Good morning, Kentucky!

This week has that summer-kinda feeling that’s got me smiling for no reason at all!

The kiddos are home from college, the sun’s path in the sky is long, and Memorial Day weekend is lining up to be an outstanding summer kickoff celebration. It’s time to start planning our fun!

For our team, that includes planning for our third annual Summer Beer Fest at Frazier. Today, in the spirit of the season, we’re launching a week-long campaign selling four tickets for only $175. That is a $45 savings on an all-inclusive tasting event that features over 200 beers, great music, and fun activities. We’re closing Main Street for this July 29 party, so grab three of your fun-time friends and we’ll see you here!

There are still a few sponsorship opportunities for local businesses. If you want to put your name on one of the coolest annual events in town with the opportunity to promote it on some upcoming live television appearances, reach out to our Haley Hicky at hhicky@fraziermuseum.org.

In today’s Frazier Weekly, we’re gearing up to celebrate Kentucky’s 231st birthday on June 1! We’ve got some details about a Saturday, June 3, birthday celebration at the Frazier you don’t want to miss. Plus, Mick Sullivan shares happy birthday messages from four counties around the Commonwealth and Simon Meiners highlights an object in the museum that belonged to Kentucky’s first Governor, Isaac Shelby.

Rachel Platt previews our Sunday program with author Jermaine Fowler, Stephen Yates is sippin’ with Augusta Distillery in celebration of our Bourbon Limited club, and Hayley Rankin offers a heartfelt goodbye and a warm hello for some wonderful folks on the Frazier’s board of directors.

I hope you enjoy.

2023 Summer Beer Fest at Frazier graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

This Week in the Museum

Sippin’ with Stephen: River Proof Reserve 8-Year Neat with Augusta Distillery

As the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, the Frazier History Museum shares stories of the people, places, and producers of the Kentucky Bourbon industry. To learn more, visit our Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center or tour our Spirit of Kentucky® exhibition.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

The current episode of Sippin’ with Stephen features my good friends Judd Weis and Ryan Edwards, two of the founding members of Augusta Distillery—a hidden gem located in Augusta, Bracken County, Kentucky. We discuss why Augusta is a must-visit for Bourbon enthusiasts on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®. We also discuss their River Proof Reserve 8-Year Single Barrel Bourbon, which is being sold exclusively to Bourbon Limited members. This is the first single-barrel expression to be released by Bourbon Limited.

Judd and Ryan go over tasting notes as well as the uniqueness of this expression. The cocktail recipe for this spectacular expression is a neat pour, then pure enjoyment! Please make a point to visit the good folks at Augusta Distillery for a tour and a tasting. You will not be disappointed!

And if you are interested in learning more about Bourbon Limited, please visit their website.

Cheers!

Final Reminder for Sunday Talk with Humanity Archive Author Jermaine Fowler

*The Humanity Archive* with Author Jermaine Fowler flyer. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Don’t miss your chance to meet Louisville author Jermaine Fowler, who is getting national attention and has hundreds registering for his free Masterclass. He is the author of The Humanity Archive, and the host of a podcast by the same name, that focuses on untold stories of history. They are the extraordinary stories of ordinary people. He describes himself as a self-proclaimed intellectual adventurer who, while growing up, read everything he could get his hands on in public libraries. Lucky us. Join us Sunday, May 28, as we gather in the Brown-Forman Theatre with a front row seat to learn stories we perhaps haven’t heard before. Fowler’s book is among the choices for the Frazier Summer Book Club; members will be in attendance, as well.

The program is free with the price of admission to the museum.

Video: Happy 231st Birthday, Kentucky!, Pt. 1

On Saturday, June 3, the Frazier will celebrate Kentucky’s 231st birthday with a flurry of engagements, activities, and family fun! First and foremost, instead of our usual rates, we’re charging pay-what-you-wish admission all day, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.! Next, Casey Harden will lead tours of new pop culture objects in Cool Kentucky, Mick Sullivan will debut his “Kentucky Stories and Song” performance, and a plucky reporter named Ken Tucky (played by yours truly) will dish out prizes to visitors who correctly answer Kentucky history trivia questions. Plus, we’ll have scavenger hunts, Kentucky merchandise, and more! See you here, folks.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

In advance of our big celebration for Kentucky’s 231st birthday, we’ve reached out to friends all across the state in search of warm wishes and a glimpse into their corner of the Commonwealth. From points north to south and east to west, Kentucky is filled with great stories. Today, our friends in Christian, Boyle, Carter, and Jessamine counties wish Kentucky a happy birthday! Check back next week for more Kentucky places and faces.

