services were held at 2 p.m. on Monday, Feb-ruary 20, 2017 at Mt. Eden Baptist Church. Burial fol-lowed in Mt. Eden Baptist Church Cemetery. Visitationwas held on Sunday from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. and Mon-day from 7 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at Gibson & Son FuneralHome, Hawesville. Memorial contributions may be madeto Mt. Eden Baptist Church. Online condolences maybe left for the family to view at

www.gibsonandsonfh.com.

Anna E. ReynoldsAnna E. Reynolds, 92, of Lewisport passed away on

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at Oak-wood Health Campus in Tell City, IN.Anna was born December 21, 1924 inHancock County to the late Guy B.(G.B.) and Selma Wetzel Reynolds ofLewisport. She was a lifelong mem-ber of Lewisport Baptist Church.Anna retired after 43 years in the Ac-counting Department at General Elec-tric in Owensboro.

After retirement, Anna enjoyedworking alongside of her brother on the family farm,gardening and tending her flowers. She was very muchan animal lover, especially the many cats and dogs shehad during her lifetime. In addition to her parents, Annawas preceded in death by her twin brothers, Oscar L.Reynolds and Guy S. Reynolds and a sister in law, HazelS. Reynolds.

Anna is survived by her niece, Marsha House andhusband Danny of Lewisport; a great nephew, BrandonHouse and wife Johnna of Lewisport; three great-greatnieces, Halley Stewart, Ella House and Ansley House.

Funeral Services were held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Feb-ruary, 17, 2017 in the Taylor Chapel of Gibson & SonFuneral Home, Lewispor t with burial following inLewisport Cemeter y. Visitation was held on Thursdayfrom 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. until ser-vice time at the funeral home. Online messages of con-dolence may be left for the family awww.gibsonandsonfh.com.

Memorial contributions may be made in memory ofAnna to the Goodfellows Club, 401 Frederica St. B203,Owensboro, KY 42301 or the Hancock County AnimalShelter, 305 Gene Hayden Rd. Lewisport, KY 42351, en-velopes are available at the funeral home.

Edward M. “Eddie”Winters, II

Edward M. “Eddie” Winters II, of Hawesville, Ken-tucky, passed peacefully in his daughter’s home onFebruary 14, 2017 to be with his Lord and Savior. Heser ved his country in the Korean War, and was rec-ognized by all for his bravery. He is preceded in deathby his beloved wife, Delores Winters (Gray), and sur-vived by his three children, six grandkids, and threegreat grandchildren.

In Loving Memory of

JEFF RICHARDSJune 29, 1964- February 26, 2008

It’s amazing how nine years canseem like only yesterday,

and other times an eternity.The empty place in our hearts

is still very real.You were a blessing to everyone

who knew you andwe feel so blessed to have

had you for our son, brother,husband and father.

We love and miss you,Your family

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heard of any booms.A call to the Grandview,

Ind. City Hall, however, ledto more corroborating evi-dence and what appears tobe a definitive answer.

“What we have found out isthat it is mining activity,” saidStephanie Melton, the SpencerCounty Emergency Manage-ment Agency director.

She had tracked downthe source of the booms,which had also rattledhomes in Spencer County, tothe Wild Boar mine inL ynnville, in WarrickCounty.

“You’re right in line withwhere it would be coming,it’s just on a straight pathdown through our countyand it’s crossing over theriver then to you,” she said.

Melton had been trackingthe source of the boomssince December, when com-plaints started coming in.

She first called the Na-tional Weather Service, thenthe state geological survey,then the same National Earth-quake Information Center inColorado that the Clarion hadtalked to, where she was toldthat the center needed to betold within five minutes ofeach complaint call so theycould watch for activity.

“The last several callsended up being they pin-pointed it to, they called it ‘ageneric area’ that was inLynnville,” Melton said.

There was a mine inLynnville, so Melton calledthe Indiana Department ofNatural Resources, whichoversees surface mining.

“I had printed out all ofour complaints from dis-patch and then also dispatchhad called Warrick Countyand Warrick County was re-ceiving the same complaintsat the same times that ourdispatch was, and so theychecked with the mine andthat was the time that theywere blasting,” she said.

“Everything was kind ofcoinciding.”

Finally a solid answer,with proof.

But most laymen wouldlogically point out that if ablast shakes homes 30 ormore miles away, that itwould seem like it wouldn’tbe allowed.

“They’re well within whatthey’re allowed to do,” shesaid. “There’s nothing thatthey’re doing wrong, butthey say that weather doesplay a big part.”

