Bonnie Strassell - Owen County Historical Society

Seven descendants from the Smoot family and one from the Walkers were among the crowd that gathered at the I.O.O.F. Hall Thursday to hear the story of the Walker-Smoot feud. The scheduled speakers, Beth Raisor Jones and Susan Raisor Benton, had to cancel their presentation because of the recent death of their father. But Robert Walker and Lisa Smoot graciously agreed to tell the story according to what had passed down through their respective families.

Music from brass pipes echoed throughout the prop room as the air-powered calliope performed a finale for the Cincinnati Museum Center. It then slowly made its way past security to the loading dock.

Even the younger crowd would have found it difficult to keep up with our “senior” builders as they erected a large picnic pavilion in the backyard of the historical society museum. Under the guidance of foreman Darrel Baker, the expert craftsmen — consisting of Jarl Lee Harris, Jim Acton, Bobby Gibson, Oscar Jacobs, R.C. (Pete) Dawson, and Arthur Kinman — dodged rain and thunderstorms as they erected the structure in a little over a week.

The presentation of “The Kentucky River: Memories, Myths, and Magic” was cancelled April 9 due to the fact that my husband, Tom Strassell, suffered a heart attack. He is on the road to recovery and we will be presenting the program at a future historical society meeting.