Green River Pentecostal Church news

Comment by puckettd: Saturday, August 21

Thank you for remembering my grandmother and father. Donna Puckett, Jonesville NC...read more...

Obituary: Lorna Jo McBee, 14

Comment by AvidReader: Thursday, August 19

With loving prayers for the Mc Bee family. Your friends and family care deeply....read more...

Lincoln, Garrard eye regional detention center

Comment by AvidReader: Thursday, August 19

This issue is really confusing for me...some of the candidates at the last forum supported the idea....read more...

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We did it! Our first Lincoln County Health Professions Camp, primarily for LCHS Juniors, went very well! It got high marks from the campers and we hope to be able to do it every year. The sponsor for this pilot effort was the Fort Logan Derby Wright Foundation; Dr. Sam Matheny is president and the Board members are Lincoln County citizens. Trust me; we should all be very proud of these young people. They represent ed themselves, their families and their school extremely well, as noted by staff members at Fort Logan Hospital and Ephraim McDowell Medical Center during their visits on July 1 and 6.

The group also visited Eastern Kentucky University on July 2, the Asbury Challenge Course on June 30 and camped two nights at Maywoods EKU educational environmental laboratory. While the major emphasis was on a future in a health profession, numerous other important themes characterized this unique camp. These included inter-professional teamwork, clinical problem solving and looking to the future of what health and health care are becoming. As our young people enter health professions we want them to “BE the change” as they help “make health happen”, the theme on our really cool camp shirts. By the way, the clinical problems they addressed from a youth perspective were tobacco use, unintentional injuries and overweight/inactivity. They addressed these issues with vigor and creativity, and presented their ideas at their graduation banquet.

Ultimately we want our young people to know that there are exciting possibilities for their futures, to raise their vision of what is possible in their lives and to aspire to lives of fulfillment and contribution. This comes from education. Challenging education is not just a school thing; family, church and community must be a part of the environment that enables our youth to see a future of opportunity, possibility and fulfillment. Aspiring to excel, and doing the work required to do so, is a self-driven expectation, almost a habit, that they must make a permanent part of their lives during high school. They are already designing their futures, and they need our support and guidance.

The future IS our youth, and every aspect of our community must nurture them and challenge them. The generations of their parents and grandparents (that’s all of us) are leaving them with unimaginably huge challenges that they have to interpret as opportunities to improve. The least we can do is to value them and their education sufficiently in all aspects of our community life to give them a real chance to make their world a better place!

Forrest Calico MD is director of the UK Center for Rural Health—Danville.

Editor’s note: This concludes a year-long series of article written by Dr. Calico and some of his colleagues. The Interior Journal would like to thank them all for their continuing efforts to improve the physical, mental and moral health of Lincoln County.

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