Before descending into the recent political morass, some preliminary posts may offer clues about my worldview and contextualize what follows. In 1986 I was taking my time completing an MA at the University of Kentucky and needed a summer job. I answered a newspaper ad and was hired as a copyeditor and news-of-record reporter at The LaRue County Herald News, a weekly based in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
It wasn’t an overly taxing job. Once a story had been typeset, I took the proof to comb it for typos, poor orthography, grammatical errors, and transgressions of format.
The other task entailed walking to the courthouse and summarizing the week’s transfers of property and civil and criminal court proceedings. This was educational. “Do not publish” sticky notes pasted on pages in the deed books revealed how desperately some local worthies wanted their machinations in real estate to be kept under wraps. David Lynch’s characterization of small-town life rings true. I ignored the sticky notes. Reporting on the courts, I was threatened with a lawsuit for the first time in my life by a father convinced that I had persecuted his son by publishing the boy’s arrest, arraignment, and assignment of a court date on a marijuana charge. At least the threat was leveled with “Christian love,” or so the gentleman insisted.
The paper’s editor realized these responsibilities were not enough to occupy my time. She handed me a newspaper style guide – I think it was the one for the Associated Press, maybe The New York Times – and told me to peruse it at my leisure. By summer’s end, it was nearly memorized, time well spent.
I was still intermittently idle, so I was given a story to report. Mary Lowe – a Hodgenville resident and a schoolteacher at Fort Knox – was lobbying in Washington to halt a plan to shutter base schools at Fort Knox and Fort Campbell and scatter their students across nearby county systems. A gracious and elegant lady, she invited me into her home and sat for a lengthy interview. The remaining information for the story was gathered over the phone. One call was a chat with the local congressman, William Natcher, a Democrat who eschewed campaign contributions and never missed a vote across four decades in the House (1953-94). That’s old school.
The finished product was lengthier than the editor had anticipated. She grumbled about the Herald News’ inability to compete with The (Louisville) Courier Journal in human interest stories, but she ran it as it was. It was gratifying that my grandfather, not given to praise, told me he liked it, since he had inspired my reading of newspapers. Even better, Ms. Lowe was overjoyed. She came to The Herald News office to thank me and paid me a sterling compliment: “You earned your degree!” The unconcealed chagrin of The Herald News‘s main reporter, an inveterate eavesdropper, was a bonus.
As I read the thing now, some of it is cringeworthy; nonetheless, it’s difficult not to muse about a path not taken. My regard for journalists, especially print ones, has always been high. As a teenager, I watched the Watergate hearings and read Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men. I still screen the book’s film treatment occasionally to remind myself of the power of good journalism. The summer at the newspaper was a scant year before the Reagan administration dismantled the Fairness Doctrine and cleared the way for the adoption by the electronic news media of its infotainment, ratings-driven model, a pox on American political life. My arc, however, was already set. I was bound for more graduate study. Nonetheless, working at a newspaper still seems like a decent way to live.
A couple of years ago I took photographs of the article from the bound copies of The Herald News in the LaRue County Public Library. I noticed that it shared the front page with a photo of Wallace Wilkinson, who was pressing the flesh in Hodgenville shortly before announcing his candidacy for governor. I doubt that this image and accompanying article made much of an impression on me in the moment; however, it illustrates how smaller, nearly sub rosa events, both personal and public, can have profound implications.
I needed summer employment a year later and took a job at Wallace’s Books in Lexington, the college textbook company that Mr. Wilkinson founded after dropping out of the University of Kentucky. It became the linchpin of his substantial fortune. We summer warehouse inmates referred to the operation, not so affectionately, as “Wally World.” It certainly was no amusement park. Perhaps more about that at another time.
