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TODAY IN KENTUCKY HISTORY

March 19, 1903, Deputy Sheriff James Wesley Williams, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, died in a gun battle with a suspicious man he attempted to question.  When Deputy Williams and his posse tried to approach the man, he drew two pistols and opened fire.

The March 19, 1911 Courier-Journal edition explained the duel between two Louisville magistrates in 1792.  It took place in a small opening in the woods, back of present day Broadway.  They chose rifles used at sixty yards.  The 12 ½ cent fee for issuing a warrant caused the conflict.  As the duel began, the seconds decided not to shoot at each other for a trivial sum and then proposed a shooting match be held for a gallon of whiskey; Harrison won.  Famous Kentucky Duels by J. Winston Coleman, Jr.; pg: 135

March 19, 1911, Deputy Sheriff Charles Smith, Pike County Sheriff’s Office, died when he accompanied two U.S. Deputy Marshals in arresting a moonshiner at Long Fork.  The man surrendered; however, the man’s mother and two sisters opened fire.

Localtonians wish a Happy Birthday to Neon native Martha Carson, born in 1921 in Letcher County.  Her rock & roll-flavored gospel tunes influenced her country peers, most notably “The King.”

March 19, 1925, Governor W.J. Fields mailed an invitation to the Boone Family Association to hold their 1st convention and reunion the first weekend in June in Lexington.  President William Boone Douglass of Washington, D.C., stated the association would help celebrate the city’s sesqui-centennial in a parade and other activities.

March 19, 1927, Deputy Sheriff Albert Phipps and Deputy Sheriff Alvin Tackett, Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained arresting several men for moonshining in Weeksbury.

March 19, 1928, the General Assembly officially adopted My Old Kentucky Home as the state song 76 years after Stephen Foster wrote it.  Mrs. Grant Lilly presented the idea to legislators in 1928.

On March 19, 1932, the annual state high school basketball tournament’s championship games for boys and girls were two of the best final games ever played.  Hazard won its 1st title by defeating Louisville Male, 15-13, for the boys, and Woodburn (Western Kentucky) defeated Paintsville (Eastern Kentucky) 25-20.  Over 4,000 fans attended the games on UK’s campus.

Kentucky Trivia:  The 1932 basketball awards included: the Omicron Delta Fraternity Trophy for Best Leadership which went to player Goforth of Male.  The Y.M.C.A. Sportsmen Team Trophy went to Lowes High, and the cup for the most valuable man to his team went to 5-year-old Joe Luallen for the Paris team.

March 19, 1949, 18-year-old William Lee “Bill” Shoemaker, considered too small to be a jockey, rode his 1st race, at Del Mar, on a filly called Waxahachie.  They finished 5th.  Prophetically, cagey veteran Johnny Longden rode the winner by cutting off the young jockey at the starting gate.  Shoemaker eventually avenged himself when he broke Longden’s record for career wins in 1970.

March 19, 1951, Hopkinsville (Christian County) native Thomas R. Underwood became Kentucky’s 35th Class II Senator when appointed by Governor L. Weatherby.  He filled the remaining term of Middletown (Jefferson County) native, Senator Virgil M. Chapman, who died in a car wreck days earlier.

March 19, 1953, legislatures approved blue & white auto license plates to honor UK football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.  The main and background color would switch every year from blue to white.  The gesture wasn’t enough to keep the “Bear,” he resigned at the end of the year.  It Happened Today in Kentucky History by Robert A. Powell, pg: 32.

Kentucky Trivia:  In 1974, the state began to reuse plates for multiple years when Frankfort introduced the decal sticker.  The state then initiated the Alpha System in 1975.  The 1st actual graphic change came in 1989 when the plates showed a mare with foal under the Churchill Downs twin spires.

On March 19, 1962, Kentucky legislators formed the Division of Arts and Crafts under the Department of Commerce, and formed the Department of Libraries.  They also specified the dimensions, material, and composition of the seal for Kentucky’s official flag.

March 19, 1966, Coach Rupp appeared in his last Final Four in one of the most historical events in basketball.  Rupp’s Runts lost in the NCAA championship game, 72-65, to Texas Western.  The game marked the 1st time a starting five of all-black players won the title.  They did it against Kentucky’s all-white squad.

March 19, 1968, Army SP5 Harold S. Wood, Jr. from Lewisburg in Logan County died in the Vietnam War.

March 19, 1969, Marine Corps PFC John F. Allen from Bowling Green died in the Vietnam War.

March 19, 1983, Greg Bates tipped in a missed shot at the buzzer to secure the Henry Clay Blue Devils a 35-33 triple-overtime victory from Carlisle County.  Henry Clay won its 6th state title, the 1st since 1924 when the school was known as Lexington High.  Some say it was one of the greatest Boys’ Sweet 16 games played.

Kentucky Trivia:  The Greg Bates shot in the 3rd overtime decided the longest Kentucky state championship game since the famed four-overtime epic between Ashland and Carr Creek in 1928.

March 19, 1987, Conservation Officer Robert C. Banker, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, died after issuing a man a citation for fishing without a license on the spillway of Lacy Lake in Christian County.

March 19, 1988, Ballard defeated Clay County 88-79 to capture the Kentucky’s Boys’ Sweet 16 State High School Basketball Championship in Freedom Hall with 19,575 spectators.

Kentucky Trivia:  Richie Farmer’s 51 points in the state championship game shattered the previous record—44 by Central’s Ron King in 1969.  “King” Kelly holds the record for most points scored in a Sweet 16 game, with 68 in the 1956 third-place game.