Object in Focus: Gov. Isaac Shelby’s Silver Serving Pitcher, 1810–26

From left, First Lady Britainy Beshear, Gov. Andy Beshear, and Frazier president Andy Treinen look at Gov. Isaac Shelby’s silver serving pitcher among other objects on display in *The Commonwealth*, June 1, 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Last year, on June 1—Kentucky’s 230th birthday—the Frazier opened The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, a permanent exhibition that explores the history and people of Kentucky. The first two members of the public to tour the exhibition were Governor Andy Beshear and First Lady Britainy Beshear.

This year, as we prepare to celebrate Kentucky’s 231 birthday, we’re spotlighting an object in The Commonwealth that belonged to Kentucky’s very first governor, Isaac Shelby (1750–1826).

Portrait of Gov. Isaac Shelby, c. 1820, made by Matthew H. Jouett (1788–1827). Credit: Kentucky Historical Society.

Born to a Welsh family in Virginia, Isaac Shelby came to Kentucky and settled near the Knob Lick in Lincoln County in 1782 with his wife Susannah Hart. Due to the fame he’d earned in Lord Dunmore’s War and the American Revolutionary War—particularly at the Battle of Kings Mountain, which earned him the nickname “Old Kings Mountain”—he quickly became a leader in Kentucky politics. On May 17, 1792, two weeks before Kentucky officially became the fifteenth state in the Union, electors met in Lexington and unanimously elected Shelby the state’s first governor.

Shelby’s first administration attended primarily to staving off Native American attacks, raising funds for expeditions into Native American territory, and establishing commercial access to New Orleans and other markets down the Mississippi River. By the time Shelby’s successor took office in 1796, these goals had mostly been fulfilled; plus, courts had been founded and land claims were being processed.

After a sixteen-year absence from politics, Shelby returned in 1812. In June, the War of 1812 broke out. In July, Shelby announced his candidacy for governor. In August, he took office. Two days before his inauguration, he and his predecessor met at the statehouse to appoint William Henry Harrison commander of the Kentucky militia. The war, which would last until 1815 and become a focal point of Shelby’s second administration, was largely fought by Kentuckians: Kentucky (population 400,000) would provide 24,000 volunteers, and thus account for more casualties than all other states combined. After leaving office in 1816, Shelby returned to his farm. He died there in 1826.

On display in The Commonwealth is a coin silver serving pitcher that belonged to Shelby. Manufactured sometime between 1810 and 1826, it was custom made: the front is monogrammed with the initials “ISS” on a decorative old-style script. The vessel has a bomb-shaped body below a tall collar with a reeded rim. Stamped on the bottom, surrounded by three eagles, is the maker’s name, “A. BLANCHARD.” Asa Blanchard (1787–1838) was a prominent silversmith who worked in Lexington in the early 1800s.

Museum Shop: Hand-Hooked Kentucky Pillows

Kentucky-themed pillows sold in the Frazier’s Museum Shop and online. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

We are hooked on Kentucky and look forward to celebrating this great state’s 231st birthday next week! Show your state love with these hand-hooked pillows. They’re available in the Frazier’s Museum Shop and online.

Environmental Studies Associate Professor Dr. Kate Bulinski on Biodiversity in your Backyard

In honor of International Day of Biodiversity, we’ve asked Dr. Kate Bulinski of Bellarmine University to share the ways the Department of Environmental Studies has been promoting biodiversity on campus and around our community. Challenging each of us to become better stewards of biodiversity, the Frazier is hosting a Lewis and Clark Lunch Series called Biodiversity in your Backyard, Friday, June 9. Learn which plants and gardening choices can support the local environment and discover ways you can support native plants, trees, birds, butterflies, bees, and more. Dr. Bulinski encourages you to support a healthy ecosystem starting right in your own backyard! Frazier members receive a discount on tickets. To learn more about the benefits and exclusives that come with membership, visit our membership web page.—Amanda Egan, Membership & Database Administrator

When you hear the word “biodiversity,” what exactly comes to mind? Is it a rainforest in Brazil, teeming with life? A backyard flower garden buzzing with bees? Biodiversity certainly includes both of those, but it can also include trees growing in a median along a city street, or even the fungus and microbes found in the soil below our feet. Biodiversity is a term that describes the variety of all life found everywhere around the world. Promoting biodiversity then requires us to examine the health and variability of life everywhere and anywhere we encounter nature.

