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Kentucky Electric Steel, Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History

U.S. Route 60 West
P.O. Box 3500
Ashland, Kentucky 41105
U.S.A.

Company Perspectives:

Our mission is to be a world class bar mill, world class in product quality and customer service.

History of Kentucky Electric Steel, Inc.

Kentucky Electric Steel, Inc. is a steel minimill that melts scrap and turns it into bar flats. The bar flats, which are produced to a variety of specifications, are of two basic types: special bar quality (SBQ) and merchant bar quality (MBQ). Sales of SBQ bar flats account for approximately 80 percent of the company's total sales. These bars, which are manufactured in more than 2,600 varieties, conform to precise customer-ordered specifications in order to ensure that the customer's end product meets performance requirements. The remainder of Kentucky Electric's sales come from MBQ bar flats, which are used for more generic applications, such as metal buildings.

Kentucky Electric Steel's bar flats are used in a number of niche markets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, and England. The majority of its sales are made to manufacturers of the leaf-spring suspensions used in trucks, trailers, minivans, and sport utility vehicles. Other major customers include steel service centers, truck trailer producers, and cold drawn bar converters--companies that draw steel bars through cutting dies to create bars of a specific tolerance.

1960s: From Scrap Yard to Minimill

Kentucky Electric Steel was formed by the Mansbach family, of Ashland, Kentucky--a small community in the northeastern part of the state near the Ohio border. The Mansbach's original business was a scrap metal yard. In 1963, however, the family decided to expand its scrap operation. Forming Kentucky Electric Steel Corporation, they began constructing a steel minimill.

The Mansbachs' decision to enter the steelmaking business was a timely one. Since 1960, minimills had been claiming an increasingly large share of the total domestic steel output. The smaller minimills, which made their steel from melted scrap, had several advantages over the large integrated steel makers, which produced steel by melting and processing iron ore. Operating on a much smaller scale and offering far fewer products, minimills had lower labor costs and higher productivity then the big steel makers.

Construction of the Kentucky Electric mill was completed in 1964; in 1965 the company began manufacturing its first products--steel rounds. The original mill was a fairly small operation. All the metal was melted in a single 20-ton electric arc furnace, and the molten metal was then poured into individual molds in order to shape it. After cooling, the metal ingots were run through a one-stand rolling mill, which compressed and refined them. The rolling mill was operated by workers called 'tongmen,' who fed the ingots through, then pulled them out, turned them, and sent them back through again. Once they had been rolled, they were sawed, stacked by hand, and banded as finished product.

In 1968, Kentucky Electric expanded its melting capacity by adding a second 20-ton electric arc furnace. It also added a baghouse--an air-pollution control device that captured particulate from waste combustion gases in filter bags. Even more significantly, the company began planning to install a two-strand continuous caster. The continuous caster cast molten steel into continuous strands, replacing the process of pouring the metal into molds. The new caster allowed the company to offer more flexibility in the lengths of its products.

The next item on the list of upgrades was the rolling mill. The company's improvements to the rolling mill meant that the bars no longer had to be hand-fed, cutting down on labor and greatly enhancing efficiency. With its new equipment and expanded capabilities, Kentucky Electric was able to add MBQ flat bars to its product line. Although the company was successful, in the late 1960s the Mansbachs sold it to a California-based conglomerate.

1970s: New Products, Facility Upgrades

In the late 1970s, Kentucky Electric's new owners decided to begin production of SBQ flat bars. Producing SBQ bars was a much more involved process than producing MBQ bars or any of the mill's other products. To produce SBQ flat bars, the mill had to be able to add a variety of alloys to the metal to make different grades of steel. It also had to have a variety of specialized equipment in order to assure precision in the product's dimensions and chemistry.

The decision to expand into SBQ flat bars led to a $30 million improvement program, which the company called 'Project '80.' Some of the Project '80 upgrades included the addition of a third strand to the continuous caster, two new 50-ton electric arc furnaces, and new mill stands to expand and complete the finishing mill. The project also called for a quality control testing facility, complete with state-of-the-art spectographic computer-controlled equipment. The addition of new process-control computers expanded the mill's metallurgical capabilities and maintained tighter tolerances.

