Stephen P Ellis For Danville City Commission

09/03/2026

09/03/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 6

You can file this under: The last Thing I Would Ever Expect!
Our Troop went down to Green River lake for some canoeing and conservation work. We were not fully prepared for the fees that they wanted. It was somewhere north of $100.00.

One of the Rangers there said, “No worries, follow me”, and so we did. We went down to a place that seemed almost hidden. It wasn’t a regular Park camping site, and it lay at the end of a narrow road.

As we neared the site a big pickup truck came around the corner at a great speed. It was like that guy was late for something. He about hit the Ranger’s truck and the 3 vehicles we had. The Ranger turned the corner first and a double speed, turned that truck around and about hit us like the other fella did.

We turned the corner and found a roaring campfire! I mean it was taller than we were. We didn’t so much park as stop and begin to tend to this monster fire. Everything stopped as we spent the next several minutes getting a handle on things. Then we made camp and carried on with our weekend.

Never saw that Ranger, or heard whether he caught that fella.

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

09/03/2026

Campaign Trail Notes No.17

Well, it is that time of the year when you mow the grass, cool off and seemingly, go right back out. Anybody who has ever watched grass grow just had to live here. My yard is the same way because it’s too hot to go out right now. I see it as I travel these hot sidewalks and think Autumn surely has to come.

It reminds me that our troop once did a 17-year long good turn. Bruce Crowley had asked whether Robert and I would mow the yard for a woman in our parish. She didn’t have anyone close by, and she didn’t have much money. We were asked two times, and after the second time we felt that this would be a great “Good Turn” for the scouts to do. The garage was open, the mower ready, we would buy the gas.

30 minutes, you are in, you are out. It worked swell that first season. We mowed from April 1st (along with some light clean up) and the last mow was at Thanksgiving (I would swear that yard had an old septic tank under it.). Things went well the first few years, then we ran into a time in which the volunteer didn’t show, or we had a parent that couldn’t find the time to go. A promise made is a debt unpaid. A scout is Trustworthy.

We worked through this. We had a scout do the scheduling, and for a couple it was the first thing they were really responsible for. 17 years, April to November. We had scouts from 4 different counties in our troop then. If you lived out of county you needed to do it at least once during the year.

At our annual December dinner, we handed out recognitions. Some noted things like the time one fella got stung by a bee, another was the time one of our scouts grew concerned because the woman didn’t answer the door and raised enough of a ruckus that a neighbor was called. The neighbor found her on the dining room floor.

We went through 5 mowers. Some were used. A father bought a new mower twice, at two different times. When she passed away, I asked her son that we finish the “Good Deed” until he sold the house. 17 years is a long time. There has been a passel of scouts who’ve cut their teeth on a good turn on a hot summer’s day.

Danville doesn’t need to be reimagined; it needs to be restored.

Stephen P Ellis for Danville City Commission November 3rd, 2026
“Old No.7” on the ballot
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09/02/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 5

Among the many things that make living in a small town memorable is the parades. At 17,000 people it may not feel small, yet when you come from a town of 88,000, 17,000 is practically Crab Orchard size. No, to saunter down Main Street is straight out of Norman Rockwell.

I remember well the Memorial day Parades in Dimondale, Michigan, a village of less than a 1,000 people. The sight of the blue uniformed Civil War soldiers and a complement of US Army soldiers marching from Main Street, across the bridge over the Grand River, and up to the cemetery. I think I still have one to the spent cartridges from the three volley salute.

We’ve seen a few parades here in Danville. Been here long enough to remember a High School Homecoming Parade and a Centre College Homecoming Parade. Those are long gone now. Outside of the recent 250th Celebration of the Declaration of Independence Parade it is mainly the Christmas Parade now.

There was that one Christmas Parade where we started at the far end of Main Street and ended at Centre College. That was the year that Pack 119 decided to join in. They decided to just march and sing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”. The Pack then had about 50 kids in it, and we made a sizable entry.

We started out fairly strong and there was one guy who would shout, “Like a Lightbulb!” at the appropriate moment. We were strong…right up to that are between First Street and Second. The crowds were really beginning to thicken at that point, so much so that people crowded the street.

By the time we hit Second going to Third I realized I was the only one singing, and brother, I can’t sing. I turned around and saw that that large evenly spaced group was now a moving blob of people huddled together. After that there was nothing more to do than pull yourself up and wave and greet people…on one of the longest walks I can remember.

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

09/02/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 4

We first lived in west Danville, on the other side of the tracks. A nice little house on West Walnut. The neighbors were friendly. One fella I met lived on Cowan. I don’t recall his name now, but he drove a white Cadillac on the streets of Danville at a very slow speed. Back then, if there was a traffic tie up, he was probably in front.

