On June 8, 1883, Rev. Elisha Green was traveling by train from Maysville to Paris, Kentucky. At Millersburg, about forty students from the Millersburg Female College crowded onto the train, accompanied by their music teacher, Frank L. Bristow, and the college president, George T. Gould. Gould grabbed the reverend by the shoulder and ordered him to give up his seat. When Green refused, Bristow and Gould assaulted him until the conductor intervened and ordered the assailants to stop or he would throw them off of the train. Friends advised Green to take legal action, and he did, winning his case against his assailants in March 1884, though with only token compensation. The significance of this case lies not only in the prevailing justice of the 1800s, but also in the fact that a black man won a lawsuit against two white men.

Randy Runyon, originally from Maysville, Kentucky, taught at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for 35 years, and now lives in Paris, Kentucky. Three of his books on Kentucky history have been published by the University Press of Kentucky: Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad; The Mentelles: Mary Todd Lincoln, Henry Clay, and the Immigrant Family Who Educated Antebellum Kentucky; and The Assault on Elisha Green: Race and Religion in a Kentucky Community.

 

Alma Lesch received her B.S. degree at Murray State University in 1941 as an Elementary Teacher.  After retirement she pursued Art Classes at the University of Louisville and by 1961 she was teaching textiles at The Louisville School of Art.  She earned her Master’s in Education at the University of Louisville in 1962 and taught Fine Arts from 1975 – 1982.

Lesch re-invented "embroidery" and published her experience in dyeing wool and cotton yarn with natural plant dyestuffs, in Vegetable Dyeing (Watson-Guptil, 1970) Lesch's art was donated from the artist's estate in 2001 and is housed in the U of L Hite Art Library.

 

The Alma Wallace Lesch Memorial Award. established in 2001, is funded and awarded annually by the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.

 

Dennis Shaffner came to Kentucky from Pennsylvania to study art and earn a teaching certificate in Art at Morehead State University in 1971. Dennis discovered the textiles of Alma Lesch at Berea and at the Guild Gallery in Lexington, and then taught art at the high school in Shepherdsville, Alma Lesch's hometown. Dennis believes that Alma's visit to the Art Club in Shepherdsville motivated the principal to hire a staff of five certified Art Specialists. He eventually earned his Master's in Secondary Education under Alma Lesch, then adjunct professor at U of L, during her last year of teaching.

 

Their studio time permitted a close 2-way friendship in the creation of their textile design work. Currently Dennis is the Superintendent of the Fine Arts Department at the Kentucky State Fair.

Presented by Derek Blount

 

 

Scotch - Irish, Who are They and How Do We Find Them? - Who are they, where did they come from and where can you find records after the 1922 PRO fire erased 700 years of records?

 

 

Derek J. Blount is a professional genealogist with his own business, “Lost Branches”.

He has worked for 34 years on his family genealogy traveling America, Canada and

United Kingdom gathering records, visiting cemeteries and churches. Derek was born

in England and specializes in research in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth

nations. He holds a B.S. degree from Oakland University and has completed course

work at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburg. He has lectured on numerous

genealogy subjects for the past eight years to many genealogical societies. Derek also holds memberships in the Irish Genealogical Society of Michigan and the Welsh-American Genealogical Society. He holds memberships in the Association of Genealogical Professionals and the Society of Genealogists in London.

 

To register click on the link below and fill in the registration.

 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register

 

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