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The Graves County Eagles’ 2020 struggles continued on Monday night as they fell to the Murray Tigers 2-0 at Mallary France Soccer Field.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about abrupt technological changes to our society. 2020 has been defined by students completing class assignments at home, adults performing day-to-day tasks from their kitchen tables, and the virtual meetings that have become common to many of us.
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Looking at this page, you may notice the absence of the traditional editorial cartoons. The reason is that The Mayfield Messenger has received some complaints and even had cancellations of subscriptions over editorial cartoons about President Donald Trump. The most recent one depicted the pr…
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On Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, America held its first Labor Day celebration. In 1894, then-President Grover Cleveland officially made Labor Day a national holiday. Since that time, America has recognized the first Monday in September to celebrate the people who keep our economy…
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In the midst of a global health pandemic caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19), as a Democratic Governor and a Republican Secretary of State we have proven that we can put partisanship aside to make our elections safer for our people.
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My grandfather was 19 years old when the Great Spanish Influenza struck southeastern Kentucky in 1918. His brothers were already in Europe or on their way to fight World War I. Grandpa told me that there were not, for months, enough people to dig all the graves that were needed to bury the d…
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Gov. Beshear’s administration wants to make in-person reopening of schools during COVID-19 an either-or proposition — either districts delay opening back up to the end of September or Kentucky Department of Education bureaucrats in true Corleone-like fashion will make them an offer they can’…
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When revenue shrinks by 1% of GDP and spending increases by 51% over 10 months, you get a $2.8 trillion deficit. That figure, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is significantly larger than the deficit Uncle Sam accumulated over the first 10 months of 2019. Yet, many in Congress d…
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Summertime in Appalachia means trying to develop immunity to poison ivy and having legs decorated in countless chigger-bites. It’s long, wonderful days in a garden, around the creekbank, and breezy naps on a porch swing. We were sweaty, dirty, and wild until one warning would stop and bring …
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It’s not a coincidence that the same folks who wrongly predicted Kentucky would face a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall at the end of the fiscal year on June 30 continue to pitch a gloom-and-doom scenario to pressure Congress to spend $1 trillion to bail out states.
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The Graves County Health Department has had plenty on its shoulders this year related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Friday, Graves County had reported 12 new cases for a total of 545 positive cases since March.
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The massive crowds were absent. No signs lauding one side and demonizing the other were to be found. Folks weren’t dressed up as a particular founding father. No one was waving any flag — American, Confederate, Trump 2020, Don’t Tread On Me coiled snake.
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Together, We Are Stronger Than Opioids. It’s a uniting mantra we use as part of our Kentucky Opioid Response Effort to guide our purpose, affirm our hope, and call upon our greatest asset in this Commonwealth — one another. Together, we are building a system of care to reduce harms associate…
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When someone says, “Let that be a lesson to you,” it usually means something bad has happened. I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me after they’ve handed me an ice cream cone. But lessons aren’t all bad. In fact, they can be quite helpful.
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A wave of hasty firings is sweeping across the country, driven by demands from what some call the “cancel culture.”
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Numerous surveys indicate trepidation among parents about whether public schools are the best places for their children in a COVID-19 world.
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I laughed when I saw The Washington Post headline: “Minneapolis had progressive policies, but its economy still left black families behind.”
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Mainstream media publications are hammering fiscally conservative groups opposed to wasteful spending of tax dollars for accepting temporary financial help in the form of a publicly funded Paycheck Protection Program loan to counter COVID-19 shutdowns.
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The line “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” was first written by Alexander Pope in his 1711 poem “An Essay on Criticism.” I suppose that should be the title for my column.
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Protesters say America’s criminal justice system is unfair. It is.
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America’s Founders regarded a free press as so vital to the new nation that they took care to include that right in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
With all the talk and ink being spilled on the issue of the Civil War statues in the South being taken down, it’s worth a glance at history to see how folks like Jefferson Davis might have felt about it. The symbols of the old Confederacy come down hard and late these days. The proponents of…
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New York Times/Siena College has Democrat Joe Biden at 50% and Republican President Donald Trump at 36%; CNN has Biden at 54% and Trump 36%; Fox News has Biden at 50% and Trump at 38%.
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Across the nation, the coronavirus has highlighted issues in our food supply chain, our reliance on foreign countries for medical supplies, and the difference between strong, data-driven leaders and weak ones.