Mr. Wilkinson had indeed declared his candidacy and the Democratic primary fell during my term of employment. I suppose Mr. Wilkinson deserves thanks for enabling me to make a political statement through inaction. As the primary approached, the warehouse’s toiling masses were summoned and told by a supervisor that there would be a march and rally downtown in support of the boss’s candidacy. We were invited to participate, in effect to be paid partisans for a day, though we were under no obligation. The supervisor said, “I hope y’all come. I think Mr. Wilkerson is a pretty good guy.” I didn’t. His barebones platform emphasized a pledge to impose no new taxes and to inaugurate a state lottery. Seven years into the Reagan presidency, my view of tax policy and especially of supply-side economics was already formed. I had read David Stockman’s The Triumph of Politics. I, moreover, considered state lotteries appalling. I stayed at the warehouse. Virtually every other worker headed downtown. Unstaffed, the place ground to a halt, so I passed the afternoon examining piles of incoming used books and preparing a book order. An employee discount was the lone fringe benefit at Wally World. I ordered a rack of Penguin paperbacks over the summer, so many that an observant supervisor expressed appreciation for an employee who valued books since they were his vocation.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, Mr. Wilkinson’s ultimately successful bid was managed by a relative unknown, a man named James Carville. This is where Mr. Carville made his bones. It is fair to wonder whether he would have helmed Bill Clinton’s presidential run in 1992 had this earlier campaign gone sideways. This throws into relief the mercenary impulses of the political consulting class: Mr. Carville’s first success was shepherding a candidate who, as a Democrat, was a Ronald Reagan fanboy.
Mr. Wilkinson’s career epitomizes the maladies that have metastasized in American politics: As a businessman, he refused to pay sales taxes for his bookstores throughout the 1960s (a prefiguration of Jeff Bezos and Amazon?). He acknowledged his use of deceptive advertising. His businesses in 2001 were found to have been under water since 1992 and kept alive only through a marshalling of loans analogous to check kiting on herculean scale. He invoked Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than seven score times when deposed on the matter. He died bankrupt in 2002. As a politician, he inspired campaign reform legislation through his lavish spending. His Republican gubernatorial opponent characterized his lottery scheme as “Alice in Wonderland” economics. His nephew – his appointment secretary – was convicted of extortion. His wife mounted a failed run for governor in an unsubtle scheme to circumvent term limits. His memoir boasted of his contempt for political norms. He was a poster child for Democrats who sidled away from the party’s New Deal and Great Society values, who animated the Democratic Leadership Council (once chaired by Bill Clinton), and who narrowed the Overton window. Beyond this, Mr. Wilkinson today might be called “Trumpy.”
This has run longer than intended, but perhaps it offers some tiny wisdom: Attend closely to the thin end of the political wedge while the ax head’s downward arc can still be pushed aside.
Anyway, here’s the bit from The LaRue County Herald News —
A LaRue County resident heads a lobbying delegation to the United States Congress. Mary Lowe, of Hodgenville, a veteran teacher in the Fort Knox schools, has led a group of five other teachers to Washington on three separate occasions in an attempt to persuade the House Armed Services Subcommittee not to eliminate funding for the Fort Knox School system.
Lowe first became aware of plans to close all schools on the nation’s military bases last December. On December 3, Public Law 874, the proposal which would close these schools, was approved by President Reagan.
According to William Natcher, Kentucky’s Second District congressman, “last year, in 1985, there was no objection (to changes in these schools) from any source. It was moving right along because the date was 1990. . .When it began to look as if they were going to move as quickly as possible, the local districts became alarmed.”
On May 9, the General Accounting Office issued a draft of the proposal by which these schools would be switched to other jurisdictions. Copies were sent to all concerned parties, including the superintendents of the school systems that would be affected.
In late August, a final vote upon the recommendations contained in the Government Accounting Office proposal will be taken in the House Armed Services Subcommittee for Facilities chaired by Rep. Ron Dellums of California. It is toward that vote that Lowe has directed her lobbying efforts.
Lowe believes that closing these schools, especially those at Fort Knox, would create a no-win situation for the three entities that would be most affected, the teachers and staff, the students, and the regions in which the schools are located.