In the years following Kentucky Electric's completion of Project '80, the company continued to upgrade the mill in a piecemeal fashion. Several new pieces of equipment were installed, which further improved efficiency and enabled greater precision in production. In addition, the company purchased 40 acres of land adjoining its existing facility, in preparation for anticipated future growth.

1980s: Ownership Change

The early and mid-1980s were difficult times for U.S steelmakers. High labor costs, overcapacity, and competition from imports had combined to depress profits industrywide. In addition, the U.S. was seeing a sharp decrease in the use of steel altogether; between 1978 and 1985, domestic consumption of rod and bar steel dropped by 20 percent. Although steel minimills had for years been able to operate more profitably than large integrated mills, by the mid-1980s they, too, were feeling the effects of the soft market. Unable to remain profitable, many began closing down.

Kentucky Electric Steel was no exception. In January 1985, the company's parent, Triton Group Ltd., discontinued operation of the mill--and a few months later, announced that it was closing the operation permanently. In an August 2, 1985 press release, Triton's President and CEO Ralph Briscoe said that conditions in the domestic steel industry had put Kentucky Electric in a non-competitive condition. He also announced that Triton was seeking a buyer for the mill.

A year later, Triton found its buyer. A group of four former managers of a steel mill in Newport, Kentucky, purchased the closed-down minimill for $7.3 million. Kentucky Electric was the second such mill acquired by the four partners. In 1981, they had banded together to acquire Newport Steel Works--their former employer--after its owner shut it down. After acquiring Kentucky Electric, the partners formed a holding company, NS Group, for its subsidiaries.

The company's new owners proved adept at turning around troubled steel mills. After absorbing $1.9 million in start-up costs to get operations up and running again, NS Group managed to return the mill to profitability within a year. In the first three quarters of 1987, Kentucky Electric's steel bars produced a $9 million profit on sales of $61.3 million. NS Group's earnings mounted throughout 1987, and in March 1988, the company went public. Its IPO generated $46 million--almost $10 million more than it had anticipated.

1990s: Independence

In the early 1990s, the NS Group's fortunes reversed. The company posted losses in 1991, 1992, and 1993, and accrued substantial debt. In 1993, attempting to improve its financial situation, NS decided to spin off its Kentucky Electric subsidiary as a public company. The new company, Kentucky Electric Steel, Inc., was capitalized in an initial public offering on October 6, 1993, and began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol KESI. At the time of its spinoff, Kentucky Electric had sales of approximately $90 million, net earnings of $5.5 million, and around 450 employees.

A year after becoming an independent company, Kentucky Electric initiated an ambitious $26 million capital improvements program designed to greatly expand the plant's capacity and modernize its operations. The program, called 'Project '94,' was divided into two phases.

Phase I, which was completed in 1995, boosted capacity in several aspects of the company's steelmaking process. A fourth strand was added to the melt shop's continuous caster, increasing its casting capabilities to approximately 400,000 tons. A new billet transfer line allowed the mill to transport larger-sized bars to storage, and new rolling mill equipment enabled the completion of 400,000 tons of finished products. Project '94 also provided a new cooling bed that was 2.7 times larger than the previous one, and a new shear with a 54-inch cut and a 1,000-ton capacity. The previous shear had a 36-inch cut and a 400-ton capacity. Not only did the improvements allow KESI to produce more product, but they also allowed it to expand the size range of its bars. Before Project '94, the company was able to produce bars up to two inches in thickness and eight inches in width; after the project's completion, it was capable of making bars up to three inches thick and 12 inches wide. KESI hoped that its expanded product size ranges would serve to both enlarge the company's share of existing markets and enable it to enter new ones.

With the new equipment in place, the mill was able to finish more product in its rolling operation than it could produce in its melting shop. The company took steps to remedy that imbalance in Phase II of Project '94, which involved the installation of a ladle metallurgy station. The ladle metallurgy station,

1964:The Mansbach family opens Kentucky Electric Steel Corporation.

1968:The Mansbachs sell Kentucky Electric to a California-based conglomerate.

1980:Kentucky Electric embarks on Project '80, a $30 million upgrade program.

1985:Unable to remain profitable in adverse market conditions, Kentucky Electric is shut down.

1986:Kentucky Electric is purchased by Newport, Kentucky-based NS Group.

1993:NS Group spins off Kentucky Electric as a public company.

