(Editor’s note: The Hendersonian is going to press several days earlier than normal for the November print edition. The hard deadline for letters to the editor for the November print edition is 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18.
Wants decency standards upheld in community
Dear Editor:
I attended “Can We Talk, an Evening with Your Candidates” which was hosted by the NAACP on September 10. I understood that there would be an opportunity for attendees to ask questions.
There was much discussion back and forth which for the most part was respectful and productive conversation. The meeting seemed to be going long, and I really desired to have an opportunity to address our County Judge Executive Candidates with my question.
I was allowed to bring if forth, here is how I presented my question:
I have 2 grandsons with 3 great grandchildren that live in Owensboro. Daviess County has a decency council to protect the most vulnerable population, our children. They advocate to keep our children from being subjected to adult content in entertainment and literature. I realize that the governance of the matter concerning literature falls with the school board and the CJE Appointed Library Trustees. What are your plans to maintain decency in Henderson County to protect our children?
Let me be clear, I believe that people should be able to do what they want inside the boundaries of the law. My point is that we are seeing a rise of open display of entertainment with adult content in the public square. I cannot and do not intend to stop people from their preferred forms of entertainment. I do believe the public square is not the place. Families with children have the same rights to enjoy public spaces. They should not have to be subjected to activities that need to be moved to private spaces.
Concerning literature and banning books, I was not advocating for a book ban or book burning. My concern is not what content you as an adult prefer to read. My intent was to ensure our children are protected from literature containing adult content. These books should not be in our public schools where the majority of the students are under 18 years old. As for our public library, this content should be restricted to the adult section with only age-appropriate content in the children and youth sections. If parents desire to allow their children to avail themselves to this entertainment or literature, I am not one to stop them.
I am asking for decency standards to be upheld in our community to ensure all residents can enjoy our public spaces without being subjected to things that should remain private.
Rebekah Wood
Henderson
Why does Henderson not support the Brain Injury Camp?
Dear Editor:
This camp has been operating since 2006 and nearly every community around us supports us in some way except Henderson and I was curious as to why that is. Henderson has a very large group of kids with special needs, autism and other special needs who deserve our help. If you happen to have a healthy child with no problems, please thank God for that but realize that for your 1 child there is 5 others who don’t. Do you have any idea what these kids want? They want to feel normal for just a few hours. Guess what, we help them to do that! We sponsor several outings in the summer, fall and winter from Easter Egg Hunts, Special Needs Prom, Halloween dance, etc. We have a big response from these communities with the biggest bunch of smiling faces you could ever imagine! We have a beautiful, large lodge that can be rented for weddings, receptions, birthday parties, club outings, church retreats, company meetings, overnight stays, retirement celebrations, family reunion, baby showers or Criscelo. We have sleeping facilities for men and women, kitchen facilities, a lake for fishing, and lots of things to explore. Our camp covers 42 acres! We have Corporate Team Building events that include zip lining, low ropes course and high rope courses, that are great for team building.
We need your help, both physically and mentality in order to continue to meet the needs in our community as well as surrounding communities. Please consider what you can do to help us out, whether it is serving on our board or volunteering or simply making a donation! We are a Nonprofit 501C-3 and we need you. We are getting ready to kick off our biggest fund raiser of the year, The Turkey Trot, to take place on Thanksgiving Day morning. Start your day off right by joining us in this Run/Walk. It is our biggest money maker of the year. Our website is www.biacky.org and our phone number is 270-454-1519.
Come on Henderson, help us out!
Emma B. Todd
Henderson
Supports Payne for state rep
Dear Editor:
As a former school board member/ board chair and as a small business owner, I would like to offer my support and endorsement to J.T. Payne as Kentucky House of Representative for District 11!
I have known J.T. since he was 17 years old and watched him transform from an ambitious hard-working teenager to a responsible Henderson and Kentucky professional who has a passion for making his hometown and his commonwealth succeed. His work as an aide to Rep. Comer in Washington propelled him into involvement in student government and becoming President of SGA at Murray State University. He used his love of agriculture, education, and technical education to become one of the youngest Assistant Principals in Henderson Co High School’s recent history. “D” for Driven could also serve as an extra initial if he needed one!
With the blessing from his employer, Henderson County Schools, J.T., ran a positive campaign to become our District 11 representative and has since worked hard splitting his time between Frankfort and District 11. He jumped in boots first proposing bills supporting dual credit college classes and degrees for high school students. He worked on creating communication safety legislation for our educators and students. His work on House Bill 257 this past year has made school attendance a priority, reduced standardized testing for classes that instead transforms education into a personal growth system for students. As a board member of the Henderson Kentucky Education Foundation, I have listened to J. T.’s updates all throughout the year on this key legislation. I am proud to serve on this foundation board with J.T. and several educators who understand how important it is to have an “working educator” in Frankfort helping to transform meaningful legislation into student success! His focus has always been to put more “SEEK “funds back in the local districts as well as improving funding for vocation education and more school resource officers in every school.
Henderson’s Imagination Library goal to deliver monthly books in the hands of very young kids became in jeopardy early in the 2026 budget when legislation proposed eliminating the matching shipping funds that the state provides to counties with Imagination Libraries. (Kentucky is proud to have one in every county!) J.T. once again jumped in with our local board, the state director, and members of the House leadership to put the funding back to its original position.
