Behind the Headlines

While it may not be quite as popular as basketball or horse racing, politics is one of the great spectator sports of Kentucky. And nowhere is it more exciting than at the annual picnic on the grounds of St. Jerome Catholic church in the tiny Graves County town of Fancy Farm.

The rhetoric was as spicy as the barbecue at the 127th annual Fancy Farm picnic on Aug. 4. More than 10,000 people from across Kentucky came to the far west end of the state to eat literally tons of barbecued pork and mutton, fried chicken, fresh vegetables and homemade pies.  After enjoying the buffet in the mercifully air-conditioned Knights of Columbus hall, many of them then crowded into and around an outdoor pavilion to cheer and jeer the speeches of candidates for statewide office.  Candidates’ performances at Fancy Farm have been known to make or break their campaigns.

This year’s picnic was special because of the hot governor’s race. The Herald-Leader’s coverage was special, too, in part because of new online tools that allowed us to bring you more of the sights, sounds and news from the event.

The coverage was the work of Frankfort bureau chief John Stamper, political writer Ryan Alessi, Frankfort bureau veteran Jack Brammer, chief photographer Charles Bertram and  intern Megan Boehnke.  Editor Linda Austin and I also attended.

Our PolWatchers political blog, which has had more than 419,000 readers since it was launched last September, has become the best news source for Kentucky political junkies. It was the perfect vehicle for delivering rapid news updates and audio of the speeches on Fancy Farm weekend. 

The reporters began posting stories and audio Friday night, after Democrats and Republicans gathered for party events in Gilbertsville and Aurora. They continued the next morning after party breakfasts at two schools in Mayfield.

When the Fancy Farm picnic was over late Saturday afternoon, the staff set up shop in two motel rooms in Mayfield to post news stories and audio of the major candidates’ speeches to PolWatchers.  (That’s Stamper, left, and Brammer in the top photo, and Alessi in the other.) As Bertram was sending his photos to Lexington to be posted online and prepared for print, the reporters updated and retooled their stories for the next day’s paper.

As with basketball and horse racing, there’s no better source for Kentucky political news than the Herald-Leader.  So watch the newspaper each day – and PolWatchers constantly – for the latest developments.

Tom Eblen
Managing Editor