WKMO News

Fort Knox is in the run­ning for the nation’s top annual parks and recre­ation competition-the National Gold Medal Awards. The base is up against three other instal­la­tions for the honor. Those awards have been given out to pub­lic parks for 47 years. But the Gold Stan­dard says this is the first time mil­i­tary instal­la­tions are being included in the chal­lenge. The base got nom­i­nated because of its abil­ity to adapt to the chang­ing needs of its cus­tomers. And you’ll remem­ber there was a big change this past win­ter when we saw the return of the 3rd Brigade Com­bat Team, 1st Infantry Divi­sion from Afghanistan. That was the largest return of a sin­gle unit in Fort Knox history.

Rad­cliff Police say they’re look­ing into some van­dal­ism that caused over $5000 worth of dam­age at Daw­ley Park. Sev­eral win­dows were shat­tered, glass was bro­ken out of a screen door at a home on park prop­erty, and the nets on two soc­cer goals were slashed.

A for­mer LaRue County deputy jailer has taken a plea on sex­ual mis­con­duct and pro­mot­ing con­tra­band charges. 66 year old Harold Mar­cum says he’s inno­cent, but admits pros­e­cu­tors could prob­a­bly get a con­vic­tion. The Larue County Her­ald says Mar­cum was charged after being accused of bring­ing banned items into the jail in exchange for favors from inmates. Two female inmates say he brought tobacco into the jail for them in exchange for sex. Ken­tucky State Police spent seven months inves­ti­gat­ing those charges.

The man accused of killing 18 year old Macken­zie Smyser has been con­victed of com­plic­ity to com­mit mur­der. The News Enter­prise says Con­nor J. Galen­ski has been sen­tenced to 30 years in prison. Galen­ski is one of three con­victed in the shoot­ing death. Police say Ryan Wilt, Jason Gow­ers and Galen­ski drove Smyser to a gravel road near Rad­cliff. Wilt and Gow­ers have also been sen­tenced to 30 years. Galen­ski had claimed he never touched the gun involved in the killing.

If you’re a ser­vice mem­ber, and you want to give some­one mil­i­tary power of attor­ney over your affairs, pre­pare for some paper­work. The U.S. 6th Cir­cuit Court of Appeals has ruled that you can’t use a pho­to­copy of the form that grants mil­i­tary power of attor­ney. It’s got to be the orig­i­nal. A sol­dier had gone to the Fayette County Clerk’s Office just before she was deployed for Iraq, want­ing to give her hus­band legal abil­ity to take care of their affairs. The clerk rejected her form because it was a copy. The court says demand­ing the orig­i­nal is a min­i­mal for­mal­ity. But Judge Ralph B. Guy dis­sented, say­ing to require an orig­i­nal doc­u­ment ignores the unique cir­cum­stances in which an active duty mem­ber of the mil­i­tary would need to exe­cute such a form, espe­cially if they were deployed in a war zone.

Unin­sured dri­vers around the state may be in for a rude sur­prise. They’re going to start get­ting notices in the mail that their reg­is­tra­tion is going to be can­celled if they don’t get them­selves cov­ered. A loop­hole in the law has been let­ting dri­vers get insur­ance just long enough to get their cars reg­is­tered. Once that hap­pens, they’ve been drop­ping cov­er­age. But now insur­ance com­pa­nies are required to com­pare vehi­cle id num­bers with pol­icy num­bers. That infor­ma­tion goes to a data­base, and if the state finds out that you’re dri­ving with­out insur­ance, say so long to your registration.

Com­ing up on Memo­r­ial day, the Amer­i­can Legion is host­ing the annual parade through Eliz­a­beth­town. It’ll run from Pritchard Com­mu­nity Cen­ter to Dixie Boule­vard, then onto North Miles and on to the Amer­i­can Legion Park. They’ll have a remem­brance cer­e­mony at the park.

Hardin County Schools may have less money in the district’s gen­eral fund. The News Enter­prise says admin­is­tra­tors have come up with a bud­get that has five mil­lion dol­lars less in it than the last pro­posal that was approved back in Jan­u­ary. The total is $95.6 mil­lion in the gen­eral fund, com­pared to $100.7 mil­lion in the ear­lier plan.

Police in Charleston West Vir­ginia police have arrested an alleged mil­i­tary deserter from Fort Knox. Matthew Jack Kirk was at a traf­fic stop when police ran a check on him through the National Crime Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter. That’s when they found that Kirk had report­edly left base. He was taken to the South Cen­tral Regional Jail.

At Con­ner Galenski’s re-trial on mur­der, he’s claim­ing he never touched a gun on the day Macken­zie Smyser was shot in Hardin County. Eye­wit­nesses say Galen­ski fired the first shot into the Louisville teen’s chin. Police and alleged accom­plices say the 38 cal­iber gun that was used to kill Smyser belonged to Galen­ski. But now the News Enter­prise is report­ing that Galen­ski says he never fired a round from that gun, ever. He also tes­ti­fied that on the night of the killing he, Ryan Wilt, Jason Gow­ers and Smyser drove on a gravel road near Rad­cliff, talk­ing about com­mit­ting an armed rob­bery. When they got out of the car, Galen­ski says Gow­ers and Smyser walked down the road. That’s when four shots rang out. He says Gow­ers ran back to the car and told them to drive away. Galen­ski said he asked Gow­ers about Smyser and his gun. That’s when Gow­ers told them about the shoot­ing and threat­ened to kill him if he went to police. Gow­ers and Wilt have pleaded guilty to com­plic­ity to com­mit murder.