He saw us out in the yard and stopped to talk. The next thing I knew, I was up on his second story clearing out his gutters. I was about done when his wife saw what was happening and chased me off while giving her husband a bad time. We still used to visit from time to time. We got into porch sitting in a big way. Didn’t have that in L.A.

He introduced me to another fella who lived down near the end of the road. We wanted to put in a garden, and this fella would come and plow it. That was the year we went to Southern States. We bought plants, they kinda looked all the same. What we thought was cauliflower turned out to be Brussel sprouts. We had quite a crop of Brussel sprouts.

A least the tomatoes and corn were right.

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

09/01/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 3

It’s funny the habits you pick up as you go along. ‘Ol Sam Miller, who travelled with Troop 385 when I was a scout, would be one of only two people I’ve met who has carried a cast iron skillet while backpacking.

Mr. Miller also carried 3 books. He was known to travel by himself out in the desert, so this didn’t seemed to odd. “Why 3?” I asked. “One is for thinking, for a man needs to think, another is some poetry, because life is painted in poetry, and the third, why, that’s something light, something to make you laugh, or at least smile.” He said.

I was already part way there. I had my Handbook and my Fieldbook, and soon enough I found a little volume of Sherlock Holmes to bring along. Today I don’t always take 3 books. I do though always bring my copy of the “Art of the Commonplace” by Wendell Berry. In some way it fills all 3 of Mr. Miller’s criteria.

He’s been something of a traveling companion for a very long time.
I was fortunate to meet Mr. Berry, and cheeky enough to ask for an autograph and a photo. His voice sounded like that of my great uncle Walter Kipp, a farmer in Montcalm County, Michigan. I spent some summers up there and Mr. Berry’s book refreshes those memories.

"Man's only real freedom is to know and faithfully occupy his place— a much humbler place than we have been taught to think—in the order of creation." Wendell Berry

– “Think Little”, page 89 - “The Art of the Commonplace”

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

08/31/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 2
Years ago, when Main Street was redone (yet again), trees were planted. These trees would be different that the ones that preceded them. When we moved here in 1986 Main Street had Bradford Pear trees that were put in during the 1977 Main Street streetscape.

They grew fast, tolerated pollution, and produces striking white spring blossoms. The corner of Walnut and 3rd Street was alive with the sight of Bradford Pears along the Hub parking lot. Those blossoms were sure pretty, but the Bradford has a short lifespan, and storms and ice split them very easily. Pretty doesn’t always last.

In 1993, when the utilities went underground and the sidewalks redone, new trees were brought in, Gingkoes. These were chosen because they handle compacted urban soil and pollution well. By 1996 they were gangly and some compared them to ugly ducklings. They eventually grew past that. One of the quirks of these trees are their ability to shed their leaves all at once, and I got to see that.

Shortly before they were taken out, as part of the, then latest, incarnation of Main Street. I saw it. I happened to come out from doing some research at the courthouse and saw the leaves of the second gingkoe tree from the corner, at 4th and Main, begin to shed some leaves.

I stopped and wanted to witness this happening. First just a few, then the entire tree all at once. Then the one on the corner of 4th and Main did the same thing. This was followed by every tree on Main Street doing the same thing. It was as if a zipper was pulled, one tree, then the next. I looked around, no one seemed to have noticed. Everyone was going about their business. Yet I had just seen something marvelous and all in five minutes time.

I remember the squabbling about those ugly gingkoes, how we were to get male trees and got a mix of male and female. Which caused me to wonder who had the job of sexing trees.

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

08/31/2026

Scenes From a Different Trail No. 1
A very long time ago, in a land and place far far away from here I chased a different dream.
That dream was to tramp the mountains, and to do that I needed to learn every thing I could to be comfortable and overcome the challenges that stood in the way.

I had cut my teeth along the mountains in California. Now out there they don’t have mountains as we have here. Our mountains here are old, theirs are newer, higher, steeper. Out there you know when you hit 9,000 feet because you’ve gone higher than trees grow. And life above tree line is far different than it is in the lower climes.

Kentucky doesn’t have a tree line because its highest peaks are too low and warm to support an alpine zone. California has a rather large number of peaks that get into that Alpine Zone. The Los Angeles Area Council (LAAC) recognized that over 50 years ago. In an effort to prepare both scouts and scouters for the rigors of mountaineering they began issuing “Hike Aids”

Today those bulletins that cover various parts of backcountry travel, have introduced tens of thousands of young people to the necessities of back country travel while having a good time. This has the effect of moving a backpacking trip or a day hike from , “something to do” into something requiring planning and education, and then the good time.

This includes some education into mountaineering medicine. Today they call it wilderness first-aid. From Altitude Sickness to Impacted Stools (yeah, not my favorite) as well as nutrition, and more importantly, your impact on the land from the limited time you are there. Yeah, this is the immersion laboratory for ecology, and not a day trip and a lecture and you go home. You adapt or you go home.

