CUMBERLAND-RIVER-L Archives

From: "M. Miles" <>
Subject: To Preserve Our Wonderful KY History - Please read
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:09:14 -0600

Dear Friends & Down Home cousins, Please read the news article below then sign a petition on The Boone Society website. You can access the petition through my McCreary, Ky Boone website at:
http://www.mpcps.org/boone/projects/rd_petition.shtml

Thank you,
Your CRR cousin,
Margy
Descendants of Daniel Boone feel insulted by politicians

02/01/05


By Roger Alford
Associated Press
















PIKEVILLE -- First, Daniel Boone's name was stripped from an eastern Kentucky parkway and replaced with that of a congressman. Then, the state legislature refused to put the famed frontiersman's name on an alternative highway.



It's no wonder his descendants are feeling slighted.



"It's an insult to his family. It should be an insult to everyone who cares about the history of Kentucky,"' said Rochelle Cochran, president of the Boone Society, a national group of descendants.



She's launched a campaign to get Kentucky lawmakers to right what she sees as the wrong created in 2003 when former Gov. Paul Patton's administration changed the name of the Daniel Boone Parkway to the Hal Rogers Parkway in honor of a U.S. representative from Somerset.



The rugged, buckskin-clad explorer's place in the history of Kentucky is legendary. Boone, who lived from 1734 to 1820, hacked out the Wilderness Road that led early settlers across the Appalachian Mountains to points west, and he helped defend early encampments from Indians.



Rogers, however, is a 13-term incumbent Republican who uses his position to bring federal highway money to eastern Kentucky to create and pave roads through the mountainous terrain.



Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, proposed a resolution a year ago to restore the explorer's name to the parkway but with double billing: the Daniel Boone-Hal Rogers Parkway.



Instead, lawmakers in the state Senate offered a compromise that would keep Rogers' name on the parkway and give the frontiersman recognition by renaming the four-lane U.S. 25E from Cumberland Gap to Corbin the Daniel Boone Wilderness Road. That compromise passed the Senate but was never brought up for a vote in the House.



"I just don't understand why this petered out," Cochran said. "It had a lot of support."



Cochran said she believes the majority of people in Kentucky want Boone's name on a highway.



"It would seem like a cake walk," Yonts said. "Daniel Boone was literally the founder of Kentucky. It amazes me that what seems like a cake walk can get bogged down so easily."



Yonts said he hasn't yet given up on the initiative. He said he sent a letter to Gov. Ernie Fletcher asking him to issue an administrative order renaming U.S. 25E in honor of Boone. Fletcher spokesman Doug Hogan couldn't immediately be reached for comment.



"I would hope there would be public outcry from the eastern part of the state," Yonts said. "We name every bridge and creek and building after somebody. There should be a road named after Daniel Boone, the founding father of our state."



Cochran of Hot Springs, Ark., said she hoped public sentiment would force lawmakers to discuss the issue again this year.



"It all depends on the people of Kentucky wanting this to happen and not giving up on it," she said.

McCreary Pioneers Cemetery Preservation Society
Daniel Boone, The Extraordinary Life of an Uncommon Man

This thread:

• To Preserve Our Wonderful KY History - Please read by "M. Miles" <>