Thumbs up to Lea Ann Gollihue for being named an Angel in Adoption by the Congressional Coalition in Adoption Institute. While she is one of 190 local angels to be recognized, we can’t imagine anyone more deserving than Gollihue of national recognition for work on adoption and foster care issues.
Five years ago, Gollihue founded For Jamie’s Sake in Ashland with Mary Ann Clark and Becky Brown to raise awareness and recruit new foster and adoptive families — to help children without homes find what Gollihue calls their “forever family.” Since its creation, For Jamie’s Sake has provided training and support for foster and adoptive parents and been a source for emergency food and furniture needs. Through its Wishing Well program, For Jamie’s Sake tries to grant wishes made by children in the state’s Special Needs Adoption Program, typically the children most difficult to place in homes.
For Jamie’s Sake worked with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services to create a special license plate to promote adoption awareness.
Co-worker Melissa Rymer nominated Gollihue to be an Angel in Adoption. Rymer said she was doing research about adoption on the Internet when information about the Angel in Adoption program “just somehow showed up on my screen. It was a God thing. I started reading and it fit her (Gollihue) to a T.”
U.S Sen. Jim Bunning recommended Gollihue for the national recognition. Gollihue will travel to Washington, D.C. this week with her two children and her mother to receive her award. Her husband, Kentucky State Police Trooper Elliott Gollihue, currently is serving on active duty with the Kentucky National Guard in the Middle East.
Lea Ann Gollihue has a genuine passion For Jamie’s Sake and its work, and it’s that passion that makes her such an effective advocate. She is not one to give up until she achieves her goals.
“Elliott asked me years ago, before we ever opened our doors, ‘How long do you see yourself doing this?” I told him until every child has a forever home or until I’m dead.”
We congratulate Gollihue on a most deserving honor, and yes, that award will help attract public attention to her cause. That’s what Gollihue most wants for her award.
Editorials
Strong advocate — 09/18/09
Lea Ann Gollihue has passion for finding ‘forever families’
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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