Chapter 3 People & Ideas on the Move pg. 58 - 83 By: Reanna Coggins Dr. Linebarger.
BOOK: Potr ingrevisitednyx.uky.edu/dips/xt76ww76tv0f/data/70131_KY20120424D6NB.pdf2012/04/24 ·...
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D6 | TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2012 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL FEATURES | courier-journal.com/features KY When a business is bad, we tell you. When a business is good, you tell us! The 2012 Torch Awards for Marketplace Ethics The Better Business Bureau serving Louisville, Southern Indiana, and Western Kentucky is proud to present the Torch Awards, recognizing those companies and non-profit organizations whose conduct in the marketplace reflects the highest ethical standards: Integrity. Trust. Honest Competition. Truth in Advertising. Help us shine a light on better business by nominating a company or non-profit organization today! 2012 OFFICIAL TORCH AWARDS NOMINATION FORM The BBB Torch Awards is open to all businesses and non-profit organizations in this BBB’s service area. Nominees must be in good standing with the BBB; however, membership is not required. Businesses may self-nominate. Nomination Submitted by: Name:____________________________________________________________________ Telephone:____________________ Email:_______________________________________ Company/Non-Profit you Want to Nominate: Company:__________________________________________________________________ President’s Name:___________________________________________________________ Address:___________________________________________________________________ City:_____________________ State:__________ Zip:__________ Telephone:________________ Email:_______________________ Reason for nominating:___________________________________ ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ Send nomination to: BBB, Attn: Reanna, 844 South 4th Street, Louisville, KY 40203 Fax: 502-588-0080 To nominate by phone or email, contact Reanna Smith-Hamblin, VP/Communications for the BBB at [email protected] or call 502-588-0043. SPONSORS PARTIAL LIST ACCOUNTING • Budget Business Service • Hemingway & Travelstead ANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINS • Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc. • Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, Inc. AUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISES • Bales Motor Co., Inc. • Collins Auto Group, Inc. • Bob Hook Chevrolet Motor • Neil Huffman Nissan, Inc. BED/BEDDING • Bowles Mattress Co. CARPET & FURNITURE CLEANING • Superior Carpet Cleaning Co. CLEANERS • Stith Tailors & Dry Cleaners DISTILLER • Brown Forman ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS/ SUPPLIES • Payne Electric EXTERMINATOR/PEST CONTROLS • Sturgeon Pest Control FLOOR & WALL COVERINGS • Huber’s Linoleum & Carpet Co. GROCERY • Kroger HEATING/AIR CONDITIONING • Turner Heating/Air Conditioning, Inc. JEWELRY • Gross Diamond Company • Royal Fine Jewelers MOVING & STORAGE • A. Arnold World Class Relocation PUBLISHERS • The Courier-Journal REAL ESTATE • Laverne Heck Realtors • Montgomery Realtors REPLACEMENT WINDOWS • Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc. CJ-0000330426 PONSORS SPONSORS PARTIAL LIST PARTIAL LIST ACCO ACCOUNTING • Budget Business Service • Budget Business Service • Hem ngway & Travelstead l • Hemingway & Travelstead ANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINS ANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINS • Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc. Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc. • Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, nc. • Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, Inc. AUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISES AUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISES Ba es Mot Co Inc • Bales Motor Co Inc BED/B BED/B • Bowle • Bowle ARP CARPET • Super • Super L CLEANE • Stith T • Stith T ST L DISTILL • Brow • Brown 26 G NGS arpet Co. arpet Co. ONING nditioning, Inc. nditioning, Inc. any any A. Ar W C A. Arnold World Class Relocation PUBLI PUBLISHERS • The Courier-Journa • The Courier-Journal L E T REAL ESTATE • Laverne eck Realto • Laverne Heck Realtors • Montgomery Realtors • Montgomery Realtors PLACEMENT WINDOW REPLACEMENT WINDOWS • Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc. • Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc. Boone had served a 20-year sentence as one of the archi- tects of what prosecutors called the largest domestic marijuana-producing ring ever discovered. Marion County, Ky., was its center. Higdon had heard stories about the marijuana outlaws — nicknamed the “Cornbread Mafia” in reports — as a kid growing up in Marion County. Twenty years after Boone’s arrest, Higdon wanted to write a book about the pot syndicate, but he needed Johnny Boone’s cooperation to tell the story. Boone didn’t respond to the note at first, but Higdon kept after him. Eventually Boone became one of Higdon’s main sources for his just-published book, “The Cornbread Mafia,” which Higdon will launch with an event at Carmichael’s Book- store (2720 Frankfort Ave.) at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The book chronicles the development of a multi-state drug ring that federal agents brought down in