Today just so happens to be International Day of Biodiversity. While this holiday doesn’t have the same kind of name recognition as Earth Day or Arbor Day, it does create an opportunity for us to reflect on how each of us encounters biodiversity in our everyday lives. We can then challenge ourselves to make choices to improve our natural world in ways small and large.

At Bellarmine University, we are always working to find ways to maintain and improve our campus biodiversity. For example, each semester Dr. Martha Carlson Mazur’s classes partner with Olmsted Parks Conservancy to conduct invasive species removal (primarily Bush Honeysuckle) on the hill behind our chapel.

For the first time since we started this multi-year effort, we saw ephemeral wildflowers coming back in this area of campus this spring. We also have several native pollinator gardens which are certified by Monarch Watch as waystations for supporting Monarch butterflies. These insects rely on milkweed as a specific source of nutrition throughout their lifecycle.

Additionally, in 2023, Bellarmine was recognized for the ninth consecutive year as a “Tree Campus USA,” which acknowledges our commitment to maintaining and enhancing the diversity of our tree canopy.

On our campus farm, we are practicing regenerative community agriculture, with a variety of projects that are devised by students and carried out by our campus farm team of faculty, staff, and students, led by my colleague, Dr. Michele Abee. In the years since the pandemic shutdown, our campus farm has come back to life with the addition of raised beds, more native pollinator gardens, and two beehives! This summer, we have plans to add more permaculture in the form of berries, vegetables, and native fruit-bearing trees in our existing orchard, and we also plan to install a native rain garden. The farm is located immediately adjacent to the forty-one-acre Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve, and it is not unusual to see deer, wild turkey, fox, and many avian visitors to our grounds.

For us in the Department of Environmental Studies, our mission includes a call to improve the human condition and the natural world. Our farm is a natural laboratory that teaches students about what sustainable urban farming and landscape management looks like. The farm also provides fresh produce to our campus foodbank for food-insecure members of our campus community.

Everyone in the Greater Louisville and other Kentucky communities can play a role in improving our regional biodiversity. If you live in an apartment, enhancing biodiversity might include putting some potted plants on a balcony or volunteering time or donating resources to your favorite environmental non-profit. If you live in a house with a yard, choices might include incorporating native plants into your landscaping or refraining from spraying your yard and property with insecticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.

If you would like to learn more, please join me for the Lewis and Clark Giving Society Lunch Series on Friday, June 9, at 11:30 a.m. I will be discuss “Biodiversity in your Backyard” and provide more information about what you can do to enhance biodiversity where you live!

Frazier Offers Fond Farewell to Three Exiting Board Members

Vickie Yates Brown Glisson. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

David Baughman. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

C. Edward Glasscock. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

This past Wednesday, the Frazier History Museum hosted the final board of directors meeting to be attended by three exceptional individuals who have served on the Frazier’s board for many years. To Vickie Yates Brown Glisson—who has graciously agreed to remain active with the board as an emeritus member—David Baughman, and C. Edward Glasscock, we are grateful for your time, contributions, and overall dedication to the Frazier History Museum. Thank you!

Anne Jewell. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Bruce Farrer. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Clarence Glover. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

As we press onward, we would also like to welcome three recent additions to our board: Anne Jewell, Bruce Farrer, and Clarence Glover. To each of you, we are excited about the fresh energy, interest, and expertise you bring to our board of directors and ongoing efforts at the museum. Welcome!

Early Bird Pricing for 2023 Frazier Classic Ends Next Wednesday

Mark your calendars and get those teams together!

It’s time to register for the eighth annual Owsley Brown Frazier Classic Sporting Clay Tournament—and we’ve added more targets! More targets, more fun, right? I’d say that’s more bang for your buck. (Pun intended!)

Owsley Brown Frazier Classic Sporting Clay Tournament graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Join us on Friday, September 29, at The Sporting Club at the Farm in New Albany, Indiana, just fifteen minutes from the museum.

The Sporting Club at the Farm. Credit: The Sporting Club at the Farm.

The event, named in honor of the founder of the Frazier History Museum, his broad philanthropic investment in the Louisville community, and his lifelong love of history and the artistry of the gun, the Classic will feature 12- or 20-gauge shotguns on the 15–20 station/84-target sporting clays course.

