Kentucky leaders should position state, EKY for more new energy opportunity...

New energy – wind, solar and efficiency – is a huge opportunity for eastern Kentucky right now. That is, if our leaders are willing to take advantage of it. Energy will be a hot topic during the Kentucky General Assembly, which is now getting into full swing. That’s especially true in light of a growing need to develop a clean energy plan to comply with the federal Clean Power Plan, released last year. As the Lexington Herald-Leader reports: “Utilities went on a wind and solar building binge in 2015, The Washington Post reports, while stock prices for both industries surged after Congress extended tax credits for renewables in last month’s spending deal. Coal company values, by contrast, have fallen steeply, setting the stage for more bankruptcies and layoffs. Despite a glut of cheap fossil fuels, 60 percent of new investment in power plants is going into renewables, reports the International Energy Agency.” All of this growth in new energy brings jobs with it, too, according to the Herald-Leader:  Between 2008 and 2012, more U.S. jobs were created in wind and solar (79,000 direct and indirect) than lost in the coal industry (49,530), according to a Duke University study. We in eastern Kentucky know what it’s been like for the coal industry the last couple of years as the industry has slid into collapse. We know and feel the loss of jobs and economy and community that’s happened as a result. If there is an option for us to build up our clean energy infrastructure in a way...

Bill and Melinda Gates paid a visit to EKY

Making our eastern Kentucky youth feel like they can do anything is a very crucial part of transitioning the regional economy. It doesn’t hurt when Bill and Melinda Gates are telling them that, too, when they come to visit. The pair – who co-chair the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is “guided by the belief that every life has equal value” – stopped in on Betsy Layne High School in Floyd County a few months ago to see what administrators, teachers and students were doing that made them all so successful. From Melinda Gates: Floyd County schools have made significant gains in student achievement over the past 10 years. In 2005, the district was ranked 145th among Kentucky’s 173 public school districts in terms of student achievement. By the 2014–2015 school year, it had skyrocketed to 12th. More than 91 percent of the district’s students graduated from high school in 2014, beating the state’s graduation rate of 88 percent. And their college readiness rates are on the rise, too. We visited Betsy Layne because we wanted to see firsthand how teachers and administrators have helped drive such meteoric progress. It was quickly apparent that, like all of the most successful schools we’ve visited, Betsy Layne’s teachers and administrators use a combination of compassion and sky-high expectations to drive its young people to succeed. Bill and Melinda talked with students over pizza, and visited their classrooms to see how teachers were teaching. They were pleasantly surprised by the innovative techniques, and...