Full Day in Madisonville

Our first full day in Madisonville was spent as a whistle stop tour of all of our Vocational areas.

It started at 9am at the Hopkins County Detention Center. This for me was probably the best & most informative part of the day. The Jailer & the K-9 officer gave us an extensive tour of the jail & how it works, including coming almost face to face with some of its 600+ inmates. Those serving a year or less tend to work within the community to pay for their keep. They clear roads of rubbish, mow grass at churches, road sides etc, they have a garden on site where they grow most of their own produce, one of them even sits in the garage entrance for the officers to wash down their police vehicles. They gave us an informative power point presentation. One of the best things for me was learning about their tagging system which is run using GPS. This enables them to let people go out to do work within the community & other areas knowing full well exactly where they are at all times. If they cause damage to the tag, it sends an email to the Jailer. This also enables them to ensure that people dont go to areas that they shouldn't, eg ex partners addresses. What ideas to I have for back home? I wonder if they will take any of them on?

In the spotlight!

The tour & the questions we asked meant that we were 30 minutes late for the next part of the morning. We headed over to the Madisonville Community College for an overview of their programs & their new online educational network. They also including a tour of their electronics department & the coal mining training. Kentucky is a huge coal mining area, particularly round the Madisonville area. They also spoke to us over lunch of the 'School Counts' program. This is a sponsored program that tries to give school children incentives to stay in school in order to get grants for when they go to college. A good idea in theory but I'm not sure how it would work in the UK as it requires huge amounts of funding. I was also unsure about speaking to 9 year olds about going to college.

After lunch we visited the I Surf office where rotarian Marion Miller gave us the tour. She was obviously very enthusiastic about her product, an online local newspaper. In fact, our visit to the area was the front page!! We then went along People Plus, a local recruitment agency.

We are becoming celebrities in the making. Today we have been on the electronic billboard at the Madisonville Community College, we have been the front page of the local online newspaper, 'ISurfHopkins.com' and then to top it all off our very own photo shoot. We shall be expecting the star treatment when we get home.

Such a fun packed day could only end one way, ice cream - Dairy Queen to be exact and the biggest ice creams ever. So much for Tom who said he didn't want one but we all know what that normally means!! Guess what it did, he had his own spoon & had spoons of everyone elses!!!

A busy but informative day.

Laura