Latest news with #PikeCounty
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Waverly plumbing company marks 30 years with ribbon cutting, celebration
WAVERLY — Jeff & Jenny's Plumbing & Contracting celebrated the grand opening of its new location on July 11, marking 30 years of service to Pike County and southern Ohio, according to an announcement. The event, organized by the Pike County Chamber of Commerce, brought together family, friends, employees, community members, local business leaders and Chamber board members. After remarks from Chamber representatives and Waverly Mayor Richard Henderson, Jeff and Jenny Horsley cut the ceremonial ribbon, welcoming attendees to enjoy an afternoon of food, games and entertainment. Chamber President Brad Bapst praised the Horsleys' dedication to Pike County. 'This milestone is a testament to the dedication, skill, and commitment the Horsley family has poured into this business for the past 30 years,' Bapst said. 'We are proud to support this next chapter as they invest in their future. We're excited to see what the next chapter holds for them.' Jeff & Jenny's Plumbing & Contracting offers a variety of services for residential and commercial clients, including general plumbing repairs and installation, water and sewer lines, water heater services, complete home remodels and roofing repairs. The new location is at 301 W. Emmitt Ave. in Waverly. More information can be found at This story was created by Jane Imbody, jimbody@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Jeff & Jenny's celebrates 30 years with new Waverly location Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
28-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Listening to Voters in Kentucky
To the Editor: In 'My Journey Deep in the Heart of Trump Country' (Opinion guest essay, June 15), Arlie Russell Hochschild introduces readers to Kentucky's Pike County, where citizens are worried about losing the 'best and brightest.' As a university professor in Chicago, I have met the best and the brightest from places like Pike County, who decided to stay in Chicago after graduation. They appreciate the racial and ethnic diversity, and the job opportunities that rely on the talents they have acquired, not only those inherited from their families. They stay because they believe they will have fewer barriers to selecting their future partners and encounter more varied people and opportunities than if they stayed home. It has been a pleasure to see the enthusiasm, open-mindedness and entrepreneurial vigor of the young adults of the Pike Counties of the U.S., and I wish them every happiness, no matter where their lives lead them. Clara OrbanChicago To the Editor: After visiting Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District, the nation's whitest and third poorest, Arlie Russell Hochschild concludes that 'Mr. Trump's support isn't fading.' Ms. Hochschild also notes that according to a March poll, only 27 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Democrats. This dire picture needs to be tempered by a dose of reality. Nationwide, 48 percent of voters cast ballots for Kamala Harris, who had become the Democratic candidate only a few months before, while Donald Trump had been campaigning since 2020. Even in this deeply red district, nearly one in five voters favored Ms. Harris in 2024. The poll showing 27 percent support for Democrats also needs to be squared with the election results from November. One possibility is that many do not approve of the Democrats because they are not doing enough to stand up to President Trump and the Republicans. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
09-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
My Journey Deep in the Heart of Trump Country
Supported by 'We're losing our best and brightest,' Roger Ford, the 58-year-old president of an energy startup, told me sadly one day as we ambled through a hillside cemetery brightened by graveside flowers. 'Too many young people are leaving these mountains looking for jobs in cities, and too many of the ones who stay behind have been caught in an opioid epidemic.' Mr. Ford has lived here in Kentucky's Pike County all his life. Around us lay the graves of his ancestors, proud locals all. His great-grandfathers on both sides fought in the Civil War, and uncles and cousins fought in World War I and II. As the native-born leave the mountains, few immigrants venture in. So as Mr. Ford and I entered a small, empty church nearby, a question seemed to hang in the air: In years to come, who will run the region's restaurants, gas stations and start-ups, plow its gardens, and honor its dead? On the Greasy Creek Elementary School Facebook page, Mr. Ford describes himself as 'Kentuckian by birth, Southern by the grace of God, Freemason and Shriner.' He is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-police, pro-wall and anti-tax, and told me 'God sent Donald Trump.' And many thought God had. In the 2024 election, 81 percent of Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District — the whitest and third poorest in the nation — voted with Mr. Ford for Donald Trump. Once full of New Deal Democrats, the region had suffered losses that its people felt modern Democrats didn't care about or address. During World War I and II, the 'black gold' dug out of their mountains fed industrial America. Then the coal mines closed, and the drug crisis crept in. In 2016, Mr. Trump's answer to these losses took the form of policy promises and a story. Many of the policies he promised never panned out. As James Browning, a thoughtful drug counselor and grandson of a coal miner killed in a mining accident, recalled, he never brought back coal or 'great, new jobs.' He did 'nothing about drugs.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