The proposal to close the schools stems from a jurisdictional change in Washington. From their inception, the schools had been financed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which later became the Department of Health and Human Services. The funding for this department comes from the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations, currently chaired by Rep. Natcher.
In 1981, jurisdiction over these schools was transferred to the Department of Defense. Lowe says that “the Department of Defense decided that it was in the business of defense, not education, so they decided that they wanted to transfer the operation of these section 6 (military base) schools to the state in which each school was located.” If the DoD proposal is approved, the school systems at both Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, as well as 15 others, could be under different operation by July 1, 1990.
According to Lowe, there are three possible outcomes for the Fort Knox schools. The schools could be closed and the students bused to the nearest state facility. In the case of Fort Knox, the majority of the students would be placed in the Hardin County system and the remainder would be bused to Meade County. Fort Campbell students would be sent to schools in Christian County, Ky., and in Tennessee.
Another option would be to permit the local school districts to utilize facilities already located on military reservations. In the case of Fort Knox, the land in the military reservation was ceded by the state to the federal government and federal law prohibits any local agency from working on federal property. Lowe said that the constitutional issues involved probably would prevent the use of that alternative.
Lowe thought that the best solution would be to restore the control of these schools to Rep. Natcher’s subcommittee. Rep. Natcher agreed. Natcher said that, “If the schools were in our committee there would be no problem. . .Some of the schools want to be transferred to local school districts. I’m against this in Kentucky. . .Those that don’t want to go to the local districts should go into the Department of Education for funding.”
Should Lowe’s worst fears be realized and the schools are actually closed, the alternatives for Fort Knox’s 250 teachers and 213 other staff members would not be promising. Only a very small percentage of these people could opt for early retirement and the rest could stand to lose significant retirement benefits.
Teachers in the Fort Knox system are treated as out-of-state teachers. They would be allowed to purchase 10 years of retirement benefits, but, Lowe said, “the cost would likely be between 20 and 30 thousand dollars, which we would have to pay in a lump sum to the Teacher Retirement System.”
Cuts in salary are also not out of the question for these teachers. Currently, their pay is comparable to that of teachers in the Louisville-Jefferson County metro area. If they are transferred to the Hardin or Meade districts, some would be paid approximately $2,000 less per year.
Also, the teachers would be allowed to transfer only 10 years of teaching experience into a Kentucky school district. Sixteen percent of Fort Knox’s teachers have over 20 years of experience. In the case of Lowe herself, she would lose 10 of her 20 years as a Fort Knox teacher and her pay would be comparable to that of a Hardin County teacher with only 10 years of experience.
Also, Lowe noted, there is no guarantee that the local districts would hire these teachers. In fact, there is a strong disincentive to hire many of them. Seventy-three percent of Fort Knox teachers have a master’s degree or some other higher degree, demanding higher pay, which would effectively price them out of the local market. It would be far less costly for the local school systems to hire teachers as they graduate from college and allow them to finish their master’s degrees as they teach.
Nor is Lowe the only LaRue County resident who could be affected by a change in the Fort Knox schools. A number of LaRue Countians either teach at Fort Knox or are members of the school system’s staff. These Fort Knox employees have expressed varying degrees of concern.
Laura Underwood, a 33-year teaching veteran at Fort Knox, said that she is not personally affected because she has the necessary number of years to retire, but that teachers with 20 or 25 years in the system stand to be significantly hurt by loss in benefits.
Peggy Rice, a high school librarian, was greatly taken aback by the possibility of the schools closing, but said that “you can’t continue and work staying upset.” She said that “Kentucky stands to be the big loser in all of this. . .because of the influx of 8000 more students.” According to Rice, military families living on post at Fort Knox are not considered Kentucky residents; therefore, they do not pay Kentucky taxes. If the students at Fort Knox and Fort Campbell are placed in local systems, they will receive educations for which their parents provide no support with their tax dollars. She is also concerned with the possibility of being required to interview for jobs in the local system as any prospective employee.
