At its worst, the Fancy Farm Picnic in Graves County is a very long drive on a very hot day for a very good meal. At its best, it’s a 126-year-old Kentucky tradition where the state’s top elected officials and wanna-bes give old-fashioned stump speeches to a cheering and heckling crowd of several thousand. It’s great political theater. And it is one of the few remaining examples of retail politics in an era when most people’s only exposure to politics is reading newspaper coverage or watching TV attack ads.
And then there’s the food. The good folks of St. Jerome Parish in Fancy Farm barbecue hundreds of
pounds of pork and mutton and serve it up with fresh vegetables and homemade pies. It’s the best $8 buffet you’ll find anywhere.
As House Speaker Jody Richards remarked at the start of the program Saturday, every Kentuckian knows that the place to be on the first Saturday in May is the Kentucky Derby, and the place to be on the first Saturday in August is the Fancy Farm Picnic.
This year, it was cool by Fancy Farm standards. The temperature was only in the low 90s, rather than 
pushing 100, as is often the case. And the political sparring was cooler than usual, too. Secretary of State Trey Grayson was the only statewide officeholder to show up to speak for the GOP, a reflection of Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s troubles. Grayson criticized Fletcher in his speech, and told reporters he might even challenge him for re-election. Ouch.
If you missed the Fancy Farm coverage in Sunday’s Herald-Leader, you can still find it online here and here and here and here. And this year, you can get something online that we’ve never offered before: audio of the key speeches, by Grayson, Attorney General Greg Stumbo, Auditor Crit Luallen and Treasurer Jonathan Miller. They come complete with the crowd’s cheers and jeers.
Coverage of state government and politics is one of the most important things the Herald-Leader does. We know that what happens in Frankfort affects Kentuckians from Covington to Middlesboro, from Hickman to Jamboree.
We have a great team in place to cover the story: Jack Brammer, the dean of the Frankfort press corps, has been covering Kentucky government and politics for nearly 30 years. He has been to every Fancy Farm Picnic since 1978. Larry Dale Keeling, an editorial writer, columnist and blogger, has been following the story almost that long for the editorial board. And in the past few of years, Ryan Alessi has established himself as Kentucky’s must-read political reporter. They were all at this year’s picnic, along with chief photographer Charles Bertram, whose terrific photos captured the essence of the event. I tagged along, too, mostly to eat barbecue. (My main contribution was recording the speeches.)
As the old poem says, the politics are the damndest in Kentucky. And nobody covers it better than the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Tom Eblen
Managing Editor
For want of a more appropriate location for the question, why the distinctly different treatment given to the Pike Circuit Judge who plead to a DUI offense as opposed to that given to the Kentucky State Police trooper who not only plead to a DUi but wrecked his cruiser in the process? The judge gets a front page story in the City/Region section, but the KSP trooper gets only a short blurb in around the state — c’mon, it was Pike County for the Circuit Judge and Floyd County for the Trooper. Seems unfair to me.
An earlier story about the state trooper did appear on the front page of the City & Region section. That story was published on Aug. 5.
–Tom Caudill, assistant managing editor
understood, however, the guilty plea and its play is the issue. Still seems unfair. Guys like this testify and testilie.