Participants will spend the day competing before a delicious catered lunch featuring Bourbon, craft beer, a raffle, and a silent auction of premium Kentucky Bourbons and exclusive Kentucky and Southern Indiana experiences. The tournament uses Lewis Class scoring, which allows competitors of all skill levels the opportunity to win awards.

Join an amazing community of people who know how to have a fun time ALL for a great cause! All proceeds support the Frazier’s exhibitions, educational outreach, and programs. Register by May 31 to receive the Early Bird special pricing of $1,200 for teams. Starting June 1, prices will be $1,400 for teams. So don’t delay—register now for the Early Bird special! Don’t have enough people to make a team of four? Registration for individuals is $400.

Thank you to our early sponsors, iAmmo, Lewis and Grant Auctions, as well as Yellowstone Select Bourbon.

Best in Kentucky 2023 graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Bridging the Divide

Portland Museum Takes Reign of Historic Portland Anchor Newspaper

It’s billed as Louisville’s oldest neighborhood newspaper, and now Portland Museum will help carry on the proud tradition. The museum will also open a retrospective exhibit in June to celebrate all that newspaper has meant to the community. It’s a community that prides itself on being close-knit and diverse, with so much of its history tied to the Ohio River. At a time when many newspapers are struggling, it’s great to see this one full steam ahead. William Smith with Portland Museum shares the good news!—Rachel Platt, Director of Community Engagement

Since its first issue in 1975, the Portland Anchor newspaper has published journalism and creative writing contributed by and for its namesake every month. Only twice has the paper gone out late: when its printing house burnt to the ground in 1988 and when its editor Sherry Stewart suffered a heart attack in 2010. This near-unstoppable dedication to Portland has earned the Anchor its masthead title of “Louisville’s Oldest Neighborhood Newspaper.” With help from the paper’s new steward, Portland Museum, this legacy is far from over.

The Anchor was founded within the walls of the Portland Boys & Girls Club where, in 1973, the paper’s founder Gordon Brown served as citywide executive director. There, Brown mentored and collaborated with cohorts of children and peers in Portland who “believed that [they] could actually change the world.” This group included future leaders like Louisville Alderman Sharron Wilbert, banking executive Houston Cockrell, and ministry director Sue Gentry. These young adults took the Portland community seriously and tackled issues through hands-on initiatives like the Portland Anchor. Established to counteract Portland’s growing reputation from the greater city’s new media as “the cesspool of Louisville,” its debut printing was produced entirely in the Boys & Girls Club basement.

Since that inception, the Anchor has been organized from editors’ home, churches, offices, and more—always providing neighbors an opportunity to catch up, grab lunch, and produce something for their community. Advertisers, staff, and contributors have come and gone, but Gordon Brown has always steered the ship. That is, until now. Brown in 2016 retired as groundbreaking CEO of Louisville’s Home of the Innocents, and now he is entrusting the Anchor to Portland Museum. Brown targeted the museum due to its long-standing trust from the Portland neighborhood, but also for its innovative, creative energy on display in its upcoming AHOY Children’s Museum, for which he sits on the steering committee. Portland Museum plans to expand the Anchor’s status as a community forum, including more diverse sources and types of neighborhood input through greater promotion, programming, and partnerships. Its May issue, nicknamed the “Big Fish” by staff, previews this future with a doubled page count, color photos, and original artworks by children and professionals.

Jumping into a bright future requires one not forget the storied past. Portland Museum will open a retrospective exhibit covering the paper titled Anchor Management: Behind Louisville’s Oldest Newspaper, Friday, June 23, 5–7 p.m. Featuring artfully collaged collections of vintage papers, coverage of the paper’s historic columns, profiles of its staff and regular contributors, and original paintings from its founder Gordon Brown, the exhibit is set to both honorably look back and excitingly push forward.

To subscribe or submit content to the Portland Anchor, email Sherry Stewart at info@portlandanchor.com.

Beer Fest 4-Pack Sale, Kentucky’s 231st Birthday Party, Gov. Isaac Shelby’s 1810s Silver Pitcher, and More

Pay-What-You-Wish Admission Saturday, New Gallery Entertaining Kentucky to Open, Musical Kentucky: Grant–Hart, and More

AAM to Award Frazier in Denver, Frank X Walker to Debut Civil War Poems, Remembering Denny Crum, and More