March 19, 1989, in the wake of an NCAA investigation, Eddie Sutton resigned as UK basketball coach.

Kentucky Trivia:  There have been 23 Kentucky head basketball coaches, including Mark Pope.

March 19, 1998, south of Long Island, NY, the USS Kentucky (SSBN-737) collided with the USS San Juan (SSN-751).   The two submarines were conducting a joint training drill before deployment.  USS Kentucky returned to patrol the next day.

March 19, 1998, Larry S. Salachi of Stanton caught a state record White Sucker weighing 1.63 lbs. in Slate Creek, Montgomery County.

White Sucker

On March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush announced Operation Iraqi Freedom had begun.  The U.S. invaded on well-documented lies we now know as “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”  A little over a month later, “Mission Accomplished” happened.  In 2008, Obama took over the Iraqi War and moved it to Afghanistan.

March 19, 2005, Army SPC Jonathan A. Hughes, 21, of Lebanon, died in Iraq Operation Iraqi Freedom.

March 19, 2005, the South Laurel Cardinals defeated the Warren Central Dragons 72-59 for the KHSAA Boys’ Sweet 16 State Basketball Championship.  Rupp Arena hosted the game and 16,927 spectators.

Kentucky Trivia:  South Laurel’s Walt Allen beat Pleasure Ridge Park in the semifinals with the winning shot with seven seconds left in double-overtime, then came back and scored 30 points in the state title game.

March 19, 2005, spelunkers surveyed a connection into the Roppel Cave portion of Mammoth Cave from a small cave under Eudora Ridge, adding approximately three miles to the National Park.  The newly found entrance to the cave, now termed the “Hoover Entrance”, was discovered in September 2003.

March 19, 2009, William Henton, from Central City, caught a state record Yellow Bass weighing 1 lb., 6.4 ozs.  He landed it at Cumberland River Lake Barkley Tailwaters.

Yellow Bass

March 19, 2011, 12-year-old Emily Keaton from Pikeville won the 18th annual Kentucky Derby Festival Spelling Bee.  She beat 61 others by correctly spelling “ephedrine.”  Emily also won the 2010 Championship.

On March 19, 2011, around 14,644 fans witnessed Christian County defeat Rowan County 65-63 in Rupp Arena for the KHSAA Sweet 16 Boys State Basketball Championship.  Christian County’s Veontae Lewis cashed a jumper from the left corner ahead of the final buzzer in the 2nd overtime.

March 19, 2013, officials placed the sister of former Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer on paid leave from her job at the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.  Her boss described the ethics charges as “serious.”

March 19, 2013, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, told a Louisville audience that he agreed with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors.  He also blamed the growing inequality gap on Washington D.C. and Wall Street.

March 19, 2016, a Kentucky bred won the GI $500,000 Santa Margarita Stakes for fillies and mares four-year-old and upward.

Sunday, March 19, 2017, Bowling Green (BG) won the KHSAA Boys Sweet 16 State Basketball Tournament.  The heavily favored Purples played exceptional basketball over the four games and were a force of reckoning.  BG defeated Graves County in the first round, Scott County in the quarterfinals, Scott High in the semifinals, and Cooper in the title game to capture its 1st state crown.  The Purples finished the season on a 29-game winning streak.

March 19, 2020, Kentucky confirmed the 2nd coronavirus death when a 64-year-old Louisville man died six days earlier.  He actually died before the 1st Kentucky victim; however, his autopsy tests got delayed.  The governor also reported 12 new, and 47 total positive cases.

On March 19, 2020, Governor A. Beshear signed an executive order banning all public gatherings, including church services, while the General Assembly adjourned for a week.  In D.C., President Trump suspended all travel from Europe, and Mitch M. proposed token checks for individual Americans and billions for corporations. 

March 19, 2021, after 12 new positive cases and 200 quarantines in Fayette County Schools, education officials received reports of large sleepovers without masks.  Neighbors began tattling on each other over the flu protocol, a horrible side effect of government mandates.  The state also reported that 1 in 4 Kentuckians received the experimental vaccines, with over 1,000,000 shots given.

March 19, 2021, in an appearance before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Dr. Fauci said that a coronavirus vaccine for kids would likely need to go into wide circulation for the U.S. to reach herd immunity.

March 19, 2022, George Rogers Clark (GRC) defeated Warren Central 43-42 in a thriller in front of 11.957 spectators to win their 2nd Sweet 16 championship.  In 2023 the ending flipped and the Dragons defeated the Cardinals in the championship game.  GRC finished the season 37-1 and became the 21st school to win more than one state title.

March 19, 2022, a Kentucky bred won Oaklawn Park’s GIII $500,000 Essex Handicap for four-year-olds and upward.  It was close for 2nd place.

On March 19, 2023, Kentucky lost to Kansas State 75-69 in the NCAA 2nd Round at Greensboro, NC.  State coach Jerome Tang was confident heading into the game, “This won’t be my first time playing Kentucky.  We broke their 55-game win streak when I was at Baylor inside Rupp, and we won the other two times that we played them at a neutral site.”

On March 19, 2024, Governor A. Beshear continued to avoid substantive issues and reminded everyone about the importance of farmers.  National Agricultural Day changes every year and is celebrated around the 18th or 19th.  The Agriculture Council of America created the day in 1973.

On March 19, 2024, Thomas Massie posted a thought that a majority of Americans were thinking at the time and still are:  When will the American economy collapse or at least correct itself?