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The economy is reopening. Consumer spending increased by almost 18% last month, sending the stock market soaring. That’s the good news. The bad news is that with no COVID-19 vaccine or cure on the horizon, consumers have not fully resumed their prepandemic activities, and they might not do s…
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Most of the time, helping the people of our community navigate state government is one of my favorite parts of being a legislator. While the Kentucky Constitution does not grant legislators any direct authority over an executive branch program, I am often able to help cut the red tape and ge…
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The word “Juneteenth” may be a new term to many, but the Mayfield community embraced it in full Friday. And it was another step, we feel, in a long process of racial harmony throughout our community and country.
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Well, the 140-year streak of the St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic will not be broken by a global pandemic.
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In the nine presidential elections between the 1952 victory of Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush’s 1988 win, just two Republicans won the White House: Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. One man was indispensable to the winning campaigns of these two very different Republicans. His name…
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Things have been touchy lately. Chalk that up to being an understatement. So far, 2020 has ushered in a global pandemic, historic unemployment, guidelines on being around friends and neighbors, fear and anger.
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History can be cruel. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., who was unquestionably America’s most prominent prophet and practitioner of nonviolence, was followed by riots, arson and looting in 168 American cities and towns.
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Here we are again, sadly, for current events in our nation are pushing me to address where we are as a people. I am currently reading “White Fragility” by Robin Di Angelo, who is a white person. Her premise is that we white Americans are so “fragile” that we cannot talk about our complicity …
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The text alert arrived with a call to action. I needed to verify with my data breach monitoring company that a cable company had my permission to check my financial background, allowing me to consider them as a streaming entertainment provider.
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We have seen a lot of heroes in the past few months and heard about a lot of heroes in the past few days.
While Congress has rightfully provided relief for families and businesses affected by a government-induced economic shutdown, now is the time to focus on reopening the economy and getting back to a normal way of life. Our nation has been crippled by this economic downturn; it’s time get seri…
The following is a Memorial Day speech provided by The American Legion:
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W PSD Local 6 is proud to serve this community, providing our viewers a lifeline during times of crisis, and the news, information and entertainment they rely on every day. And like all local broadcasters, our programming is free to viewers, available with an antenna. We are always on and al…
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A s we continue to fight COVID-19, it has been so encouraging to see the outpouring of support from our community for our incredible staff members here at Jackson Purchase Medical Center. We have always strived to be a place where you choose to come for healthcare, and we take our responsibi…
Help us feed kids this summer
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An economic crisis such as the one dragging behind this quarantine like a heavy, unbreakable chain squeezes an entire state, revealing or magnifying the true condition of its economy along with the competency — or lack thereof — of its political leadership.
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An American politician can help herself politically by being able to believably use self-deprecating humor, which sends a clear message: “I am not pompously self-important or thin-skinned; I do not take myself completely seriously.”
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Gov. Andy Beshear missed a golden opportunity to demonstrate that he’s personally walking the COVID-19 walk as well as talking the talk concerning the need for Kentuckians to hunker down at home and the commonwealth to shut down its economy with the exception of what he deems “essential” services.
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Our nation was founded on the unique principle that individuals acting in their own self-interest would overcome the greatest of challenges while keeping government power in check.
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It’s heartening to hear Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., take a stand against using COVID-19 relief dollars to bail out public pension systems in states — including the commonwealth he represents — which have failed to enact long-needed reforms.
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The 2020 Regular Session adjourned just before midnight on Wednesday, April 15, more than four months after convening in January and six weeks after COVID-19 altered so much about the world as we knew it.
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Somebody close to President Donald Trump could, in a burst of candor, tell him that he does not know everything to be known about the history of the filibuster in the United States Senate — or even the origin of the infield fly rule in Major League Baseball.
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I lived in central Illinois for 15 years where I served as the senior pastor of a church in Peoria. In the early days of my ministry there, Native Americans were protesting the presence of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois.
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This weekend’s weather isn’t expected to be as nice as last weekend’s. Highs both Saturday and Sunday are to be in the mid-60s with storms forecast for Easter. Today, actually, looks to be the nicest day of the weekend with sunny skies and high temperatures around 60.
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COVID-19’s spread, which doesn’t stop for anyone or anything — including for legislators’ constitutional duty to pass a budget determining how state revenues will be spent — is forcing a very different spending plan than the one envisioned by many when this General Assembly session began.
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Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, families, businesses and healthcare providers are facing unprecedented tough times. However, during these trying times I’m encouraged to see the strength exemplified by communities across the nation to support each other and heed warnings.
To the editor,
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Last week, Kentucky farm families celebrated “National Agriculture Week,” but as you can imagine, our annual celebration was quieter than usual, given our on-going fight against the global COVID-19 pandemic. As I talked to members of the media and neighbors to promote the celebration, they b…