05-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
From Carbon To Soil: Why Climate Farmers Are Rethinking Offsets
An aerial view shows a farmer driving a tractor through the barren peach tree orchard at the Gregg ... More Farms in Concord, Georgia, on July 12, 2023, after Pike County's peach crop failed to survive the frost and frigid temperatures that hit the area in mid to late March. From a distance, everything seems normal. Well-aligned peach trees, whose green leaves stir in the wind, near a pretty little American farm. But the winter was abnormally mild, causing the peach blossoms to hatch early in the season. Then in March, temperatures dropped below zero, far too cold for the delicate buds. Three days of frost were enough to kill an entire crop. This year, about 90 percent of the crop in the state has been lost, according to experts, who warn that this will happen more and more often because of global warming. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) Climate Farmers, an early architect of Europe's soil carbon credit system, has surprised the regenerative agriculture world by walking away from carbon markets. 'We're stepping away from the carbon markets,' said Ivo Degn, cofounder of Climate Farmers in an interview, 'not because the mission was wrong, but because the market wasn't built to support regeneration.' Their move comes at a moment of reckoning for the global food system. With increasing climate volatility and financial stress on farmers, regenerative agriculture has emerged as one of the most promising—yet misunderstood—paths forward. According to a recent study by the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture (EARA) though, the science is catching up with the promise. EARA's research, covering 78 regenerative farms across 14 European countries, shows these farms outperforming their conventional peers across productivity, resilience, and input efficiency. The long-held belief that high-input, chemical-heavy agriculture is the only way to feed Europe, let alone the world, is being seriously challenged, but just in theory but with data. But if regenerative agriculture is proving both more productive and more sustainable, why isn't it being better supported, especially by the carbon markets? Degn believes the problem isn't with paying farmers for ecological outcomes—it's with how soil carbon is modelled, measured, and monetized. 'The best possible science when it comes to soil carbon is not great,' he said. Most current models account for only the top 30 centimeters of soil and ignore root exudates—key compounds that feed microbial life and drive soil regeneration. This blind spot isn't just technical—it's foundational. 'We don't actually have outcomes,' Degn noted. 'We have outcomes via practices.' Many protocols simulate results rather than measure actual change. Even direct soil sampling is unreliable, as carbon levels swing with rainfall. 'A farmer can implement the best regenerative methods for five years,' Degn explained, 'but if those years include prolonged drought, they'll appear to have failed.' This creates a system where not only is there is a disconnect between farmer action and payment, but where farmers are penalized not for bad practice, but bad weather. Degn added, 'So we had to ask ourselves: Are we adapting the system to reality—or distorting reality to fit the system?' Other players, like Soil Capital, have also worked to bring rigor and credibility to soil carbon finance but already eschew the carbon markets as a key route for farmer finance. Their model pays European farmers annually from within the food and beverage value chain based on verified improvements in soil health and emissions reductions. But even they acknowledge the limitations of carbon-centric approaches, especially across diverse landscapes and farm systems. While carbon markets have expanded in infrastructure—complete with registries, verifiers, and certification protocols—they still rely on models that struggle to capture the complexity of soil ecosystems. The issue isn't the science itself, but the oversimplified assumptions and limited datasets these systems are built on. And for many regenerative pioneers, the gap between promise and proof is too wide to bridge with offsets alone. Climate Farmers helped develop Europe's first internationally approved soil carbon methodology, and collaborated across the industry to push for higher standards. But the carbon market, Degn says, rewards scale over regeneration. 'Integrity comes at too high a cost. The higher the bar for credibility, the fewer the projects that can meet it.' Rather than building a business that works on paper but fails in practice, Climate Farmers is shifting focus. He adds, 'This isn't an exit. It's a shift in how we approach financing regenerative agriculture. But until the market evolves, we'd rather focus our energy elsewhere than build a business that works on paper but fails in practice.' Soil is more than a medium for crops, it is the living infrastructure of our food, water, and climate systems. Around 95% of all food production depends on healthy soil, yet more than half of the world's agricultural land is degraded. According to recently published Howden research for the European Commission, this could lead to €60 billion in annual losses by 2025, rising to €90 billion by 2050. Nature risk is now material. PwC has estimated that over 50% of global market capitalization is exposed to material risks due to 'moderate' or 'high' nature dependency. S&P Global reports that 85% of the world's largest companies have direct operational links to ecosystems. This issue transcends agriculture—it is a systemic risk. Degn argues that farmers are willing to lead the transition—if the system stops penalizing them for complexity. 