Other LaRue County residents employed by the Fort Knox system are Edwin Lobb, Ann Miles, Sherilyn Bell, Danny Flanders and Don Ford. Louise Rosen, a recent retiree, would not be affected.
Lowe says that “Kentucky has taken some excellent steps in education reform by making some changes that are progressive. . .and what the federal government is proposing is giving Kentucky 8,000 more students (4,000 from Fort Knox and 4,000 from Fort Campbell) whose education the state must now finance.”
According to Lowe, another problem that the Department of Defense is ignoring is the special needs of students from military families. Most of them are transient. Students who spend their entire high school career at Fort Knox are rare. And many of them have pronounced emotional problems resulting from frequent absence of a parent. Teachers in such cases often become surrogate parents, and these emotional problems, not dealt with correctly, can seriously affect academic performance.
Lowe believes that the local school systems do not have the facilities or the funds to deal with these problems. Fort Knox has 12 full-time guidance counselors, more than the entire Hardin County system, a system that serves many more students. There are special teachers for gifted students, 11 reading improvement teachers, and a full-time nurse in each building of the school system.
Many students from military families come from bilingual families and Fort Knox provides courses in English as a second language to aid them. Full-time aides are now on staff to provide day-long care for children with severe handicaps.
Lowe does not believe that these needs could be met by the local school systems, especially in light of the fiscal problems they all now are experiencing. Even without an influx of students from Fort Knox, the Hardin County system grows by 350 to 400 students per year and the system needs around 12 million dollars to come up to standards for classroom space. Only one to two million is expected from the legislature.
Even officials of the Hardin County public schools admit that the system could not easily receive these students. Kay Sharon, Coordinator of Community Relations for the Hardin County schools, says that if Fort Knox students are transferred to her system, she “would hope that the federal government would make some provision because we don’t have enough funding as a county-wide system.”
Such funding, however, would not likely be made available, according to Rep. Natcher. He says that, within the General Accounting Office proposal, the students would be treated as any other student and the local systems would receive only the money that federal education funding formulas presently allow for each student.
“Any reasonable person would conclude that the result could be a steep erosion of educational quality and sharp decline or even disappearance of needed school services not only for the Fort Knox pupils but also for those pupils located in the surrounding school districts,” Lowe said.
Lowe took her first trip to Washington on Feb. 6 of this year. She met with Rep. Ron Dellums of California, chairman of the house committee that will make the final recommendation on the Section 6 schools. She also met with Rep. Natcher and almost every other member of the Kentucky Congressional delegation. Lowe said that on the whole they were well received, with Sen. Wendell Ford and Rep. Carroll Hubbard being especially helpful.
In March, Lowe and her colleagues returned to Washington to deliver personally a progress report to Rep. Natcher and to Sen. Ford’s staff.
After the March meeting, Lowe coordinated a large letter writing campaign in support of the keeping the Fort Knox schools open. Teachers, students, and local residents enthusiastically made their opinions known to the Kentucky congressional delegation. Many of the transient residents of Fort Knox and their relatives sent letters to their congressmen in their home districts. Lowe believes that this letter writing helped to increase awareness of the issue.
Lowe made her most recent trip to Washington in April when she testified before Rep. Natcher’s subcommittee.
As a lobbyist, Lowe has received high marks. Rep. Natcher said that “Mary Lowe is making every effort to represent her schools and teachers in an excellent manner.”
No final decisions will be made until Rep. Dellums’ subcommittee opens hearings in August. Lowe said she hopes to be asked to Washington then to testify once more.
Since April, Lowe has continued her lobbying efforts in other quarters. In an attempt to increase grass-roots support, she has contacted, by her own count, between 150 and 200 local civic groups throughout the area, including a number in LaRue County. She says that there is much interest in any changes occurring at Fort Knox because they usually have consequences for the entire region.
