By Linda Blackford | Editor
Kentucky is still reeling from the Monday night news that Wendell Berry had died at the age of 92 at his home in Port Royal. Reporter Sarah Ladd, who wrote the Lantern’s obituary of him, spent Tuesday collecting the many reactions to his life and work.
As another Kentucky great, Barbara Kingsolver, said, Berry was “prophet, good farmer, gentle literary giant, Kentuckian of the finest order and friend to all that is good.”
We need a little good news around here, and reporter McKenna Horsley found some: A Pikeville High School student has a plan for less waste, more recycling in public schools. And legislators seem to be listening.
Then again, cuts to the federal food stamp program known as SNAP could trickle down to school breakfasts and lunches.
And in Commentary, Keith Runyon, the long-time book editor of the Courier-Journal, looks at Wendell Berry and his love and care for the land.
Honoree Wendell Berry attends the 2013 Roosevelt Institute Four Freedoms Awards & Benefit reception at St. James’ Episcopal Church on October 16, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
By Sarah Ladd
Kentucky leaders and writers, in a chorus of grief over the death of Wendell Berry, called the writer and farmer a “literary giant,” “revolutionary” and a “Kentuckian of the highest order.”
Sen. Phillip Wheeler and Pikeville High School student Anikaa Sharma at the Interim Education Committee, where Sharma explained her proposal for better school recycling. (Photo courtesy Legislative Research Commission)
By McKenna Horsley
Anikaa Sharma, a Pikeville High School student, told legislators on the Education Committee Tuesday about a bill proposal to update state laws to reflect a modern list of recyclables and divert food waste to local composting facilities. She was joined by Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville.
Elementary school kids go through the lunch line. Cuts to the nation’s largest food assistance program may cause students to lose access to free breakfast and lunch. (Photo by Marcus Constantino for West Virginia Watch)
By Kevin Hardy
Cuts to the nation’s largest food assistance program will likely spill over into schools, causing students to lose access to free breakfast and lunch.
Wendell Berry and the now King Charles met at the Cathedral of the Assumption on the day of Prince Charles’ visit in 2015. (Photo by John Nation)
COMMENTARY
By Keith L. Runyon
Wendell Berry understood that anyone who speaks for the land ought first to know one place intimately — its creeks and hollows, good ground and poor, abundance and limits. From that small piece of Kentucky came a vision that reached far beyond it.
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