Now it is a time for a different dream. I found my place in this world, and I want that place to be a place that is most comfortable to be in. I am facing the challenges to be able to keep it as that “special place” and that requires something more than rhetoric on issues.

Stephen P. Ellis
Danville City Commission, November 3, 2026
“Old No. 7” on the ballot

08/29/2026

Campaign Trail Notes No.16

Today I wonder how they did it. They as in John Stgall, Gene Royalty, and the many others that brought jobs, in the form of the big factories, to Danville. And if you are the kind who says Gene Royalty was from Harrodsburg, you would be right, but he also had a hand in here as well.

How did they do it? We didn’t have the amenities that we have today, no parks like we have now, no ready made sites for companies, no organized development group like we have now.

Joe Major told me once that when the plant he was brought down from Ohio to run, gave out their first payroll checks, the following Monday about a third of his people didn’t come in. When he asked, one fella said that they, “made more than they thought and took a couple days”

I remember the late 1980’s, it was all about our people, whether we were work-ready or not. There was a concerted effort to keep our young people from leaving and going elsewhere. By the 1990’s that had shifted and now we were talking about how a surprising number of our young people couldn’t pass a drug test.

Truth is, John Stiagll and them didn’t need site prep or amenities. He and his fellows were selling our people. I remember the tax breaks given to Whirlpool when they came. You couldn’t open up the Advocate-Messenger without seeing something about that.

Recently Sazerac bought the bankrupt distillery in Garrard County. That deal really hurt Garrad County, the money they put in. We have a long history of promises not kept. I think about that every time I see that old Cosa Nostra sign still up. Big fight over that, promises were made.
Same with agreeing to put greenery in on a project and reneging (while citing safety).

Attracting business is less about sites and amenities and more about what that business will not be able to keep. I feel for those folks in Economic Development. They have on their shoulders the success of our city. they're trying.

The success in the 1970s and 1980s took years of groundwork. We gotta be getting close, which is why I go on about streets, drains, sewers, water, and the like they are that "hidden" foundation that allows us to become what we want.

Danville doesn’t need to be reimagined; it needs to be restored.

Stephen P Ellis for Danville City Commission November 3rd, 2026
“Old No.7” on the ballot

08/29/2026

Campaign Trail Notes No.15

I put forth that the greatest thing Baden-Powell created was the “Patch”. What’s that you say!? No way! Well, here it is; as a young Lieutenant in India, he asked permission to put, “an insignia on the left arm of every man who passed certain tests. That in the heat of battle he may call upon trained men to carry out an action” He would test his men on finding their way, some first-aid, mapping, and observing. He was granted permission.

He wrote a book, “Aids to Scouting” to accomplish that. That book would, many years later become a handbook for boys (it’s in a Pink Floyd song). Those patches carry meaning far beyond how pretty that might look, and some of the smallest ones represent the most difficult of things to accomplish.

In the early 1970s, those of us into backpacking, began to make, “Brag Rags”. We hung them on the backs of our packs and those behind us could only look at them as they passed the miles. Now this wasn’t pure vanity, no sir, everything you put on your back has to do a number of things. We used them, along with a couple of steel foot-long spikes, as windbreaks for our stoves above tree line, there ain’t always rocks at the top.

They often inspired conversation (and arguments) along the way, they often lay atop the backpack you used as a pillow or wrapped around your boots for the same reason. On one occasion we strained water through one. A silly thing to carry. They attached to you pack with safety pins. I always carried about a dozen safety pins (gotta have safety!), and now they serve a different purpose…memories.

There is one patch on it with a canoe on it. Troop 119 wanted to canoe and chose the Kentucky River, from the old bridge outside of town to High Bridge in Mercer County. This is about 18 miles by water, and with little current. The Kentucky River has little surface current, up near us, due to the locks and dams creating backpressure. Translated into plain English: You are going to have to paddle every bit of it.

And it was warm, almost 90 degrees. The Scout I had up front paddled hard and sang the same verse of one song…for 18-miles, well almost. I quickly learned that he sang hard, he paddled hard. I quit paddling. The other boats saw this (there were 6 boats that trip). Whenever this kid stopped and looked back, my paddle was in the water. Well, you can only sing so long and, by and by, he took off his shoes and laid back with his feet dangling over the front. A kid in the 21st century lazing down a river in Kentucky.

When High Bridge was sighted this kid became a 700 HP Evinrude, singing soooo loud. We hit that landing with a big thump! That kid? He’s a policeman in Lexington now, having returned from St. Louis where he was a policeman. A patch reminds me of a warm day on the river. I see the old brag rag is still working.

Actually, Mike Simpson, we need some time on the river. Or a cave, you still caving, old man?

Stephen P Ellis for Danville City Commission November 3rd, 2026
“Old No.7” on the ballot
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