1994:Kentucky Electric begins Project '94, another capital improvements program designed to enhance capacity and product line.

which began start-up operations in the fourth quarter of 1996, was the step between melting the metal and pouring it into the continuous caster. In the station, the molten steel was mixed with a variety of alloys to make different grades of steel--a process that had previously taken place in the electric arc furnaces. By removing the refining cycle from the furnace, the ladle metallurgy station reduced the amount of furnace time, thereby allowing more steel to move through the melt shop in a shorter period. The station also made for cleaner, more homogenous steel, and increased the number of grades that the mill could produce. The company sold 225,800 tons of finished goods in 1996, which amounted to 87 percent of its production capacity. Earnings were $58,000, on sales of $98.3 million.

In 1997, KESI inadvertently melted some radioactive scrap in its furnaces. The error caused a 12-day shutdown in its melt shop operations while a contractor tested and cleaned the mill's ductwork and baghouse. The company lost another ten days of production that same year, when the melt shop was shut down for caster superstructure repairs. The shutdowns hurt the company's financial performance. Its sales for 1997 decreased by $3.6 million from 1996's level--and it posted a net loss of $2.6 million.

In 1998, Kentucky Electric finally saw the fruits of its Project '94 labor. As productivity in the rolling and finishing operations improved through the year, the company set records in output. Sales for the year were up by almost 16 percent over 1997, and net income was $1.5 million. The productivity gains made in the company's finishing operation, however, meant that its melt shop remained unable to keep up. While the rolling and finishing facility could output approximately 400,000 tons of product annually, the melt shop's capacity was only around 300,000.

1999 and Beyond

One of Kentucky Electric's main goals for the future was to balance its overall capacity in both melting and finishing operations at around 400,000 tons. This, obviously, meant increasing the capacity of the melt shop. Toward that end, the company had begun testing a method of adding chemical energy to the electric arc furnaces. It was also planning an overhaul of both its furnaces and a replacement of some of its melt shop equipment. The company believed that the improvements, along with the increased energy to the electric arc furnaces, would increase the melt shop's output--thereby allowing the plant as a whole to operate at its full capacity.

Much of the company's future performance, however, hinged on conditions in the U.S. steel market. As 1999 drew to a close, domestic steelmakers faced heavy competition from lower-priced imports, which were claiming an increasingly large share of the U.S. market. The flood of cheap steel from foreign producers had driven down steel prices, hurt the industry's bottom line, and caused the loss of thousands of jobs. Kentucky Electric, like many steel mills, posted losses in the first half of 1999.

It appeared possible that the import situation would be ameliorated somewhat, however. Following a series of dumping charges against foreign steelmakers, the U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission ordered punitive tariffs on several steel firms' imports. The government also signed agreements with Russia and Brazil that limited their steel imports and set price levels in exchange for a suspension of dumping tariffs. Those actions, and similar ones, were likely to prove beneficial to Kentucky Electric's business, as well as to the domestic steel industry in general.

Principal Subsidiaries: KESI Finance Company.

Principal Competitors: AK Steel Holding Corporation; AmeriSteel Corporation; Bethlehem Steel Corporation; Birmingham Steel Corporation; Cargill, Incorporated; Commercial Metals Company; Nucor Corporation; The LTV Corporation; Steel Dynamics, Inc.; Steel of West Virginia, Inc.; USX-U.S. Steel Group; WHX Corporation.

Related information about Kentucky

pop (2000e) 4 041 800; area 104 658 km²/40 410 sq mi. State in EC USA, divided into 120 counties; the ‘Bluegrass State’; part of the territory ceded by the French (1763); explored by Daniel Boone from 1769; the first permanent British settlement at Boonesborough, 1775; included in US territory by the Treaty of Paris, 1783; originally part of Virginia; admitted to the Union as the 15th state, 1792; capital, Frankfort; other chief cities, Louisville and Lexington; rivers include the Mississippi (part of the SW border), Ohio (part of the NW and N border), Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky, and Big Sandy with its tributary, the Tug Fork (part of the E border); Cumberland Mts in the SE; highest point Mt Black (1263 m/4144 ft); the C plain is known as Bluegrass country; to the W and E are rough uplands with vast coal reserves; in the SW corner are floodplains bounded by the Ohio, Mississippi, and Tennessee Rivers; famous for the distilling of bourbon whiskey (still the country's leading producer), and for its thoroughbred racehorses; tobacco, cattle, dairy produce, soybeans; machinery, electrical equipment, processed foods, chemicals, fabricated metals; the nation's leading coal producer; petroleum, natural gas; Mammoth Cave National Park; Kentucky Derby held annually at Louisville.

