When I was growing up, the offices of Kentucky Monthly were a second home for my sisters’ and me, and they still are in many ways to this day.
I can recall the dark, echoing back halls that led from the employee parking lot into the magazine’s first office building, located in historic downtown Frankfort on St. Clair Street. They led to the offices’ multi-purpose room, which, from time to time, doubled as my baby sister’s daytime nap room. There was a mini fridge, where Katy and I once exploded a Coke can because we were curious little kids.
Through a doorway along the wall were three offices and a conference room, which eventually would be crowned with the signed issues of Kentuckians featured on the covers. A display rack of the issues from the previous 12 months was beside the front door with the iconic Kentucky Monthly logo that has graced every issue. There was a front window, where we displayed a Christmas tree with the letters to Santa, written in crayon, asking for the newest issue of Kentucky Monthly magazine, “the magazine all about Kentucky.”
Year after year, we went to the Kentucky State Fair, with our first booth set up next to the Billy Bob Teeth display. Passing out magazines with George Clooney’s face to all the soon-to-be subscribers is as vivid a memory for me as jumping fences or riding bikes in the neighborhood with my childhood friend, Ryan Martin.
The unboxing of the family’s Nintendo 64 was just as exciting as when the magazine offices received new computers, or when boxes of the latest issue fresh from the printer arrived and needed to be opened and set up in the front lobby.
My expertise behind the steering wheel comes from the countless miles spent in 2010 delivering the Kentucky Monthly-published World Equestrian Games guide to distillery gift shops and hotels when the Bluegrass State hosted the event.
Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of the people whose faces were featured on the covers, such as jockey Pat Day before one of his triumphant races at Churchill Downs. I have traveled to almost every county and dined at several of the Commonwealth’s best restaurants, sampled bourbon at distilleries, and—my favorite—visited the Ale-8-One bottling factory in Winchester.
Although my dad likes to cite the degrees of Kevin Bacon, in my experience, it’s much harder for anyone to find someone who doesn’t know (or know someone who knows, etc.) Mr. Kentucky (Dad) himself.
A noteworthy encounter came from one of the many years Dad and I ventured to Bowling Green for the Southern Kentucky Book Fest. One year, the Goosebumps series author R.L. Stine was present, and, through a series of events, I was fortunate to share lunch with and “interview” him as to what inspired him to write some of my favorite stories, many of which I still have a sitting upon one of my daughters’ bookshelves.
It’s difficult to sum up the last 25 years spent with Kentucky Monthly’s employees, who are all as much a part of our family as the Dixons and the Vests. I want you all to know I truly appreciate and admire all of your collaborative efforts to bring these issues to print. Most importantly, I appreciate you, the readers, without whom none of this would have been possible. Thank you for being so supportive, and, of course, thanks for reading.