Dishonest Small Town Preacher Gives Religion A Bad Name

In my opinion, when you read stories like this in your local newspaper, it can really turn you off towards religion.  Especially, the those who are indifferent towards religion or for those who choose not go to church to worship God.  Or how about the atheists?  Things like this just give the atheists more fodder to point out on how corrupt religion can be for your mind according to them.  There's nothing worse than a small town dishonest preacher where he takes advantage of their congregation and of the elderly members who are barely surviving on their social security checks.  They trusted this guy who was there pastor, treasurer and secretary of the church.  Wow, that's a lot trust! And the church didn't have a bank account!  What's up with that?
I hope an Allen County, Ky., court, especially the judge, county attorney or a jury throws the book at this guy in order to make an example out of him.  Just maybe, it might deter other small town dishonest preachers to come clean and to become honest so that they will not continue to give religion a bad name in this state or country.

Longtime pastor faces theft charge
Minix accused of taking $300,000 from congregation in Allen County
DEBORAH HIGHLAND, The Daily News, dhighland@bgdailynews.com/783-3243

Published: November 10, 2011
A Scottsville pastor is accused of embezzling $300,000 from New Gospel Outreach Church.

Billy Owen Minix, 42, 59 Cherokee Drive in Scottsville, was charged Tuesday with theft by unlawful taking over $10,000, according to Allen Circuit Court records.
“I have no comment,” Minix said when reached by telephone at his home Wednesday.
The church had been saving money for a new building, Scottsville Police Department Detective Brad Emery said.
The congregation has seen its membership drop from about 70 members to 35 since news of the theft rocked the congregation in September, interim Pastor Roy Yoakem said.
“I guess we were more heartbroken than anything,” Yoakem said. “Our church consists mainly of elderly people. The average age of the congregation is about 60 years. And they just couldn’t believe that he would do something like this.”
“A pastor’s position is a position of trust. We told him we forgave him biblically because that’s what the Bible teaches, but the law has to take its part, too,” Yoakem said.
Minix made a self-incriminating statement in front of the congregation in September, Yoakem said.
“His words were, ‘I just let it slip through my fingers,’ ” Yoakem said.
After that statement, the church saw its congregation dwindle. The congregation currently gathers at 108 S. Court St. in an old storefront.
Minix was the pastor, treasurer and secretary of the church, Emery said. Minix does not have a prior criminal record.
Emery opened an investigation into Minix in August after receiving a complaint, he said. Emery alleges that over a 12-year period, Minix stole $300,000.
The church didn’t have a bank account, Emery said. Emery accuses Minix of collecting money intended for the church, depositing it into an account he controlled and then spending the money.
“I do have some more investigation to do on it,” Emery said.
The church now has officially incorporated, Yoakem said, something the congregation thought had already happened. Remaining congregants elected a treasurer and secretary in addition to Yoakem’s election as interim pastor, a job that Yoakem is not paid to do.
Minix was arrested and posted a $25,000 surety bond to secure his release from the Allen County Jail.

Copyright 2011 News Publishing LLC (Bowling Green, KY)

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Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal: When All Hell Breaks Loose

"It goes to show that no institution is immnue to sex abuse scandals whether it be the Catholic Church or Penn State University. Penn State University just better hope they have plenty of money and damn good lawyers because the victims and family members will probably sue the hell out of them like the church was and continues to be. Also, the media is currently and will smear them all over of the place like they have us Catholics for years for the unspeakable actions of a select few leaders of the church. These perverted perpretrators should be prosecuted to fullest extent of the law and pay legally for their sins according to the law."-Galen A. Smith Sr.

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Brad M. Kelley: Southcentral Kentucky's Billionaire

I am not a smoker.  However, I used to be.  I remember when I could buy a pack of cigarettes for 45 cents at Dye's Store in Eudora, Miss., near Lake O' The Hills where my dad used to live.  It was in the late 70's and I was an teenager, an underage smoker like a lot of kids used to be back then.  I remember I could take Coke bottles to return them at the little country store and get a pack of Vantage menthol cigarettes, an RC cola and a Moon Pie with the bottles. I don't even think kids nowadays know what returnable bottles are, do they? Wow, those days are long gone and they are truly amazing now that I look back at them.