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The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States, although it is sometimes included, geographically, in the Midwest. Kentucky is well known for thoroughbred horses, horse racing, local bourbon whisky distilleries, bluegrass music, coal and college basketball.

Geography

See also: List of Kentucky counties

Kentucky borders states of both the Midwest and the Southeast. and Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north.

The Commonwealth's northern border is formed by the Ohio River, and the western border is formed by the Mississippi River. Other major rivers in Kentucky include the Kentucky River, Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, the Green River, and the Licking River.

Kentucky is the only U.S. state to have non-contiguous parts exist as an enclave of other states. Far western Kentucky includes a small part of land, Kentucky Bend, on the Mississippi River bordered by Missouri and accessible via Tennessee, created by the New Madrid Earthquake. Also there is a section of Kentucky across the Ohio connected to Indiana near Evansville.

Kentucky can be divided into five primary regions: the Cumberland Plateau in the east, the north-central Bluegrass region, the south-central and western Pennyroyal Plateau, the Western Coal Fields and the far-west Jackson Purchase.

The Bluegrass region is commonly divided into two regions, the Inner Bluegrass—the encircling 90 miles (145 km) around Lexington—and the Outer Bluegrass, the region that contains most of the Northern portion of the state, above the Knobs. Much of the outer Bluegrass is in the Eden Shale Hills area, made up of short, steep, and very narrow hills.

Significant natural attractions

Cumberland Gap, chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history.
Cumberland Falls State Park, where a "moon-bow", the only such phenomenon in the Western Hemisphere, may be seen in the mists of the falls.
Mammoth Cave National Park, featuring tours of the world's longest cave.
Red River Gorge Geological Area, part of the Daniel Boone National Forest.
Land Between the Lakes, a National Recreation Area managed by the United States Forest Service.
Bernheim Forest a 14,000 acre (57 km²) arboretum, forest and nature preserve located in Clermont.
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville.
Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area near Whitley City.
Trail of Tears National Historic Trail also passes through Kentucky.
Black Mountain, state's highest point. Runs along the border of Harlan and Letcher counties.
Bad Branch Falls State Nature Preserve, 2,639-acre state nature preserve on southern slope of Pine Mountain in Letcher County. Includes one of the largest concentrations of rare and endangered species in the state, as well as a 60-foot waterfall and a Kentucky Wild River.
Jefferson Memorial Forest, located south of Louisville in the Knobs region, the largest municipally run forest in the United States.
Green River State Park, located in Taylor County.
Lake Cumberland, 1255 miles of shoreline located in South Central Kentucky.

History

See also: Kentucky in the Civil War, Kentucky Historical Society

Although inhabited by Native Americans in prehistoric times, when explorers and settlers began entering Kentucky in the mid-1700s, there were no permanent Native American settlements in the region. Thereafter, Kentucky grew rapidly as the first settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains were founded, with settlers (primarily from Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) entering the region via the Cumberland Gap and the Ohio River. the Battle of Blue Licks, one of the last major battles of the Revolution, was fought in Kentucky.

After the American Revolution, the counties of Virginia beyond the Appalachian Mountains became known as Kentucky County. On June 1, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth state to be admitted to the union and Isaac Shelby, a military veteran from Virginia, was elected the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

While remaining loyal to the Union, Kentucky was a border state during the American Civil War. On September 4, 1861, Confederate General Leonidas Polk broke Kentucky's neutrality by invading Columbus, Kentucky. On September 7, 1861, the Kentucky State Legislature, angered by the Confederate invasion, ordered the Union flag to be raised over the state capitol in Frankfort, declaring its allegiance with the Union. On August 13, 1862, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith's Army of East Tennessee invaded Kentucky and on August 28, 1862, Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Mississippi entered Kentucky beginning the Kentucky Campaign.

On January 30, 1900, Governor William Goebel was mortally wounded by an assailant while in the process of contesting the election of 1899, initially assumed to be won by William S. Taylor fled to Indiana and was later indicted as a co-conspirator in Goebel's assassination.