'Farmers are ready. They want to do the right thing. But everything around them—subsidies, regulations, finance, supply chains, culture—makes it harder.' Instead, he calls for a systems-level redesign: policies that reward complexity, not punish it; finance that de-risks transition; and metrics that reflect what truly matters—not just what's easy to count. Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, agrees that financing of regenerative land use practices is critical, though she argues that carbon markets are not the appropriate means of finance. She says, 'At its core, the voluntary carbon market model is conceptually flawed. Most carbon credits are purchased as offsets, to compensate for ongoing emissions elsewhere, and the entire system rests on the fiction that multi-gas/pollutant emissions in one place can be 'neutralized' by carbon-only removals or avoidance elsewhere.' She also points to systemic flaws: 'Many credits are for projects that are neither additional nor permanent — and are often structurally designed to exaggerate impact, reward over-crediting, and obscure accountability. The result is a system that allows continued growth in GHG emissions while producing minimal, and often perverse, environmental and social outcomes.' Sachs argues that the voluntary market absorbs scarce financial and political capital that should instead fund strategic public financing frameworks saying, 'Projects are shaped by and for a patchwork of developers, brokers, and platforms that extract value but rarely deliver systemic impact.' Degn and his team are now focused on ecological metrics that reflect real outcomes. In the realm of public payments, Degn points to the EARA proposal to base outcome-based payments on simple but robust satellite metrics - combining proxy assessments of whole year photosynthesis, with whole year soil cover and whole year plant diversity as one promising direction. These metrics are simple, scalable, and better aligned with the ecological goals of regenerative agriculture. They also reduce the need for invasive, expensive, and often inaccurate carbon quantification methods. 'Soil must be covered, with living roots as much as possible,' said Degn. 'Photosynthesis is a pretty good proxy for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and water retention. It's also easier to monitor and far less bureaucratic.' The idea is currently being tested in a study in partnership with EIT Food, launched on the 3rd of June, and could even form the basis for the next generation of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Degn remains committed to performance-based payments—but with better tools. Degn adds, 'We just learned that carbon markets are an imperfect tool. But this could be one that works.' The voluntary carbon market, currently valued at just $2 billion, is not only undersized—it's fundamentally misaligned with the scale and nature of the transformation needed. Built for isolated interventions, it can't support something as foundational and interconnected as soil. Soil isn't just about carbon—it's the base of water, climate, and biodiversity resilience. Trying to commodify it in fragments misses the point. As Lisa Sachs argues, we need public investment strategies that fund whole-system regeneration—not more accounting tricks. Regenerative agriculture doesn't fit in a carbon credit box., rather it demands bold, landscape-level coordination. At the same time, such bold landscape restoration is impossible without farmers. They manage the land, steward the ecosystems, and carry the risk. That means we must find ways to fund regeneration at the granular, farm level—while aligning with larger ecological goals. Climate Farmers' shift isn't a step back—it's a step forward. If we want real climate solutions, we have to fund what truly matters, even when it's hard to measure. The message is clear: regeneration over offsets, soil over simulations. It's time to build financial systems as interconnected, and as ambitious, as the ecosystems we're trying to restore.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
From science to skilled trades, Fluor-BWXT backs student futures
PIKETON — Fluor-BWXT awarded $26,000 in scholarships to 15 graduating seniors in Pike, Scioto, Ross and Jackson counties this year. According to an announcement, more than 100 students applied for the STEAM scholarship, which supports those pursuing college degrees in science-related fields. 'The level of leadership and success represented among this year's applicants made this an extremely hard decision for our scholarship committee,' said Fluor-BWXT President and CEO Greg Wilkett. 'It is truly impressive to see the talent in our community and FBP is proud to be a part of their journey towards a STEAM-related career.' In addition to the $2,000 STEAM scholarships, the inaugural $1,000 FBP Trade scholarships were awarded to students ready to further their education for a career in the trades. Chillicothe High School's Shaneah Foraker and Unioto High School's Grace McBee were awarded FBP STEAM scholarships. Carson Henneberger, of Huntington High School, received the FBP Trades scholarship. Waverly High School's Kylee Newland, Western High School's Kameron Janes, and Eastern High School's Audrey Nolen and Xane Runyon were among this year's 11 STEAM scholarship recipients. Eastern's Riley McCoy was presented one of four FBP Trade Scholarships. Since 2011, FBP has awarded $338,000 in scholarships to students in southern Ohio. This story was created by Jane Imbody, jimbody@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at or share your thoughts at with our News Automation and AI team. This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Fluor-BWXT awards $26K in scholarships to southern Ohio seniors