But these days, apparently smokers almost have to pay what like $5 a pack to smoke and some places like New York City, it's what like $10 a pack?  That's crazy! I understand a lot of that money for a pack goes to local, state and federal taxes.  However, at one time there was tons and tons of money to be made in cigarette manufacturing in the United States.  What do I know?  I know there's a lot of regulation with tobacco industry.  But in spite of all that, there's a Cinderella tobacco story that happened right here in Bowling Green, Ky. 

I used to work for a certain service company that performed a monthly service for a placed called, "Commonwealth Brands Tobacco."  It was located in a former, old warehouse for Fruit of the Loom off Church Street and Double Springs Road in Bowling Green.  In the mid-1990's, I performed the service for the tobacco company that was started in 1991 by Brad M. Kelley who at the time was probably in his late 30's and was a self-made entrepreneur.  I noticed that the place was full of old cigarette manufacturing machines that seemed to always be breaking down.  There was an old guy or two working on the machines every time I went in there to perform the service.  One of the workers said Mr. Kelley bought the machines from a cigarette manufacturing in North Carolina.  Also, I used to see large cardboard boxes of imported tobacco from foreign countries like Africa and places like that.  The place was not the cleanest in the world either and looked like everybody in there smoked.  They even had a computer graphic designer in an office who designed the cigarette package labels as well as advertising.  I can honestly say that I had been in that particular office many times where such world famous brand names of cigarettes were created such as "USA Gold, "Bull Durham" and "Malibu." Mr. Kelley's office was really cool too.  He had a lot of stuffed wildlife animals in there and he was a tall, burly red headed and bearded man. I said "hello" to him several times and he seemed like he was pretty friendly fellow, at least he was to me.  It looked like he was trying to create some new BBQ, steak and wild deer sauces too.  They had even had labels created for the sauces that were laying around.  And I serviced a large old house near the Bowling Green airport that served as the sales office for the company and a large distribution center warehouse on Russellville Road in Bowling Green where he kept his million dollar Provost camper bus.
According to some internet searches, in 1991, when very few people wanted to be in the tobacco business, Kelly started Commonwealth Tobacco Brands from scratch.  While keeping his advertising budget sparse, Kelley out-performed big brands by keeping the prices of his good low. His company set out to undercut the big tobacco companies by producing discount "branded generics" cigarettes.  In 2001, just 10 years after starting the company, Commonwealth Brands was the fifth-largest cigarette maker in the country, with sales approaching $800 million.  It's top brand, USA Gold, was, and still one of the nation's top selling brands.  And then amazingly in 2001, he sold the company to another Bowling Green based company called, "Houchens Industries" for $1 billion dollars.
And according to some other internet searches, seven years ago, when Mr. Kelley was 48 years-old, he was worth about 1.3 billion dollars and was America's 258th-richest person.  He likes to keep a very low profile and stay out of the limelight.  So you really won't find out much about him on the internet.
I had been trying to think of this guy's name lately because I'd had forgotten it.  Fortunately, there was a story in Friday's (Oct. 21, 2011) Bowling Green Daily News where Brad and Kent Kelley purchased 322 acres of farmland on Interstate 65 at an auctioned that occurred in Bowling Green last Thursday at the Sloan Convention Center.  By selling off his tobacco company 2001, he has become of the biggest players in the property business along with Ted Tuner and only a handful of others.
Here's a quote from the Bowling Green Daily News. "Brad Kelley, who is one of the largest land owners in the country, purchased 322 acres contiguous to I-65 on its west side, while Kent Kelley purchased 190 acres on the far east side of I-65."
"Brad Kelley, formerly of Franklin, Ky., who is now a Tennessee resident but has land holdings across the country.  He formerly owned Commonwealth Brands Tobacco, which sold to Houchens Industries for $1 billion.  The tobacco company is now owned Imperial Tobacco Group which paid $1.9 billion for the purchase."
Besides being a significant stakeholder in various equine racetracks, including Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Downs in his hometown of Franklin, Kelley owns more than 1.25 million acres of ranching and farm land across Tennessee, Kentucky, southwestern Texas, Florida and parts of New Mexico.  And he also dedicating a lot of the land to wildlife conservation who's spending millions of dollars conserving black rhinos, white rhinos, pygmy hippos, okapi, anoas, impalas, white-bearded wildebeests, Nile lech we, Eastern bongogs and Beisa oryx.
They say Kelley has never been on a yacht and still drives a white Ford pickup.  He has no college degree and he moved to Tennessee with his wife, Susan, of 26 years, to be close to his children's school.  Born and raised in Franklin, Ky. (pop. 8,000), which is about 20 miles southwest of Bowling Green and 40 miles north of Nashville, Kelley seemed destined to run the family farm in Franklin.  He graduated from Franklin-Simpson High School in 1974 and he was not athletic or nor was he especially handsome.  He was secretary for the Future Farmers of America, winner of the Courier-Journal Louisville Times Future Farmers of America contest and a member of Who's Who American High School Students and was named Corn Derby Winner.
To me, it's just a fascinating, all around intriguing story and always will be.  And to know and remember when Commonwealth Brands was in its infancy stages and where it all began firsthand makes it even more of an incredible story to me.  It's a totally major American success story.  Even though, Kelly was not poor growing up, it's not quite a "rags to riches" story but almost. However, if you ever see Brad M. Kelley out in public, you probably won't know who he is because apparently he's just a regular person like you and me. And you definitely won't know he's Southcentral Kentucky's billionaire either.