Government and politics

Currently, Kentucky's governor, Ernie Fletcher, both U.S. Senators, Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell, and out of six Congressional Districts, five U.S. Representatives are members of the Republican Party. Kentucky's General Assembly has two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Commonwealth supported Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but Republican George W. The most solidly Democratic counties are in the mountainous eastern unionized coal mining region, especially Pike, Floyd, Knott, Menifee, Letcher, Perry and Breathitt, and the cities of Lexington and Louisville. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 27,435 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 32,169 people.

As of 2004, Kentucky's population included about 95,000 foreign-born (2.3%).

The five largest ancestries in the commonwealth are: American (20.9%), German (12.7%), Irish (10.5%), English (9.7%), African American (7.3%).

Blacks, who made up one-fourth of Kentucky's population prior to the American Civil War, declined in number as many moved to the industrial North in the Great Migration.

Religion

Of Kentucky's 4,041,769 residents in 2000, 33.68% were members of
evangelical protestant churches, 10.05% were catholics, 8.77% belonged to mainline protestant churches, 0.05% were members of orthodox churches and 0.88% were affiliated with other theologies - and 46.57% were not affiliated with any church.The Association of Religion Data Archives

Those churches with 1% or more of the population were the Southern Baptist Convention (979,994 members, 24.25%), the Catholic Church (406,021 members, 10.05%), the United Methodist Church (208,720 members, 5.16%), the evangelical Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (106,638 members, 2.64%), the mainline Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) (67,611 members, 1.67%), and the evangelical Church of Christ (58,602 members, 1.45%).

Religious movements were important in the early history of Kentucky.
Perhaps the most famous event was the interdenominational revival in August 1801 at the Cane Ridge Meeting house in Bourbon County. Some types of intangible property include: money market accounts, bonds, notes, retail repurchase agreements, accounts receivable, trusts, enforceable contracts sale of real estate (land contracts), money in hand, money in safe deposit boxes, annuities, interests in estates, loans to stockholders, and commercial paper.

Historically, a major problem with Kentucky's economy has been the fact that outside the Ohio River towns and Lexington, most rural counties never developed a widespread and localized industrial economy; kentucky.gov/unbridledspirit/info.htm

Transportation

Roads

Five major interstate highways service Kentucky.

Interstate 24 crosses from Illinois at Paducah and exits at Oak Grove for Tennessee.
Interstate 64 enters the state from Indiana at Louisville and exits the state at Catlettsburg for West Virginia.
Interstate 65 enters from Tennessee near Franklin and exits for Indiana at Louisville.
Interstate 71 begins at the junction of Interstate 64 at the Kennedy Interchange in Louisville and exits the state for Ohio with Interstate 75 at Covington.
Interstate 75 enters from Tennessee near Williamsburg and exits for Ohio at Covington. It is Kentucky's longest interstate highway.

Three bypasses and spurs also serve the state.

Interstate 264, also known as the Shawnee Expressway and the Henry Watterson Expressway, is an inner-loop of Louisville.
Interstate 265 is an outer-loop of Louisville.
Interstate 471 is a spur from Interstate 275 at Highland Heights and leaves the state for Cincinnati, Ohio where it ends at Interstate 71.

Kentucky and Missouri are the only two states to share a boundary with no road directly connecting the two states. This is a result of the multiplexing of US Highways 51, 60, and 62 crossing the Ohio River between Illinois and Kentucky, and the multiplexing of US Highways 60 and 62 crossing the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri, rather than US Highways 60 and 62 crossing the Mississippi River directly from Kentucky to Missouri.

Rails

Air

Important cities and towns

30 Largest Cities Census Population Estimates for 2005	2005 Population
Louisville	556,429
Lexington	268,080
Owensboro	55,459
Bowling Green	52,272
Covington	42,811
Richmond	30,893
Hopkinsville	28,821
Henderson	27,666
Frankfort	27,210
Florence	26,349
Jeffersontown	26,100
Paducah	25,575
Nicholasville	23,897
Elizabethtown	23,450
Ashland	21,510
Radcliff	21,961
Georgetown	19,988
Madisonville	19,273
Independence	19,065
St. Matthews	17,309
Erlanger	16,852
Winchester	16,494
Newport	15,911
Fort Thomas	15,592
Murray	15,538
Danville	15,409
Shively	15,212
Glasgow	14,062
Berea	13,230
Somerset	12,136

Kentucky's largest cities and most of the fast growing counties are concentrated in what is referred to as the Golden Triangle, which is almost entirely in the Bluegrass region, with the exception of Hardin, Meade and LaRue counties which are in the Pennyroyal region. The Northern Kentucky area (the seven Kentucky counties in the Cincinnati CSA) had an estimated population of 403,727 in 2005.