The mine has been doingvery shallow blasting, andthat, coupled with low cloud

cover on overcast days, ex-acerbates the problem andsends shockwaves over amuch larger area.

The DNR has placed seis-mic monitors near the mineto watch for anything thatmight be amiss, as well as toensure there are no bad af-fects to the area.

“They want to make surethere is no damage aroundthe blasting, that nothing ischanging,” she said.

Melton couldn’t explainwhy people in some citieswere complaining about thebooms, while others nearbysaid they hadn’t even heardof them. The booms seemedto affect an area more in onedirection versus in a radius.

“I know from where themine is to the towns that werecomplaining, it has been astraight line. It has been aconsistent path,” she said.“Basically the path it’s beentaking has been a southeastpath, it’s almost cutting ourcounty in half, and thenstraight to the river.”

While it has af fectedpeople in Lewisport some,the effect on citizens alongthat path in Indiana was ap-parently greater.

“The community was con-cerned that this was kind offoreshadowing of an earth-quake,” she said. “So we’vehad people saying they’restarting to prep.

“I really thought well Ineed to start looking moreinto this because people arestarting to get into a panicmode in one of the commu-nities,” she said.

Being in emergency man-agement she wasn’t opposedto people ‘prepping,’ or gath-ering food and supplies inthe event of a catastrophicevent, because there is al-ways the chance for anearthquake or especially atornado.

“You could always prepand that’s a good thing,” shesaid, “but don’t be panickedabout anything. Be ready forwhatever happens you neverknow what kind of littlekinks or surprises life’s go-ing to throw at you.”

The mystery of the larg-est booms has been solved,but it likely won’t be the an-swer to every smaller boom,whether from Tannerite orsomething else, or evennatural shakes like icequakes if the weather turnscold again, but they will keeppeople like Carpenter busy.

“I had a call from some-one in Covington on the 17th

talking about booms,” hesaid. “It turns out it’s kind ofa standard thing in the win-ter months.”

dave.hancockclarion@gmail.com

month behind ever since.It continues now, while

they’re playing catch up, shesaid, because the Februarybills are for electricity usedin December up to aboutmid-January.

“So what you’re going tocatch up is those few daysbetween,” she said.

The number of days thatwill be added to eachmonth’s bill has been sched-uled, and will be billed forthe following number ofdays: January, 32; February,32; March, 32; April, 32; May,

33; June, 33; July, 32; August,32; September, 32; October,32; November, 32; and De-cember, 32.

Kenergy encourages cus-tomers to take steps to re-duce power usage, but alsoto monitor their daily useusing tools available onlineand on mobile devices.

“They can look at theirenergy that they’re using al-most in real time,” she said,“And they can track their us-age and they can see wherethey have spikes.”

dave.hancockclarion@gmail.com

out a lot of money, we’dhave money coming backin,” she said.

Gregory pointed out thatgrants like the city got forthe farm museum are nolonger available, and that thecompetition is much stif ferand requirements muchhigher.

“When you talk aboutspace like that, you’re goingto have to have rent and leaseagreements,” he said. “You’regoing to have to have a planbefore you take this to a com-mittee for them to underwritea grant. If you just go to themand say, ‘Hey, we want torenovate this building. Itdoesn’t work like that.”

Another old school hadbeen renovated with a grantfrom a private historical or-ganization, Rummage said,but it required removing anyparts of the structure thatwere not on the original 1938building.

“There would go the caf-eteria and the two things oneach side,” she said.

Grants for historicalbuildings are also limiting,said Gregory, because theydictate what you can andcan’t do with the buildingwhen it’s done.

“The farm museum, it’s avery worthwhile project,” hesaid, “but the doors are noteven open to that place noteven once a year that I recall,but we can’t do anything elsewith that building because itstill falls under that grant.”

The council then decidedthat they should set a timeto tour the school to see itscurrent condition, and thendiscuss the possibilitiesmore in the future.

“If nothing else have aspecial meeting one after-noon and go through it andsee what it looks like,” saidHawkins. “We don’t know,we’re sitting here not know-ing what it looks like.”

Lewisport talksideas for old school

—Continued from page 1

Kenergy meters

—Continued from page 1

—Continued from page 1

MysteryAvery Bolton and his wife Leann walk at Vastwood withtheir children Caleb, left, Adeline, in stroller, and AmeliaMonday afternoon. The family comes and walks at thepark about once a week. —Clarion photo by Dave Taylor