Add Kentucky to the list of states that have had good experience with cable barriers in the medians of four-lane highways.
Keirsten Jaggers, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Highways, said cable barriers installed in the Louisville region have been hit 284 times, according to The Associated Press. While one tractor-trailer truck ran through them into oncoming lanes, she said the cables stopped all other vehicles.
Kentucky is thinking about installing cable barriers along Interstate 65 between Elizabethtown and Bowling Green, as there are no plans to widen the highway to six lanes and install a concrete wall.
The barriers have proven their worth along Interstate 64 in the Tri-State. They should be considered a necessity along every mile of interstate highway with high traffic volumes and where only a grassy median separates traffic.
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While Cabell County's two high schools are finishing their second year of having a freshman academy program, some Kentucky schools are finishing their fourth year. Kentucky schools are having good results so far, just as Cabell County officials say they are having.
Jay Smink, director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, said schools using freshman academy have fewer discipline issues, greater attendance and more promotions.
The premise for freshman academies is to help the 25 percent of lowest-performing eighth-graders as they move to a high school environment by providing smaller classes and more attention, Smink told the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer.
Ninth-grade academies may cost more than just throwing a student into a high school and expecting him or her to sink or swim, but the results are worth the investment.
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Everyone wants the economic stimulus checks the federal government is mailing out -- even state government. West Virginia Treasurer John Perdue urges West Virginians to invest at least part of their refunds in a state-sanctioned SMART529 college savings plan, while the Division of Tourism suggests people spend their money at tourist attractions in the state, including state parks.
Some people, though, may use part of their checks to pay their personal property or real estate taxes, so it could end up that one level of government will send us money to give to another level. Economists will have to decide how much of a stimulus that ends up being.
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