The two other fast growing urban areas in Kentucky are the Bowling Green area and the "Tri Cities Region" of southeastern Kentucky, comprised of Somerset, London, and Corbin. Iron and petroleum production, as well as the transport of coal by rail and barge, have been historical pillars of the region's economy. The Ashland area, including the Kentucky counties of Boyd and Greenup, is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

15 largest Kentucky cities, 2010 Projected

City	Projected Population
Louisville	564,048
Lexington	275,127
Owensboro	56,149
Bowling Green	54,291
Covington	42,470
Richmond	34,472
Florence	28,296
Henderson	27,875
Nicholasville	27,675
Hopkinsville	27,249
Frankfort	26,591
Jeffersontown	25,630
Paducah	24,402
Elizabethtown	24,162
Georgetown	22,210

15 most populated counties, 2010 Projected

County	City	Projected Population	Difference
Jefferson	Louisville	706,050	+ 12,446
Fayette	Lexington	275,127	+ 14,615
Kenton	Covington	155,867	+ 4,404
Boone	Florence	126,552	+ 40,560
Warren	Bowling Green	105,398	+ 12,876
Hardin	Elizabethtown, Radcliff	99,724	+ 5,554
Daviess	Owensboro	94,575	+ 3,030
Campbell	Newport, Fort Thomas	85,886	- 2,730
Madison	Richmond	84,626	+ 13,754
Bullitt	Shepherdsville	75,712	+ 14,476
Christian	Hopkinsville	67,981	- 4,328
Pike	Pikeville	65,108	- 3,620
McCracken	Paducah	63,882	- 1,632
Pulaski	Somerset	62,183	+ 5,966
Oldham	La Grange	60,641	+ 14,463

Education

Colleges and universities

Private

Alice Lloyd College
Asbury College
Asbury Theological Seminary
Bellarmine University
Berea College
Brescia College
Campbellsville University
Centre College
Clear Creek Baptist Bible College
Commonwealth Baptist Collegewww.commonwealthbaptist.org
Georgetown College
Kentucky Christian University
Kentucky Mountain Bible College

Kentucky Wesleyan College
Lexington Theological Seminary
Lindsey Wilson College
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Louisville Technical Institute
Mid-Continent University
Midway College
Pikeville College
Simmons College of Kentucky
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Spalding University
Spencerian College
Sullivan University (Louisville, Frankfort and Lexington)
Thomas More College
Transylvania University
Union College
University of the Cumberlands (formerly known as Cumberland College)

Public

Eastern Kentucky University
Kentucky State University
Morehead State University

Murray State University
Northern Kentucky University
University of Kentucky

University of Louisville
Western Kentucky University

Community colleges

Ashland Community and Technical College
Big Sandy Community and Technical College
Bluegrass Community and Technical College
Bowling Green Technical College
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College
Gateway Community and Technical College
Hazard Community and Technical College
Henderson Community College

Hopkinsville Community College
Jefferson Community and Technical College
Madisonville Community College
Maysville Community and Technical College
Owensboro Community and Technical College
Somerset Community College
Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College
West Kentucky Community and Technical College

Sports

College Sports

As in many Southern states, especially those without major league professional sport teams, college athletics are very important.

According to Sports Illustrated's 50th edition Kentucky profile, 63% of Kentuckians are Kentucky Wildcats fans, while 16% are Louisville Cardinals fans. sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/features/si50/states/kentucky/ The same poll found that 87% thought that the rivalry between the Wildcats and the Cardinals was the state's biggest, and a plurality (38%) considered former UK and current UofL men's basketball coach Rick Pitino the "enemy of the state." However, the northern part of the state lies across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio, which is home to a National Football League team, the Bengals, and a Major League Baseball team, the Reds. The Louisville Bats of the International League are the AAA affiliate of the Reds. The Lexington Legends are a Class A minor league baseball team affiliated with the Houston Astros in the South Atlantic League.

