Kentucky Life

A quaint motel sitting high on a hill overlooking Burkesville in Cumberland County; the stonework of Italian immigrants that can still be seen on schools, churches, and coal company buildings throughout Eastern Kentucky; and the 2001 International Highland Games in Glasgow (KY), featuring a Kentucky bagpiper.

The Gleason family's homemade soap, mustard, jams, jellies, and other products from their Robertson County farm; a visit to a popular state park on Kentucky Lake; and volunteers building a trail on Pine Mountain.

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Overbrook Farm tapestry, which hangs in the University of Kentucky library named in honor of Lexington businessman and philanthropist William T. Young, and a look at the natural scenery of one of Kentucky's favorite state parks as well as the pioneer woman for whom it is named. 

A look at the Kentucky connections of writer Mark Twain and a riverboat trip down the Kentucky section of the Mississippi River, including stops at Fort Jefferson and the New Madrid Bend.

A hike through Blanton Forest, an old-growth forest in Harlan County recently re-opened to the public; a tour of the LaGrange home of Rob Morris, founder of the Order of the Eastern Star; and a look at fall colors in Powell County's Natural Bridge State Park. 

Tsa' Ne' Dos'e (London's Arnold Richardson) carves traditional Iroquois flutes and performs on them. Randy Spencer of Owensboro, an electrical engineer by trade, carves beautiful hiking sticks from sassafras wood. Louisville psychologist Jim Mahanes paints with watercolors.

Fayette County wood sculptor Philip Hultgren specializes in ceremonial mahogany bowls and other large pieces. The Louisville Science Center introduces kids to the science behind how things work. And Chautauqua performer Hasan Davis portrays the true story of Angus Augustus Burleigh, a slave who ran away from an Anderson County farm at age 16 to join the Union Army and fight in the Civil War.

A Louisville couple shows how they make the colorful furniture sold under Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" imprint. Loretta Lynn's brother gives a tour of the family home in Johnson County. And Locust Grove marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of George Rogers Clark with a salute to the history-making Clark family.

Dave Shuffett finds all kinds of uniquely Kentucky delights, including an Appalachian chef, a rodeo team, a jeweler inspired by nature, and some long-timers—a couple still keeping house after 72 years of marriage and a family that has been farming the same land for 150 years. He visits a coal camp, a country music store, the Corvette Museum, and more.

A trip through Central Kentucky aboard a train from the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, a photographer who has traveled an estimated 320,000 miles to photograph students and teachers in Kentucky's 1,400 schools, and an archaeology project in which Earthwatch volunteers inventory and study artifacts found in Mammoth Cave.

The unusual collections at the Cumberland College-operated museum in Williamsburg, a musical Corinth family whose members both make and play instruments, and the quilts of Taylorsville's Jan Darnell. A 2002 KET production hosted by Dave Shuffett.

A small firm in Auburn that carries on a time-honored tradition of making stained glass, an Austrian-born painter who has become a prominent neo-primitive artist, and a family-run park that offers both cave tours and animals and culture from the Australian Outback.

An Owen County printer who hand-sets type and publishes many of Kentucky's most respected authors, a Clark County organization promoting social and economic change for women of Eastern and Central Kentucky, and a Louisville sculptor who had many professions before rediscovering his childhood interest in impressions and casting. 

Writer Harlan Hubbard and his wife, Anna, lived for more than 40 years without electricity—but with plenty of books, music, and art—in an isolated spot near the Ohio River in the Trimble/Campbell County area.

The glass-blowing studio of Michel and Bernie North, woodturner Ron Thomas, and a tour of Mammoth Cave for the truly adventurous.

Visit the 18th-century Frankfort home of U.S. Senator John Brown and Denby Studios in Versailles, where Shaker-style clocks are made by hand.

An Asian cultural center in Louisville, rock-climbing adventures in the Red River Gorge, and swamp scenery from Western Kentucky.

The Lincoln County home of a Kentucky pioneer and "Indian fighter," an artists-in-residence program at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum, and the majestic eagles that inhabit Reelfoot Lake.

Profiles of a photographer who conducts weekend seminars and pilots his ultralight airplane to get aerial shots of national parks and a nationally known wildlife artist/naturalist who lived in Kentucky for many years.

A Louisville businessman who owns one of the largest private collections of horse-drawn carriages in North America; a family business in Cave City that makes ornamental concrete products; and a Lexington-born sculptor, adept in bronze and clay, who is also a master printmaker.

The Behringer-Crawford Museum, the Newport Aquarium, Covington Community Center arts projects, Newport on the Levee, riverboats, and Mainstrasse and other historic neighborhoods in Covington.

As part of the largest exodus of U.S. citizens in American history, Confederate veterans from Kentucky and other states fled to Brazil after the Civil War and established a permanent settlement. Their descendants still dress up in hoop skirts and sing "Dixie"—in Portuguese/Brazilian accents.

An equine artist from Lexington, a Western Kentucky sculptor who works from large stones, and a Scott County museum with an extraordinary collection of silver made by silversmiths on the 18th-century frontier.

Host Dave Shuffett and canine co-star Sadie introduce Christmas segments from around Kentucky, including music and lights from Renfro Valley, toy trains under the Christmas tree at Covington's Behringer-Crawford Museum, and a photo session in which pets get their pictures taken with Santa.