a series of raids in the mid- to late 1980s, seizing 182 tons of marijuana and arresting 70 rural Ken- tuckians. Boone is a main player in this drama, and one of the most eccentric in a cast of extreme- ly colorful characters. In Hig- don’s telling, the pot growers didn’t go in for subtlety. With meddlesome police officers or recalcitrant business asso- ciates, their preferred commu- nication method usually in- volved aiming a speeding pick- up at the intended recipient. The message was unmistak- able. At the same time, Higdon’s book emphasizes the generally nonviolent nature of the mari- juana trade in Kentucky. He places pot growing in the con- text of Marion County’s history of moonshining, bootlegging and gambling. According to Higdon, the county’s largely Catholic culture tolerated these activities as violations of “man’s law,” not of “God’s law.” “Before Prohibition, you had nine active distilleries in Marion County,” Higdon ex- plained. “Prohibition shuttered all of them. And you had hun- dreds of Catholic families literally with a dozen kids each, and those breadwinners were forced into criminal ac- tivities to support their fam- ilies.” While the men of Marion County may have knowingly violated the law, they weren’t lawless — although that dis- tinction was often lost on mem- bers of the media and other outsiders. “Criminals can still be functional parts of the com- munity,” Higdon said. “They’re taking care of their families and going to church.” As with bootlegging during Prohibition or underage drink- ing during Lebanon’s days in the 1960s and 70s as a nightlife destination, Marion County residents came to regard the marijuana trade as a victim- less crime — and, not inciden- tally, one that gave a huge boost to the local economy. “People were breaking laws, but the people who are the pillars of the community seem (ed) to be siding with the law breakers and not the arbiters of taste and law,” Higdon said in an interview while on a re- cent visit to Louisville. “It leaves one with an understand- ing of the gray areas of a black and white world.” Higdon, an imposing 35- year-old with a big voice and the manner of a born racon- teur, is the son of state Sen. Jimmy Higdon. He was in mid- dle school when Boone got busted. He started working on the book as a graduate student in journalism at Columbia University. After an internship at The Courier-Journal and a stint as a Web editor for The New York Times, Higdon moved back to Marion County to research his book, a pub- lisher’s advance in his pocket. He quickly found that being a local boy didn’t guarantee him access to the outlaws whose stories he wanted to tell. The final chapter of his book recounts his trouble getting anyone to go on the record — his own uncle wouldn’t talk to him. When he asked a woman in her 90s about her family’s connection with Prohibition- era moonshine, she brushed him off. “She literally patted me on the hand and told me, ‘Tell your parents I said hello,’ ” Higdon said. “The children of Prohibition learned really early on that the one thing they had against oppression, against the people who were taking their fathers away in handcuffs, was silence and that silence was a power- ful weapon,” Higdon said. Higdon had a 12-month deadline. The research and writing would take six years. At first, Higdon relied on newspaper clippings, police reports, court documents and Freedom of Information Act requests to start piecing to- gether the story. Eventually, he got some of the principal actors to tell him their side of the story. Even then, the going wasn’t easy. Higdon followed the sto- ry as far as Maine, where he received a death threat from the family of an informant he wanted to interview. In Ken- tucky, he spent a long, humid night interviewing outlaws, only to find the next day that his notes were a soggy, unread- able mess. He faced a sub- poena and possible jail time for information he refused to di- vulge. In 2008, after Higdon won Boone’s trust and got his story, police found a fresh marijuana crop on Boone’s property worth around $5 million. Boone escaped, and remains on the lam. “There’s good outlaws and bad outlaws, there’s good cops and bad cops,” Higdon said. In the book, “I tried to be honest about the moral complexity of how a straight-laced communi- ty could tolerate a giant mari- juana syndicate.” Reporter Matt Frassica can be reached at (502) 582-4502, mfrassi- [email protected], on Face- book or on Twitter as @mattfrassi- ca. BOOK: Pot ring revisited Continued from Page D1 BOOK SIGNING Where: Carmichael’s Bookstore, 2720 Frankfort Ave. When: 7 p.m. Wednesday Cost: Free More information: www. carmichaels bookstore.com “Criminals can still be functional parts of the community. They’re taking care of their families and going to church.” JAMES HIGDON Time: 04-23-2012 19:38 User: mstockwell PubDate: 04-24-2012 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: D6 Color: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black
Transcript of BOOK: Potr ingrevisitednyx.uky.edu/dips/xt76ww76tv0f/data/70131_KY20120424D6NB.pdf2012/04/24 ·...
D6 | TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2012 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL FEATURES | courier-journal.com/features KY
When a business is bad,we tell you.
When a business is good,you tell us!
