Menifee County, Kentucky: POTUS Barack Obama Country.
An impoverished Obama stronghold, waiting for the nation to change
By Cheryl Truman
FRENCHBURG — Menifee County was never part of the boom, but it is surely part of the bust.
It's a county that stands out by several measures. With fewer than 6,800 people Menifee is sparsely populated and rural, sometimes even remote, heavily white — and full of Obama voters waiting for their world to change after the new president is inaugurated on Tuesday.
Frenchburg, the county seat of Menifee, has a population of fewer than 700 people. The courthouse is at right. The mayor, Edward Bryant, had wanted to attend Obama's inauguration but couldn't get a ticket. "The economy going, that hurts us big time here," he said.
AT A GLANCE: Menifee County
Per capita income: $11,399, compared with a Kentucky median of $18,093
Median household income: $25,472, compared with a Kentucky median of $37,046
Percentage white: 97.8 percent
Percentage black: 1.4 percent
Percent below poverty level, 2004: 24.2 percent, compared with 16.3 percent in Kentucky
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2000: $54,500, versus $86,700 for Kentucky
*
HOW MENIFEE COUNTY VOTED
Menifee County is one of eight counties out of 120 — along with Wolfe, Elliott and Rowan counties in Eastern Kentucky — that bucked Kentucky's overwhelming vote for John McCain in the '08 presidential election. Other Kentucky counties that went for Obama: Fayette, Jefferson, Henderson and Hancock.
Menifee County voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in June's Democratic primary: She scored 88.5 percent versus only 8.3 percent for Barack Obama. But then the county — which voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000 and narrowly for John Kerry in 2004 — went for Obama in the general election.
In the 2008 presidential election: Barack Obama, 1,276; McCain, 1,155
In the 2008 Democratic primary: Hillary Clinton, 1,527; Barack Obama, 143
In the 2004 presidential election: John Kerry, 1,284; George Bush, 1,215
In the 2000 presidential election: George Bush, 1,170; Al Gore, 1,038
Says Gwen Mayer, a longtime Frenchburg resident who volunteers at the town's Baptist church and serves on the county school board: "We want the best, and it's our turn."
Menifee County residents invest a particular set of expectations in the president-elect. Here, hope is not just a vague kind of happy idea about how life will be after Obama's inauguration, but instead quite specific: Bring us some kind of jobs, voters say. Free us from the unfunded tyranny of the federally mandated No Child Left Behind. Show us that rural doesn't mean poor, and disenfranchised, and hopeless.
Menifee County doesn't really have an economic base. The school system, the county's largest employer, aims high and teaches enthusiastically. But schools are hampered by a lack of money for building upgrades and the challenge of teaching special-needs and low-income students to the standards-based federal school accountability program.
But it's unfair to call Menifee County "yellow-dog Democrat" country. First-time voter Ashley Tincher says she thought hard about her first presidential vote and then voted Obama, because she thought electing the Illinois senator offered the best chance to improve her home county's schools and economic prospects.
Tincher, of the Means community in the county's western end, is a poster student for Menifee success. A high school senior already accepted at the University of Kentucky with a full scholarship and an interest in civil engineering, she drives 20 minutes to her part-time job at H&R Block in Mount Sterling.
By Menifee standards, her commute is modest. The average Menifee job commute is 36 minutes, according to census bureau statistics. Workers commute to Mount Sterling, Morehead and sometimes even to Lexington.
Tincher says her success only reminds her of how hard school can be for her fellow students — "our school doesn't have the electives" it needs, she says — and how she'd like things to be better for her 13-year-old sister.
Fellow senior Brittany Caudill, a cheerleader who lives among cabins scattered along a gravel-roaded ridge and hopes to work in a technology job, also voted for Obama because "for small places like this, it's hard for us. ... I see it, first-hand. I can't find a job myself, right now. I'm looking forward to a better place."
Says Brittany's mother, Dede Caudill Burnett: "This is a good community, with hard-working people. But there are no options. Give us a chance."
The lack of options is reflected in Menifee's lack of cash.
County income pales next to state and national averages: $11,399 versus $18,093 for Kentucky and $21,587 for the nation. By any standard — be it per capita income or median household income — Menifee is among the poorest places in the nation.
Still, the county went for Obama in the presidential election — setting it apart from much of Kentucky. Among Kentucky's 120 counties, urban counties such as Jefferson and Fayette went for Obama, but in Eastern Kentucky, only Menifee, Wolfe, Rowan and Elliott counties were carried by Obama.
One of the nicest buildings in Frenchburg, the county seat, is the new library, and newish cabins dot the countryside. But if Menifee County is ever going to come into its own, its voters say it's going to need help — and not just directives — from far outside Frenchburg.
Menifee school superintendent Charles Mitchell dislikes the all stick and no carrot approach of No Child Left Behind because "it's a one-size-fits all approach."
Reach Cheryl Truman at (859)231-3202 or 1-800-950-6397, ext. 3202.