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C & C Bar-B-Q Grilling Sauce Is Some of Kentucky's Finest

    Being a Southern boy, I am always on the lookout for great little barbecue places to eat as well as bottled barbecue sauces that are being sold on the market whether it be major grocery store chains or little mom and pop shops along the way.
   However, I ran across "C & C Bar-B-Q Grilling Sauce" from a friend of mine who is a manager at restaurant in Glasgow, Ky.  He showed it to me and told me how good it was.  He even let me taste of spoonful of it.  I was immediately hooked and I had to have a bottle of it.  He said of a couple of friends of his created it and have it bottled and they only sale it at several locations in Glasgow and Southcentral Kentucky.  This sauce has a nice kick to it and wonderful flavor!  I've used the sauce two times already on my gas grill barbecuing butterfly pork chops and the flavor was outstanding!  I plan on using in some chicken breasts as well as other types of pork and white meats while cooking on the gas grill.
    If you would like to purchase a bottle of  this very unique Kentucky barbecue sauce, you can get it at Nannie's & Poppy's Consignment Shop in Cave City, Ky., just off I-65 between Nashville, Tenn. and Louisville, Ky, for $4 a bottle.  It's well worth the money.  Their address is 101 Baker Hale Road, Cave City, Ky. 42127 and phone numbers, 270 590-2019 or 270 646-8618.

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"The Help" Might Hit A Little Too Close To Home For Some White Southerners

The first time heard about the newly released movie, "The Help," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Help_(film) was several weeks ago from one of my Facebook friends named Gene Simmons. Gene is the famous bass player from the rock band, "Kiss" that's been around for almost 40 years and I am one of the his lucky 5,000 friends who has the privilege to be acquainted with him on his Facebook page. Apparently, Gene likes to go to movies often with his family especially newly released movies. He said it was a great movie and that he highly recommended it on his Facebook page.

Then my wife goes to Oxford, Miss., last week for a visit for several days with two of her best friends and they go see it. So on the way back home to Bowling Green, after I picked her up, I basically heard about the whole movie. I didn't know at the time, what to quite to think about the movie from her description. However, she just kept commenting on how good the movie was and that I would like it and that I should go see it. I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

So last night, my wife and I and our good friend from church go see it at the theatre here in Bowling Green. The theatre was crowed with mostly white people and only a hand full of African Americans. It's a long movie (see trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuNPN_9f1CM but I was really entertained throughout the whole movie and I could really relate to it especially since I was born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., and we also had hired help too during my 14 years of living there. I also spent 11 of my years in Mississippi where I graduated high school and went to college at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford which is not too far where the movie takes place in the early 1960's in Jackson, Miss. Our maid's name was Mary Lee and everyone called her "May Lee." May Lee, who wore a white uniform when she worked for us and who's husband was a veterinary hand and a preacher, was a hard worker, cooked and cleaned for the Smith household and practically raised me. She would also punish me me when I got out of line liked when I crossed the street without her permission or the time I almost burned the BBQ Pit House down in the backyard along with my friend John Rutstein from down the street. Basically, she would strip a mulberry bush limb and make a switch and whip my legs until the bled. Back in the middle 1960's, people could get away with that kind of whippings on children. She also had my parents permission to do so. And if I got mouthy and disrespectful calling her the "n' word, I would send me upstairs and I couldn't come down until my parents got home from work.

