Week 3 of the trip began in Madisonville. Bob Burke's programme for our visit incorporated our vocational interests with visits to local businesses.
On Monday morning our first stop was Hopkin County Jail and a guided tour by (elected) Jailor Joe Blue. At the jail they house detainees awaiting trial along with those convicted of crimes varying from drink/drug/driving offenses to murder. Emphasis is put on education, training and rehabilitation. There is a kitchen garden and a welding shop. Low risk prisoners work on community service projects such as highway litter clearance and tree clearing. There is always a prisoner "on duty" to wash police cars when they come into the jail! They are using high-tec tracking on prisoners who qualify for "home incarceration" or "home and work". It was fascinating but at the end of the visit we all agreed we'd not want to do anything that meant we'd end up inside for anything other than a visit!
From the jail we went on to Madison Community College to meet staff, learn about their latest science and technology courses which incorporate modular internet based study and tour some of the laboratories. Coal mining is a local industry and we saw some training simulators in action.
We also heard about an innovative programme called "School Counts" which offers high school students the opportunity to earn financial incentives towards the cost of education at the college by maintaining a 95% attendance record. They had even put a welcome on the college information intranet!
In the afternoon we visited I-Surf, an on-line local newspaper, and People Plus, a recruitment agency before having a group photo taken by a local photographer, Barbara Yont.
Monday evening was a personal highlight of the trip for me. Bob, my host, invited me to go to a live gospel music evening - Pritchett Chapel Songfest. This is a regular monthly gathering of local musicians who get together and play an eclectic mix of bluegrass and southern country gospel music. I had a wonderful evening and came away with dvd copies of 3 previous meetings and a promise that the evening's recording will be in the post to me very soon!
Tuesday began with a visit to an automated plastic bottle cap manufacturing plant, Rexam. High tech fully automated assembly lines have eliminated the need for unskilled labour but has resulted in jobs for highly skilled workers to maintain the equipment. From there we went on to the local hospital for a guided tour of their emergency department and cardiology suite.
The club changed their meeting day and venue so we could do our presentation for them at lunch at the hospital. After the presentation Shane, the club president, gave us all copies of the photo taken the day before.
Our final stop of the day was Ruby Concrete, a company who manufactures concrete blocks. Again it was a new, high-tec facility. We can vouch for the fact that it's hot in the kilns where they bake the concrete blocks!
On Wednesday again we said farewell and thank you to our hosts and we were on our way to our 6th host club, Bowling Green.
Anne
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