The 2012 Torch Awards for Marketplace Ethics
The Better Business Bureau serving Louisville, Southern Indiana, andWestern Kentucky is proud to present the Torch Awards, recognizing thosecompanies and non-profit organizations whose conduct in the marketplacereflects the highest ethical standards: Integrity. Trust. Honest Competition.
Truth in Advertising. Help us shine a light on better business bynominating a company or non-profit organization today!
2012 OFFICIAL TORCH AWARDS NOMINATION FORMThe BBB Torch Awards is open to all businesses and non-profit organizations in this BBB’sservice area. Nominees must be in good standing with the BBB; however, membership isnot required. Businesses may self-nominate.
Nomination Submitted by:Name:____________________________________________________________________Telephone:____________________ Email:_______________________________________
Company/Non-Profit you Want to Nominate:Company:__________________________________________________________________President’s Name:___________________________________________________________Address:___________________________________________________________________City:_____________________ State:__________ Zip:__________Telephone:________________ Email:_______________________
Reason for nominating:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Send nomination to:BBB, Attn: Reanna, 844 South 4th Street, Louisville, KY 40203Fax: 502-588-0080To nominate by phone or email, contact Reanna Smith-Hamblin, VP/Communications forthe BBB at [email protected] or call 502-588-0043.
SPONSORSPARTIAL LIST
ACCOUNTING• Budget Business Service• Hemingway & Travelstead
ANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINS• Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc.• Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, Inc.
AUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISES• Bales Motor Co., Inc.• Collins Auto Group, Inc.• Bob Hook Chevrolet Motor• Neil Huffman Nissan, Inc.
BED/BEDDING• Bowles Mattress Co.
CARPET & FURNITURE CLEANING• Superior Carpet Cleaning Co.
CLEANERS• Stith Tailors & Dry Cleaners
DISTILLER• Brown Forman
ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS/SUPPLIES• Payne Electric
EXTERMINATOR/PEST CONTROLS• Sturgeon Pest Control
FLOOR & WALL COVERINGS• Huber’s Linoleum & Carpet Co.
GROCERY• Kroger
HEATING/AIR CONDITIONING• Turner Heating/Air Conditioning, Inc.
JEWELRY• Gross Diamond Company• Royal Fine Jewelers
MOVING & STORAGE• A. Arnold World Class Relocation
PUBLISHERS• The Courier-Journal
REAL ESTATE• Laverne Heck Realtors• Montgomery Realtors
REPLACEMENT WINDOWS• Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc.CJ
-0000330426
SPONSORSSPONSORSPARTIAL LISTPARTIAL LIST
ACCOACCOUNTING• Budget Business Service• Budget Business Service• Hemingway & Travelsteadl t• Hemingway & Travelstead
ANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINSANTIQUE JEWELRY/RARE COINS• Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc.Louisville Numismatic Exchange, Inc.• Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, Inc.• Cherokee Coins and Jewelry, Inc.
AUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISESAUTO/TRUCK DEALERS/FRANCHISES• Bales Motor Co Inc• Bales Motor Co Inc
BED/BBED/B• Bowle• Bowle
CARPCARPET• Super• Super
LECLEANE• Stith T• Stith T
STILDISTILL• Brown• Brown
26
GSNGSarpet Co.arpet Co.
ONINGnditioning, Inc.nditioning, Inc.
anyany
A. Arnold World ClassA. Arnold World Class Relocation
PUBLISPUBLISHERS• The Courier-Journa• The Courier-Journal
L ESTREAL ESTATE• Laverne Heck Realtors• Laverne Heck Realtors• Montgomery Realtors• Montgomery Realtors
PLACEMENT WINDOWREPLACEMENT WINDOWS• Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc.• Champion Window Co. of Louisville, Inc.
Boone had served a 20-yearsentence as one of the archi-tects of what prosecutorscalled the largest domesticmarijuana-producing ring everdiscovered. Marion County,Ky., was its center.
Higdon had heard storiesabout the marijuana outlaws —nicknamed the “CornbreadMafia” in reports — as a kidgrowing up in Marion County.Twenty years after Boone’sarrest, Higdon wanted to writea book about the pot syndicate,but he needed Johnny Boone’scooperation to tell the story.
Boone didn’t respond to thenote at first, but Higdon keptafter him. Eventually Boonebecame one of Higdon’s mainsources for his just-publishedbook, “The Cornbread Mafia,”which Higdon will launch withan event at Carmichael’s Book-store (2720 Frankfort Ave.) at7 p.m. Wednesday.
The book chronicles thedevelopment of a multi-statedrug ring that federal agentsbrought down in a series ofraids in the mid- to late 1980s,seizing 182 tons of marijuanaand arresting 70 rural Ken-tuckians.