Lowe has also directed her efforts at certain key state officials. She said that Gov. Martha Layne Collins, State Supt. of Education Alice McDonald and State Sen. Joe Prather have all pledged their support. Lowe has also contacted a number of candidates for office and they have promised to aid her if they are elected.
Lowe has also been invited to attend a meeting of representatives from all the military base school systems across the nation in August at Fort Bragg, N.C. Deputy Assistant Sec. of Defense Barbara Pope will also be there.
In all respects, Lowe appears to be an excellent choice for a spokesman. A native of Simpson County, she is one of five children, several of whom are active in the teaching profession. She began her college education at Kentucky State University with the intention of eventually attending law school, but she finally settled upon a degree in elementary education.
She began her teaching career at Georgetown Elementary in Hodgenville in 1960. Soon thereafter, she married her husband William. When the LaRue County schools completed their consolidation and Georgetown Elementary was closed in 1966, Lowe moved to the Fort Knox school system, where she has taught since. During her 26-year teaching career, she has completed a master’s degree at Western Kentucky University and has served for seven years as the president of the Fort Knox Teachers Association.
She is member of the First Baptist Church, the League of Women Voters and the Hodgenville Women’s Club. She said she hopes to become involved more actively with these groups once the Fort Knox matter is resolved.
As I was putting the finishing touches on the materials for this post, I went to the online version of the The LaRue County Herald News to see whether its archives were digitized. No luck there; The Herald News has a light digital footprint. However, a search turned up two newer stories about Mary Lowe.
The first was an appreciation of her to commemorate Black History Month in February 2013. It detailed her serendipitous path to her first teaching job at Georgetown Elementary, also known as the Georgetown Colored School, in Hodgenville in 1960. By all accounts, she was a wonderful instructor who had to contend with the remnants of the separate and decidedly unequal accommodations that Black students and teachers endured. She left for the Fort Knox school system when the Georgetown school was closed in 1966 as the final step in fulfilling the requirements of Brown v. Board of Education and the completion of the consolidation of the LaRue County school system.
The second story appeared in August 2013. Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes namechecked Ms. Lowe in the kickoff speech for her unsuccessful campaign to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell. In 1988, Ms. Lowe became president of the National Association of Section Six Educators, the organization for teachers on military posts. She traveled to Washington that year to lobby for the right of teachers in military schools to bargain collectively. And therein lay an instructive anecdote. She took her case to Senator McConnell. According to Ms. Lowe, he said, “I can’t do that. I do what the President tells me to do when it comes to a vote in the Senate. I can’t do that.” As she turned to exit, the senator “came from around the desk and put his hand out to shake my hand. Somebody came out to snap my picture. . . .There it was in the paper – an example of how the senator works for his constituents. I never felt so insulted.” Mr. McConnell’s shabby treatment of constituents was evident during his first term and has never flagged, as underscored by Matt Jones in Mitch, Please! How Mitch McConnell Sold Out Kentucky (and America Too). No voter unable to brandish a corporate campaign contribution need apply. Ms. Lowe was more warmly received by Representative Natcher, who for her “ranks among the best.”
In 2012, Mr. Lowe became the vice president of the LaRue County Democratic Women’s Club. In every respect, she’s a person after my heart.
The 2013 stories are found at www.laruecountyherald.com/content/teacher-learned-along-her-students-georgetown-school and www.laruecountyherald.com/content/grimes-mentions-hodgenville-woman-campaign-speech.
The Bourbon Progressive feels compelled to have a slash of Elijah Craig in honor of this great lady. Wherever you are, here’s to you, Mary Lowe!
One more thing: The story about Alison Lundergan Grimes, Mitch McConnell, and Mary Lowe was written by Linda Ireland, a past editor of The LaRue County Herald News. For me, she’ll always be Linda Powell, the girl who sat behind me in junior American History and senior English. If you by happenstance see this, Linda, kudos on the story. I hope you are well and prosperous.