GILBERTSVILLE – The Kentucky Sheriffs’ Boys and Girls Ranch is looking to make some improvements to its facilities in the coming months, and area Unions are stepping up to do their part.
Representatives from the Paducah Laborers Local No. 1214, Plumbers and Steamfitters Local No. 184 and Painters Local No. 500 visited the ranch on Thursday with gifts in tow. The locals each donated $500 – for $1,500 total – to go toward ongoing expenses of the camp.
Marshall County District 3 Commissioner Rick Cocke said those Union contributions had proven invaluable to the ranch.
“These guys … the men and women of organized labor, they’re always good neighbors in our community,” Cocke said. “When they’re called upon, they always answer the bell.”
However, it’s not the first time organized labor has stepped in to assist with the ranch’s needs. Area Union halls have been contributing labor and funding for about the last three years. Among those projects were resealing and resurfacing the basketball and tennis courts, as well as completing repair and maintenance work on the swimming pool and clearing fallen trees and debris from the area.
Alton Cunningham, former business manager for Painters Local No. 500 and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 91, said members were always willing to step in and help where needed.
“We just kind of ask them, ‘what’s your needs? Is there something that you’d like to get done and maybe you can’t, or don’t have the manpower and time?’” Cunningham said. “They’ll suggest some things, and we’ll bring it up at a meeting. Say, ‘Here’s what they need. Let’s go up and help out as best we can.’”
Cunningham said members select several nonprofit groups throughout the area to contribute as part of community outreach efforts. The Sheriff’s Ranch, he said, provided a good service and members enjoyed helping as they could.
“It’s just a great opportunity for kids across the state to come out and participate in activities and events that they probably wouldn’t get the opportunity to,” Cunningham said. “That gives us a good feeling to know that we’ve helped in just some small way.”
Ranch staff are grateful for the assistance, according to Assistant Camp Director Tracy Powell. The camp is a nonprofit organization; funds to maintain operations are typically generated through various fundraisers held by state law enforcement and public donations. Powell said general expenses – not including special projects such as repair work or renovation – to run the camp for a year were about $500,000.
“Maybe a little more,” Powell said. “If we had to roofs or we had to do something special, it could be more. … Most of our repairs, upkeep, all that goes on during the offseason.”
Powell said each year, the ranch hosts about 600 children each year, and nearly all 120 counties have participated through use, fundraising or other means since its inception in 1975. Campers arrive on Sunday and stay for a week to experience traditional summer camp activities such as arts and crafts, swimming and fishing. In addition, local law enforcement will come host various programs, such as drug awareness. Boys and girls alternate weeks, so that one week boys from across the region attend and the next week girls attend; so it goes from about mid-June through the end of July. This year’s sessions begin Sunday, June 11.
Powell said the camp is free to all campers ages 8-11, and those who attend are chosen by county sheriffs.
“It’s designed for children from low-income homes, but we don’t turn a child away,” Powell said. “ … We’ll have like 15-20 counties every week, but we allot so many boys from each county and the next week so many girls from different counties. We just rotate them throughout the summer.”
Marshall County Sheriff Kevin Byars said each sheriff goes through his or her own selection process; for Byars, he said each year he consults the school resource centers when considering who he selects to attend the ranch.
“Who’s better to know who those kids are,” he said. “They get it out that those applications are there, and they can come by the sheriff’s office and pick up applications as well. Since I’ve been in office, we’ve averaged anywhere from 12-15 boys and girls every time we bring some. It used to be two or three is all that would come, now … I’ve got a van full, we’ll put it that way.”
Not only does the effort serve to provide kids who might not have a chance to experience summer camp with the opportunity to do so, Byars said it also helps foster positive relationships with law enforcement.
“We want the kids to know that we’re a positive, and if they’re ever in need they come find us. That way they won’t be scared of us,” Byars said. “… This is a positive experience with law enforcement and sheriffs and deputy sheriffs across the state. It gives these kids a chance to come and be a kid, because sometimes they may not come from a situation that they have to be a kid. Unfortunately, we’ve got kids of this age that have to grow up awfully fast and don’t get the chance to be a kid. This gives them the opportunity to do that at absolutely no cost to them.”
It’s a different take on what the camp was initially designed to be: a juvenile corrections facility. Byars, who is also a board member for the Kentucky Association of Sheriffs, said the area began as a construction camp for those working to build Kentucky Dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It then became a juvenile corrections facility until it closed. Byars said former sheriff Jerry English and a colleague Joe Eaton worked to implement the vision of the ranch into what it is today.
The camp comes with a great deal of history, but with that age comes the need for renovation. Powell said the bunkhouse, in particular, needed repairs and was the top priority on a project that would have to be completed in phases due to funding needs. The kitchen and dining area would need to be addressed shortly thereafter.
Byars said the board intended to demolish the existing bunkhouse – which he said came from Picwick Dam when it was built more than 80 years ago – and construct three 50-bed housing units in its place. Cost estimates for that phase of renovation, he said, were about $350,000 to complete.
“There’s not really any timeline, because the funding is the issue because we are a nonprofit,” Byars said. “What we get in is to run the camp of course. Everything here needs to be upgraded, we’ll just have to take it a step at a time.”
For more information about the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association Boys and Girls Ranch, follow it here on Facebook. To learn more about donating to the ranch, Kentucky residents may contact their local sheriff’s department or contact the ranch staff at 270-362-8660. Those in Marshall County may also call 270-527-3112.