By Cheryl Truman
FRENCHBURG — Menifee County was never part of the boom, but it is surely part of the bust.
It's a county that stands out by several measures. With fewer than 6,800 people Menifee is sparsely populated and rural, sometimes even remote, heavily white — and full of Obama voters waiting for their world to change after the new president is inaugurated on Tuesday.
Frenchburg, the county seat of Menifee, has a population of fewer than 700 people. The courthouse is at right. The mayor, Edward Bryant, had wanted to attend Obama's inauguration but couldn't get a ticket. "The economy going, that hurts us big time here," he said.
AT A GLANCE: Menifee County
Per capita income: $11,399, compared with a Kentucky median of $18,093
Median household income: $25,472, compared with a Kentucky median of $37,046
Percentage white: 97.8 percent
Percentage black: 1.4 percent
Percent below poverty level, 2004: 24.2 percent, compared with 16.3 percent in Kentucky
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2000: $54,500, versus $86,700 for Kentucky
*
HOW MENIFEE COUNTY VOTED
Menifee County is one of eight counties out of 120 — along with Wolfe, Elliott and Rowan counties in Eastern Kentucky — that bucked Kentucky's overwhelming vote for John McCain in the '08 presidential election. Other Kentucky counties that went for Obama: Fayette, Jefferson, Henderson and Hancock.
Menifee County voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in June's Democratic primary: She scored 88.5 percent versus only 8.3 percent for Barack Obama. But then the county — which voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000 and narrowly for John Kerry in 2004 — went for Obama in the general election.
In the 2008 presidential election: Barack Obama, 1,276; McCain, 1,155
In the 2008 Democratic primary: Hillary Clinton, 1,527; Barack Obama, 143
In the 2004 presidential election: John Kerry, 1,284; George Bush, 1,215
In the 2000 presidential election: George Bush, 1,170; Al Gore, 1,038
Says Gwen Mayer, a longtime Frenchburg resident who volunteers at the town's Baptist church and serves on the county school board: "We want the best, and it's our turn."
Menifee County residents invest a particular set of expectations in the president-elect. Here, hope is not just a vague kind of happy idea about how life will be after Obama's inauguration, but instead quite specific: Bring us some kind of jobs, voters say. Free us from the unfunded tyranny of the federally mandated No Child Left Behind. Show us that rural doesn't mean poor, and disenfranchised, and hopeless.
Menifee County doesn't really have an economic base. The school system, the county's largest employer, aims high and teaches enthusiastically. But schools are hampered by a lack of money for building upgrades and the challenge of teaching special-needs and low-income students to the standards-based federal school accountability program.
But it's unfair to call Menifee County "yellow-dog Democrat" country. First-time voter Ashley Tincher says she thought hard about her first presidential vote and then voted Obama, because she thought electing the Illinois senator offered the best chance to improve her home county's schools and economic prospects.
Tincher, of the Means community in the county's western end, is a poster student for Menifee success. A high school senior already accepted at the University of Kentucky with a full scholarship and an interest in civil engineering, she drives 20 minutes to her part-time job at H&R Block in Mount Sterling.
By Menifee standards, her commute is modest. The average Menifee job commute is 36 minutes, according to census bureau statistics. Workers commute to Mount Sterling, Morehead and sometimes even to Lexington.
Tincher says her success only reminds her of how hard school can be for her fellow students — "our school doesn't have the electives" it needs, she says — and how she'd like things to be better for her 13-year-old sister.
Fellow senior Brittany Caudill, a cheerleader who lives among cabins scattered along a gravel-roaded ridge and hopes to work in a technology job, also voted for Obama because "for small places like this, it's hard for us. ... I see it, first-hand. I can't find a job myself, right now. I'm looking forward to a better place."
Says Brittany's mother, Dede Caudill Burnett: "This is a good community, with hard-working people. But there are no options. Give us a chance."
The lack of options is reflected in Menifee's lack of cash.
County income pales next to state and national averages: $11,399 versus $18,093 for Kentucky and $21,587 for the nation. By any standard — be it per capita income or median household income — Menifee is among the poorest places in the nation.
Still, the county went for Obama in the presidential election — setting it apart from much of Kentucky. Among Kentucky's 120 counties, urban counties such as Jefferson and Fayette went for Obama, but in Eastern Kentucky, only Menifee, Wolfe, Rowan and Elliott counties were carried by Obama.
One of the nicest buildings in Frenchburg, the county seat, is the new library, and newish cabins dot the countryside. But if Menifee County is ever going to come into its own, its voters say it's going to need help — and not just directives — from far outside Frenchburg.
Menifee school superintendent Charles Mitchell dislikes the all stick and no carrot approach of No Child Left Behind because "it's a one-size-fits all approach."
Reach Cheryl Truman at (859)231-3202 or 1-800-950-6397, ext. 3202.
Labels: POTUS Barack Obama
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