Floyd Co. schools closed due to illness

Lu-Ann Farrar - Online Content Manager

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Floyd County schools are closed for the remainder of this week due to illness. Floyd County school Superintendent Henry Webb told the Floyd County Times, "We trust this five-day period will have a positive impact on the situation and we will continue to monitor all available sources of information for student and staff illness and attendance."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced six grant awards totaling $800,000 to fund research into the cause and control of white-nose syndrome, a disease that has now killed more than a million bats in the Northeast and remains unchecked. The Environment News Service reports that the Fish and Wildlife Service provided the grants through the Preventing Extinction program. The service selected recipients from among 41 grant proposals totaling $4.8 million for research into white-nose syndrome. Among the scientists receiving funding is Hazel A. Barton, from Northern Kentucky University, who is studying compounds to stop the fungus associated with white-nose syndrome.

A group collecting money at a road intersection in Morehead did not benefit a local homeless shelter as represented by those taking the money, according to the Morehead News. Those soliciting money said they were from New Life Church of Louisville, but the church denies any relationship to the group.

The New York Times reports about a program to give money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to 15 selected states, Kentucky among them. The foundation was going to give $250,000 to each state to help them write grant proposals to the federal Race to the Top program. The remaining 35 states complained, so the program has been expanded to include "all states that are competing for the money and can prove they share the foundation’s views about education reform by signing an eight-point checklist."

Jeffrey Stone of Georgetown, Ky., is mentioned in Slate's Significant Objects writing contest. The contest challenges writers to take a worthless object and give it value by writing a short story about why it's important. Slate chose a small barbecue-sauce jar with a built-in brush, purchased at a thrift store in Meredith, N.H., for $0.75. Though Stone wasn't a winner, his story drew the attention of Slate: "The death toll of these 600 stories was astonishing. ... Jeffrey Stone of Georgetown, Ky., suggested the jar had been a shaving implement belonging to one Bar Battiste Quirino Sauce, a revolutionary leader in 1920s Italy. Ratted out by a fascist spy, Signore Sauce is executed by firing squad — though not before getting in one last shave."