By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Kentucky Living magazine, a publication that has been “serving the readers” of the Bluegrass State for 75 years and has more than one million readers, is accepting votes for its annual “Best in Kentucky” competition. Among the many categories — which includes People and Personalities, Eats and Drinks, Destinations and Outdoors — are three Barren County finalists.
All-in-all there are a plethora of subcategories within the four major groups and in each the magazine readers have narrowed down the initial nominees to three finalists.
One of the three finalists for “Best Hiking Trail” is Mammoth Cave National Park going up against Red River Gorge Geological Area, part of Daniel Boone National Forest, and Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, a 16,137 acres nature preserve located in Clermont, Kentucky.
This is a three-way rematch of the 2023 “Best in Kentucky” as all three were finalists in the category before. In the prior year Mammoth Cave came in third.
Mammoth Cave is also one of the finalists in the “Best Place For Adventure” category. Much like the hiking trail category, the national park is up against Red River Gorge Geological Area as well as the Land Between the Lakes National Recreational Area.
Mammoth Cave was a finalist in this category last year as well as Red River and Land Between the Lakes. In 2023 Mammoth Cave won this category.
Moving to the “People and Personalities” category 103.7 WHHT morning host Kellie McKay is one of the finalists for best local radio host. McKay won 2023 “Best in Kentucky.” The other finalists are Cale Tharp, a radio personality out of Hodgenville who was also nominated last year, and Larry Smith of Campbellsville’s WVLC.
People can vote once per day through the month of May. The winners of each category will be announced live on Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. and featured in the September edition of Kentucky Living’s magazine.
“The media you get from this is always great,” MacLean Lessenberry, executive director of Glasgow-Barren County Tourism, said. “You get a huge spread in Kentucky Living every fall…so it does bring a lot of in-state traffic to the winner’s locations.”
