Beech Tree News Network

The passage of bills that would help children with disabilities, preserve rights of victims in criminal cases, and fight for the rights of the unborn highlighted another busy week in the Senate. As Thursday marked day 40 of our 60-day legislative session in Frankfort, we are still anxiously awaiting a budget bill from our colleagues in the House.

FRANKFORT— A flurry of new bills were introduced this week as filing deadlines for the  Kentucky Senate and House came and went.

Eighty-eight bills were filed before the deadline in the House on Tuesday, followed by 37 in the Senate before the chamber’s Thursday deadline. That brings the total bills introduced in this year’s General Assembly session to 937. That total is the largest since 2008.

The first-ever Republican Presidential Caucus for Kentucky is now officially over and Donald Trump carried the day.  Trump, the GOP frontrunner, won Butler County with a little over 43% of the vote; Texas Senator Ted Cruz garnered just under 26 percent; Florida Senator Marco Rubio finished a distant third with 15.8 percent of the vote.  In raw vote totals, Trump received 564 votes; Cruz had 339 votes; Rubio tallied 208 votes.

 Morgantown Care & Rehabilitation Center celebrated years of hard work and dedication of employees Thursday, Feb. 25 with a stakeholders’ celebration.
 Administrator Amy Phelps said the event commemorated the years of service employees have given to elders, ranging from one year to over 30.
"I think it's just about the journey of their career and being a part of the everyday live here of our elders,” Phelps said. "You know I think the gratitude and dedication that they provide every day, we're celebrating that."

Butler County Sheriff Scottie Ward is under investigation for his behavior stemming from a December 14 Butler County Fiscal Court meeting.  Sometime following that meeting, Butler County Attorney Richard Deye reported what he believed to be inappropriate conduct by a "Butler County official" (supposedly Ward) to the Director of Special Prosecutions.  In his complaint, Deye cited BeechTreeNews.com’s coverage as a partial account of the events of the meeting.  The meeting was ripe with controversey as Sheriff Ward and magistrates were involved in a vigorous give-and-take discussion on the she

 On Monday, February 29, 2016, officers of the Morgantown Police Department along with Kentucky State Police responded to a drug complaint on Middle Ferry Road.  After explaining consent from the resident SGT Denny Deweese located an inactive one step meth lab.  Items to manufacture meth was also located in the residence along with drug paraphernalia.  Arrested was a  49 year old female on charges of manufacturing methamphetamine, possession of controlled substance, first degree,, first offense as well as other charges.  The investigation is ongoing and was assisted by other members of the

Josh Belcher, the principal at North Butler Elementary School, is among a select group of school leaders who received a year-long executive-level leadership training usually reserved for Kentucky’s top CEOs. The Leadership Institute for School Principals is a program of the Kentucky Chamber Foundation.  Belcher’s extensive training was paid in full by Alliance Resource P CEO and University of Kentucky Athletics donor Mr. Joe Craft. 

FRANKFORT -- With the Kentucky General Assembly’s 2016 in its second half, lawmakers have voted on scores of bills, held numerous budget hearings to dig into the governor’s state spending plan and heard many hours of testimony on the major education, health care, and crime issues confronting Kentucky.

But the legislative process is more like a marathon than a sprint, so the final half of our session is sure to see even more action – especially as the state budget comes closer to a vote in the House of Representatives and delivery to the Senate.

Mid-Park, Inc. of Grayson County celebrated the opening of their newest Service Stamping and Threading (SST) operation in Morgantown Thursday morning with a ribbon-cutting and tours of the facility. SST estimates a total investment of as much as $3.5 million and expects to create 50 news jobs in Butler County over the course of the next three years. A number of the company employees, state and local government officials, chamber representatives and community members attended the event.

The Morgantown-Butler County Chamber of Commerce held its monthly luncheon on Thursday, February 25 at the Butler County Extension Service office. Eric Kennedy, the loan assistant at the USDA Rural Development office at 975 Lovers Lane in Bowling Green, was the guest speaker for the monthly event.