Support for the Civic Center

Ever notice how easy it is to guarantee freedom of speech if we agree with everything that is said? No one ever gets into trouble when everyone agrees with them. It’s only when the majority disagrees with what’s said that we find out just how committed we are to this guiding principle of our democracy.

Ask Big Kenny Alphin of the Big and Rich show. This group was in Pikeville recently and because of a comment Big Kenny made about mountaintop removal (MTR), the ticket sales for that show were termed “sluggish”.

Okay, a lot of people in Pike County are paying a lot more attention to what performers are saying than I am. Not only was I unaware that Big Kenny had made any comments about MTR, pro or con, I wasn’t even aware of who Big Kenny was, period.

But in an article about the show, certain members of the coal operators various associations declared this to be so. Well, I’ll take their word for it. Big Kenny insulted coal, that is, if saying that mountaintop removal is not the best way to mine coal is insulting. Because that was it and that is a pretty mild insult. Not nearly as searing as the response from a friend of coal who said these comments meant Big Kenny was a moron.

Various officials from the various coal associations did step in, they said, to insure that the Pikeville Civic Center didn’t lose money. That was mighty nice of them, wasn’t it? But the truth is, these same associations do promote over the top responses to anyone who dares oppose them in anyway whatsoever, so this may very well have led to the poor ticket sales to begin with.

Anyway, the idea was to support the Civic Center, wasn’t it? Not too many more tickets were sold, despite the fact that coal supporters encouraged people to come out and see the show, so I guess we have to accept that the people have spoken, voted with their feet, huh? That’s the accepted reason for poor ticket sales.

Of course, even if ticket sales had been far more brisk, that one show would still have left the Civic Center far short of enough money to pay its bills. The truth is, a lot of shows are well-attended but still don’t generate enough revenue.

What would generate enough revenue? Well, a lot of the big city centers sell the right to name certain venues for large sums of money. In Louisville, the Cardinals play at the Yumm Center, that name coming from a corporation that controls some big-name fast food restaurants, including Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut.

But what about Pikeville? Are there any suitors with deep enough pockets to step up and bail out this civic center? Well, there is the coal industry. It is probably the only industry in the area that would have enough money for this.

Except that coal just dropped $7 million to name the new dormitory being built for U. K. basketball players. That’s too bad, too, because we can all see by their reaction to Big Kenny that coal does support our area and the institutions built here to make our life more enjoyable. It’s just that Pikeville wasn’t as uptown as that U. K. project. Otherwise…