However, May Lee had a gentle side too. She would pitch the baseball with me outside, watch me when I went swimming in the baby pool at the former Army Depot Country Club in Memphis off Airways Boulevard among other things. We would talk for hours at a time too when I was a little fellow. That's how I related to the movie last night. I was strongly reminded our help and that strong figure of a woman in my early life, "May Lee."

Now if my mother were still alive, the movie may have offended her because it might have hit a little too close to home. It might have reminded her of the time, May Lee wanted more money during the in the 1960's Civil Rights movement but my mother did not wanted to pay her anymore than she was already paying her. So May Lee left to go work for a neighbor. I remember it felt so strange to see May Lee go work for the Davenports one morning. I cried because she had known me from the day I was brought home from the hospital. However, they managed to work out a deal and she came back to work for us until my parents divorce in 1974. I have only seen her three times since 1974. I saw her once in 1980 when my sister and I went by to see her at her house in Cordova, Tenn., and at my dad's funeral in 1993 and then my mother's funeral in 2000, both in Memphis. May Lee is still living today and we still keep up with each other through phone calls and cards usually at Christmas and birthdays. She also still calls me "her son," and we always end our cards by saying "Love, Galen or May Lee."

The only draw back about this movie, if you're not from the South, you might get some wrong impressions that are magnified in the film about Mississippians and Southerners. And I would dare say that somethings in the film are misrepresented or twisted, but I would also say a lot of it is accurate. It's just the way things were back then in the 1950's and 1960's in the South. There's nothing we can do to go back and change or undo anything except learn from it and try to continue to understand the needs and feelings of others. I would say that a lot of white Southern parents who were involved in those type of behaviors portrayed in the film are probably long gone by now. Our generation, the Baby Boomers, we were the children that were raised by "The Help" or the "Maids" if you will and who are still around to see the movie and try to make sense of it all. For me, it reminds me of the strong bond that was made with our maid during my childhood while being raised in the South.

All in all, the movie is great and I highly recommend it like Gene says. You won't be disappointed far as a movie about the South goes. Just try to keep an open mind when you see it, that's all.

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Sleeper Agent Announces A Headliner Tour Via The Audio Perv

Bowling Green, Ky's alternative, garage rock, pop band, "Sleeper Agent" who has been making headlines across the country and the world in newspapers, magazine and all over the internet, announces a headliner tour via The Audio Perv. Check it out! http://theaudioperv.com/2011/09/03/sleeper-agent-kick-off-headlining-tour-this-weekend/

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Yellowberri's "SKYe Magazine" Throws Down Local In-Depth Reporting

If you're addicted to your laptop or desktop computer much less your smart phone, now you can read some really good, in depth local reporting about Bowling Green and Southcentral Kentucky via Yellowberri's online "SKYe Magazine."http://skyemag.com/

SKYe Magazine shines a light on our own very interesting local color and culture in the Bowling Green and surrounding areas with some sharp, intelligent reporting. Since Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green offers one of the best up-to-date journalism schools in the country with all the latest technology, SKYe magazine taps into a multitude of young and talented journalists from the university in the areas of print, photography and videography. For me personally, I am intrigued with the amount of good talent that the online magazine displays with its awesome reporting and stories. The videos that are offered are tremendous in quality in my opinion. Whether it be a local rock band performing or a human interest subject being interviewed, the videos in the online magazine are always professionally done and crafted as well as carefully edited.

In this month's edition of the magazine, they offer great pieces on the now-world famous Bowling Green bar and music venue, "Tidballs," and the recent surprise gig by Bowling Green's "Cage The Elephant," "Sleeper Agent" and "Schools," that sold out in minutes without any advertising-only by word of mouth. You can also read about Jordan Speers, a Bowling Green artist, who is headed for the big time with his album art for the debut "Sleeper Agent" CD, "Celebrasion."

Check it out because you won't be disappointed as SKYe Magazine brings out our local culture to the forefront in vivid color and detail on the world-wide web.

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