Marshall County elementary schools are changing how their students make the grade. No more “F’s,” no more “A’s,” in fact, no more letter grades at all. It’s part of a new system other Kentucky schools are using called “standards-based grading.” We’ll hear more about it and why Marshall’s elemetaries are on board, on Front Page Sunday from WKMS News.
Also, we’ll speak with an area neurologist about the dangers and long-term effects of concussions on young athletes. Then we’ll hear a conversation with Princeton Times-Leader publisher, and Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame inductee, Chip Hutcheson, and talk politics with the keynote speaker at this year’s MSU’s history department Hammack Banquet, historian Berry Craig.
(1.) NEW MARSHALL ELEM GRADING SYSTEM -- A change to the way Marshall County students are graded means no more “F’s,” but it also means no more “straight A’s.” The Marshall County School System this year began a plan to eliminate letter grades at all six of its elementary schools. The district has joined others across the state implementing what’s called a “standards-based grading system,” in which teachers measure learning based on skill sets. The first school in the district to make the change is Central Elementary, with the other five coming on board next year. Marshall County Schools elementary instruction supervisor Abby Griffy joins Angela Hatton to talk about why her district is making the switch.
(2.) 25th ANNUAL TRAIL OF TEARS POW WOW -- The 25th annual intertribal pow-wow is this weekend at the Trail of Tears Commemorative Park in Hopkinsville. The park was home to Cherokee Indians for a short time in the 1830s when they made their trek from their ancestral homes to Oklahoma. The pow-wow features music, storytelling, and Native American dancing. Chad Lampe speaks with pow-wow chairman Roger Richey about this year’s events.
(3.) CONCUSSIONS AND YOUNG ATHLETES -- Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of reports from the National Football League, the National Hockey League, and other professional sports organizations about the tragic consequences that can come from a lifetime of hard hits and the effects of the concussions that come with them. There’s been speculation that several high-profile athlete suicides were related to what health professionals call Post-Concussion syndrome. Now, there’s growing concern that the hits young athletes suffer in high-school and college sports could have the same effects later in life. Dr. Chris King is a Neurologist with West Kentucky Neurology in Murray, and Shelly Baskin spoke with him about the dangers and effects of concussions on young athletes.
(4.) CHIP HUTCHESON -- Earlier this year, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame inducted three west Kentuckians to the ranks of other great Kentucky Journalists: D.J. Everett of WKDZ/WHVO radio in Cadiz, Murray State University professor emeritus Dr. Robert McGaughey, and Chip Hutcheson of The Times Leader and The Eagle Post. Today, we continue our series of conversations with these gentlemen. For Chip Hutcheson, journalism is a family business. His parents bought what was then the Princeton Leader when he was 10 months old, and he grew up helping in the newspaper offices. Hutcheson was sports editor for the Kentucky New Era for six years until 1976, when he took over as Princeton Leader publisher. Following a 1992 buyout, the paper became The Times Leader. Today, Hutcheson serves on the New Era board and is publisher of The Eagle Post. And he still writes a weekly column called “Chips Off the Old Block.” Now, Hutcheson sits down to speak with Angela Hatton.
(5.) PARIS PLAYERS -- Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town examines typical American life in the early 1900s. Set in the “Anytown, USA” of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire, Our Town divides the characters’ lives up into three acts marked by major life events, emphasizing the eternal beauty of mundane everyday events. For their inaugural production, The Paris Players are presenting this classic today at The Krider Performing Arts Center in Paris, and Rose Krzton-Presson sat down to talk about it with Paris-Henry County Arts Council Director Mike Murphy, who produced the show and plays the character of George Gibbs.
(6.) BERRY CRAIG @ HAMMACK BANQUET -- On Saturday, September 15, the Murray State History Department hosts its 11th Annual Dr. James W. Hammack, Junior Memorial Scholarship Banquet. And this year’s speaker is of the homegrown variety: author, historian, teacher, and M-S-U alum, Berry Craig. The focus of Craig’s presentation is, appropriately enough for this election year, the stories contained in his book True Tales of Old Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon, and Burgoo. He joins us in the studio to talk about that presentation, and the importance of history as the nation prepares to choose its president.