Beyond his work in education, J.T. and his wife are small business owners of “James Madison Acres” and he has gotten a firsthand learning experience of what matters and what hurts small business owners. Being “pro-business” isn’t just a selling point to his campaign, he lives it! As a former small business owner, I respect that.
I have always known J.T. to be a conservative and Christian man with a positive and proud attitude toward his community, his Commonwealth, and his country. I believe those qualities are just as important now as ever.
Please join me in voting for J.T. Payne for House of Representative for Kentucky District 11.
Lisa A. Baird
Henderson
Jenkins-Mackey talks recruiting workers, faster and clearer permitting process, food insecurity and more
Dear Editor:
I’ve spent this campaign talking about what it takes to be ready, and what it takes to protect what we’ve built. Sandy Lee Watkins served as Henderson County Judge-Executive for sixteen years, longer than anyone in our history, because he understood that leading this county means thinking in decades, not just budget cycles. That’s the kind of judge-executive I want to be.
A projection from UofL shows that Henderson County could lose more than 7,000 people by 2050, one of the steepest declines in Kentucky. While this is just a projection, I think the scenario is a great reminder about how too many of our graduates build their careers somewhere else because the opportunities that fit them aren’t here. I’ve built my own career working remotely from here, and I know firsthand it’s possible to have a great job and a great hometown at the same time. That’s part of why I’ve stayed involved here, serving with the Chamber, coaching at the local schools, and helping reestablish the Hendo Run Club. Coming back home to Western Kentucky, Henderson gave me a place to build a life and a career. I want that same choice to be there for the next generation.
This isn’t a new problem, and other towns have already found what works. Closer to our own scale, Wabash County, Indiana pays local college students to intern with hometown employers over the summer, and many of them end up staying for good. Growing Henderson County starts with keeping the people who already call it home, but it doesn’t have to stop there. Paducah offers a program that pays remote workers $5,000 to relocate there, and communities like Tulsa, Okla., have similar programs beyond Kentucky. None of these towns are doing something Henderson County can’t. As judge-executive, I’ll pursue a paid internship pipeline that puts our own graduates to work here before they ever consider leaving and a modest incentive to welcome new neighbors who want to build a life here too. Both are proven elsewhere and affordable at our scale.
More than 15,000 of us live outside the city of Henderson, and growing this county has to mean all of it, not just the city limits. That includes the thousands of people who already commute to jobs in Evansville, Owensboro, and Henderson itself, people who’d rather come home to an affordable, desirable house right here in Henderson County than keep driving past it every day. But building that house has to actually be possible. Residents have told me directly that navigating the permitting process is part of what’s standing in the way. As judge-executive, I’ll push for a real review of how long it actually takes to get a county building permit, with the goal of a faster, clearer process and a public standard residents can hold us to.
Caring for Henderson’s future has to mean caring for its people today. An estimated more than 6,000 of our neighbors face food insecurity, including children and seniors, and Kentucky’s food insecurity rate has been climbing statewide, not falling. As judge-executive, I’ll make sure Henderson is working with our food pantries and senior services now, not waiting for state or federal dollars to catch up.
That same urgency applies to healthcare. Deaconess Henderson Hospital serves a disproportionately high share of Medicaid patients, the kind of dependency that’s put rural hospitals nationwide under real financial strain in recent years. As judge-executive, I’ll make sure to advocate for Henderson whenever funding decisions in Frankfort or Washington may impact our hospital’s ability to serve our community.
In a previous letter to the editor, I made clear where I stand on the Twin Bridges: the daily connection between Henderson and Evansville is vital to our workforce and local economy, and it deserves to be protected. With Kentucky’s new I-69 bridge set to open in 2031 as a tolled crossing, I believe the responsible path is to keep both Twin Bridges fully open for a set period afterward. That gives us real-world data on traffic, safety and economic impact before any irreversible decision is made, and it keeps a toll-free route for Henderson commuters in the meantime.
I-69 will open major doors, linking Henderson directly to the national interstate network. But our drivers shouldn’t face permanent changes based on pre-opening assumptions. As judge-executive, I’ll push to hold any final decision until those studies are complete, and fight for local commuter discounts, like Louisville’s RiverLink, to keep daily travel costs low for our workforce.
Henderson is attracting real investment, even if our population is projected to shrink over the next 25 years. That’s the real challenge: growth that doesn’t include people isn’t the kind of growth we need, and growth that isn’t managed carefully can cost us the rural character and farmland that make Henderson worth choosing in the first place.
This is a theme our county will keep facing, not a fight we’ve finished. Counties across Kentucky are already navigating what large-scale development, from energy projects to data centers, means for their communities. Growth and heritage don’t have to be opposites, but only if we have a long term vision and the ability to execute it. I believe this vision for Henderson County is strong and that I can work with our community and stakeholders at all levels to deliver a future of growth and drive improved quality of life for our community. It’s for these reasons and my love for our county and our people that I humbly ask for your vote.
Contact me with your concerns for our county at lesley@jenkinsmackey4ky.org or PO Box 12, Robards, KY 42452. I want to hear from you.
Les Jenkins-Mackey
Candidate for Henderson County judge-executive