Boone is a main player inthis drama, and one of the mosteccentric in a cast of extreme-ly colorful characters. In Hig-don’s telling, the pot growersdidn’t go in for subtlety. Withmeddlesome police officers orrecalcitrant business asso-ciates, their preferred commu-nication method usually in-volved aiming a speeding pick-up at the intended recipient.The message was unmistak-able.
At the same time, Higdon’sbook emphasizes the generallynonviolent nature of the mari-juana trade in Kentucky. Heplaces pot growing in the con-text of Marion County’s historyof moonshining, bootleggingand gambling. According toHigdon, the county’s largely
Catholic culture toleratedthese activities as violations of“man’s law,” not of “God’s law.”
“Before Prohibition, youhad nine active distilleries inMarion County,” Higdon ex-plained. “Prohibition shutteredall of them. And you had hun-dreds of Catholic familiesliterally with a dozen kidseach, and those breadwinnerswere forced into criminal ac-tivities to support their fam-ilies.”
While the men of MarionCounty may have knowinglyviolated the law, they weren’tlawless — although that dis-tinction was often lost on mem-bers of the media and otheroutsiders. “Criminals can stillbe functional parts of the com-munity,” Higdon said. “They’retaking care of their familiesand going to church.”
As with bootlegging duringProhibition or underage drink-ing during Lebanon’s days inthe 1960s and 70s as a nightlifedestination, Marion Countyresidents came to regard themarijuana trade as a victim-less crime — and, not inciden-tally, one that gave a hugeboost to the local economy.
“People were breaking laws,but the people who are thepillars of the community seem(ed) to be siding with the lawbreakers and not the arbitersof taste and law,” Higdon saidin an interview while on a re-cent visit to Louisville. “Itleaves one with an understand-ing of the gray areas of a blackand white world.”
Higdon, an imposing 35-year-old with a big voice and
the manner of a born racon-teur, is the son of state Sen.Jimmy Higdon. He was in mid-dle school when Boone gotbusted. He started working onthe book as a graduate studentin journalism at ColumbiaUniversity. After an internshipat The Courier-Journal and astint as a Web editor for TheNew York Times, Higdonmoved back to Marion Countyto research his book, a pub-lisher’s advance in his pocket.
He quickly found that beinga local boy didn’t guaranteehim access to the outlawswhose stories he wanted to tell.
The final chapter of his bookrecounts his trouble gettinganyone to go on the record —his own uncle wouldn’t talk tohim. When he asked a womanin her 90s about her family’sconnection with Prohibition-era moonshine, she brushedhim off.
“She literally patted me onthe hand and told me, ‘Tellyour parents I said hello,’ ”Higdon said.
“The children of Prohibitionlearned really early on that theone thing they had againstoppression, against the peoplewho were taking their fathers
away in handcuffs, was silenceand that silence was a power-ful weapon,” Higdon said.
Higdon had a 12-monthdeadline. The research andwriting would take six years.At first, Higdon relied onnewspaper clippings, policereports, court documents andFreedom of Information Actrequests to start piecing to-gether the story.
Eventually, he got some ofthe principal actors to tell himtheir side of the story.
Even then, the going wasn’teasy. Higdon followed the sto-ry as far as Maine, where hereceived a death threat fromthe family of an informant hewanted to interview. In Ken-tucky, he spent a long, humidnight interviewing outlaws,only to find the next day thathis notes were a soggy, unread-able mess. He faced a sub-poena and possible jail time forinformation he refused to di-vulge.
In 2008, after Higdon wonBoone’s trust and got his story,police found a fresh marijuanacrop on Boone’s propertyworth around $5 million. Booneescaped, and remains on thelam.
“There’s good outlaws andbad outlaws, there’s good copsand bad cops,” Higdon said. Inthe book, “I tried to be honestabout the moral complexity ofhow a straight-laced communi-ty could tolerate a giant mari-juana syndicate.”
Reporter Matt Frassica can bereached at (502) 582-4502, [email protected], on Face-book or on Twitter as @mattfrassi-ca.
BOOK: Pot ring revisitedContinued from Page D1
BOOK SIGNINGWhere:Carmichael’s Bookstore,2720 Frankfort Ave.When: 7 p.m. WednesdayCost: FreeMoreinformation:www.carmichaelsbookstore.com
“Criminals can stillbe functional parts ofthe community.They’re taking careof their families andgoing to church.”JAMES HIGDON
Time: 04-23-2012 19:38 User: mstockwell PubDate: 04-24-2012 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: D 6 Color: CyanMagentaYellowBlack