Minor league baseball

Louisville Bats (Triple-A International League affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds)
Lexington Legends (Single-A South Atlantic League affiliate of the Houston Astros)
Florence Freedom (Single-A Frontier League independent)

Football

Lexington Horsemen (United Indoor Football)
Louisville Fire (arenafootball2)
Louisville Bulls (Mid Continental Football League)

Basketball

Kentucky Colonels (American Basketball Association) (now defunct)

Miscellaneous topics

Cuisine

While Kentucky's pastimes are distinctly those of the South, the state's cuisine is considered to be a synergistic blend of Midwestern cuisine and Southern US cuisine. It was developed at the Brown Hotel in Louisville.

Origin of name

According to The Kentucky Encyclopedia, the origin of Kentucky's name has never been definitively identified. Some possibilities include:

a Wyandot name meaning "land of tomorrow"
an Iroquoian name meaning "place of meadows"
an Algonquian term for a river bottom
a Shawnee term for the head of a river

Some theories have been debunked. Kentucky's name does not come from the combination of "cane" and "turkey," nor does it come from a Native American phrase for "dark and bloody ground."

The name Kentucky referred originally to the Kentucky River and from that came the name of the region.

State symbols

See also: Flag of Kentucky

State bird: Kentucky Cardinal
State flower: Goldenrod
State tree: Tulip Poplar (formerly the Kentucky coffeetree)
State horse: Thoroughbred
State fish: Kentucky Bass
State wild animal: Gray Squirrel
State butterfly: Viceroy Butterfly
State gemstone: Freshwater Pearl
State fossil: Brachiopod
State song: "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster (1853)
State bluegrass song: "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Bill Monroe (1947)
State drink: Milk
State honey festival: Clarkson Honeyfest
State motto: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"
State slogan: "Unbridled Spirit"
State dance: Clogging

Interesting facts about Kentucky

See also: List of famous Kentuckians

Both the president of the Union (Abraham Lincoln) and the Confederacy (Jefferson Davis) during the Civil War were born in Kentucky.
Kentucky has more navigable shoreline than any other state in the union, other than Alaska. UofL also transplanted the first self-contained artificial heart in the world in 2001, and did the first ever hand transplant in the U.S. in 1999.
Kentuckian Franklin Sousley is one of six soldiers in the picture "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima"
The Purple People Bridge connecting Newport and Cincinnati is the longest pedestrian-only bridge in the world. In 2007, the Big Four Bridge in Louisville will be converted into the world's second longest pedestrian only bridge, meaning Kentucky will be home to the two longest pedestrian only bridges in the world and the only two in the United States connecting two states.
The Old Louisville neighborhood is the largest historic preservation district in the U.S. featuring Victorian architecture and the third largest overall. The neighborhood was also home to the Southern Exposition (1883-1887), which featured the first public display of Thomas Edison's light bulb.
Garrett Morgan, born to former slaves in Paris, Kentucky, developed a concept of the gas mask and patented a type of traffic signal.
The roll-top desk was invented in Henderson by the original owners of Alles Brothers Furniture.
The first public library open to African Americans was the Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library.
Rainey Bethea was the last condemned prisoner to be publicly executed in the United States. The sentence was carried out on August 14, 1936 in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators in Owensboro.
Bourbon whiskey was first produced in Kentucky, purportedly by Baptist minister Elijah Craig.
Mother's Day was originally celebrated in Henderson. The Wildcats:
- Have won more games than any other team.
- Have won more national championships than any other team but the UCLA Bruins.
- Played in the game that set the all time record for attendance at a basketball game.
- Hold the record for all-time winning percentage.
Famed wildlife artist John James Audubon, who operated a general store in Louisville for about two years, spent much of his career painting in Henderson. The Chevrolet Corvette, Ford Expedition, Ford Explorer, all Ford F-series trucks, and the Toyota Camry are all assembled in Kentucky.
Paris, Kentucky native George Snyder is credited as inventing the first modern fishing reel.
The Eastern Kentucky Coal Fields are recognized as being one of the most productive in the nation. Democratic Party-oriented political blog covering Kentucky politics
Scouting in Kentucky

References

Politics

Jewell, Malcolm E.

Additional topics

Company HistoryMetal Manufacturing & Fabricating

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