Carroll Fiscal Court to award community college $10,000

JCC Carrollton never really failed from Day One

Heartfelt words and blunt realities forge Amanda Johnston's world

Carroll Fiscal Court to award community college $10,000

Elected leaders in Carroll County will express their support for Carrollton's community college campus on Tuesday with the awarding of a check for $10,000, according to a news release.

Carroll Fiscal Court is scheduled to present the check at the Carroll County Campus of Jefferson Community College in downtown Carrollton at 10 a.m. The 15-year-old campus is in the preliminary stages of seeking funds for a new campus, the release said.

The court members voted in November to award the money as a gesture of support for the community college, which has an enrollment of 600 students and trains hundreds more in business, industry and literacy programs.

The downtown campus currently is located in a three-story building that is at full capacity. Some of the college's classes also are held at other locations such as the Carroll County High School. Long-range plans include building a new campus developed solely for college classes that will accommodate the college's total enrollment, the release said.

The Madison Courier
January 27, 2005

JCC Carrollton never really failed from Day One

Dennis Goff remembers pounding nails into wooden boards to install the walls for classrooms in the old Carrollton movie theater where the Sears store stands today.

Then, a small branch campus for the Jefferson Community College in Carrollton was beginning.

On Tuesday, the campus, which in 1990 moved to a much larger building in downtown Carrollton, looked toward yet another phase of expansion.

In front of a crowd of regional government officials, and local education supporters, the Carroll County Fiscal Court presented the college with a $10,000 check to be used as seed money to expand its outreach programs. College officials thanked the region for its outpouring of support.

“This community has a tremendous future,” said Dr. Tony Newberry, president of Jefferson Community College, who accepted the check. “This donation is so significant.”

Locals who have dreamed to see the campus expand into a full-blown college campus were also met with optimism.

“The Carrollton campus is right at the top of the capital proposal for JCC (for expansion),” Newberry said. “It’s official.”

Funding for the project, however, is contingent on the success of capital requests from the General Assembly.

“We need to make some sound,” said Carroll County Judge-Executive Harold Tomlinson, asking the community to contact legislators to lobby for funds. “They will hear us in Frankfort.”

Newberry said that the support the community has already shown the college, including an $800,000 fundraising effort from the Carrollton College Education Foundation to buy the building the college currently occupies, is an example of the community’s commitment to education.

“The enrollment at this campus is just booming,” he said. “The Carrollton campus never really failed from day one.”

Tomlinson said that county government is working on locating property that could be used to build a new campus once funding is acquired. The current building, he said, has long-been overgrown.

Parking has also become an increasing problem at the school. JCC Carrollton officials said that every time the Ohio River floods, half of the school’s parking space is covered.

As the school continues to grow, Tomlinson urged the community to continue to show its dedication to the project.

“It’s something we as a community — we as a region — need to take on together,” he said.

The News-Enterprise
January 27, 2005

Heartfelt words and blunt realities forge Amanda Johnston's world

The decorations in her office at the library at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College fit her style.

A poster of the Dalai Lama hangs peacefully on the wall. Books sit neatly in a row, and her computer has an active e-mail screen pulled up. Letters hang on the back of the door.

Some of them are happy; others, not so much.

Among the bits and pieces of correspondence are a group of rejections. They can be a dismal reminder of failure to some, but to Amanda Johnston, "Every rejection letter is confirmation that someone new has read my poetry."

Johnston, 27, is a performance poet, writer and social activist. She has an a engaging personality, with clear, dark eyes behind black glasses that can be serious and intense, but also warm and honest. Her voice is strong and her diction clear, as would be expected of a performance poet, and she has a firm sense of where she is from, and even more so of where she is going.

Despite the rejections littering her door, Johnston has learned more and more about acceptance in just the past few years. Since her start with the Writer's Roundtable at ECTC four years ago and through performing her poetry at various readings, she has earned honors from around the country, and not just for her poetry.

For two years, she has been awarded Artist Enrichment Grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to assist her poetry study. She has worked with poets in New York and this year attended the Cave Canem Summer Retreat in Pennsylvania. She has been appointed to the board of directors for the Kentucky Women's Alliance and the board of directors for the Kentucky Women Writer's Conference.

Recently, she placed third at an all-star poetry slam in Louisville and received second- and third-place honors from poetry slams in her hometown of Austin, Texas. She also has taught poetry workshops and will be teaching a continuing education poetry class at ECTC this spring.

In June, she was afforded an especially notable honor. She was invited to join the Affrilachian Poets, a group of about 10 black poets who share a regional perspective.

"It's an extreme honor," she said. "I'm touched to belong here — to bring my whole self and be welcomed."

Poetry, for Johnston, is not so much an exercise as a way of life. A native of Austin, she moved to Hardin County in 2000 "for love," when her husband, Fabian, a former soldier, was transferred to Fort Knox. She got a job at ECTC, where she joined the Writer's Roundtable, and since then, she has been writing.

"Poetry is a powerful way to say a message," she said. "I find my most meaningful work when it touches someone who is not a big fan of poetry. That's what moves me to write — telling the story of those who don't have a voice."

Writing from the heart is what is most important to Johnston, and at times her writing is marked by blunt reality. She uses whatever words are necessary in order to tell her story and gets support from other poets to tell her story as it is. Her social commentary is also heavily influenced by her family, including her husband and daughters Zayna, 10, and Ahyana, 3.

"They are the world — they are my world," she said. "The girls inspire me. I write about them."

But Fabian is the subject for what Johnston considers one of her most powerful poems.

"Not My Husband" is a critical look at war. In it, Johnston muses about what might happen if Fabian, a former soldier, were sent into harm's way. While she talks about him joining the Army "looking for work and maybe some college money," the poem is not just about the American perspective of the conflict.

"It's trying to rejuvenate a sense of humanity," Johnston said. "It's so easy to break everything into us and them. They're still human beings — their lives aren't to be lost lightly. You can't forget they have loved ones, too."

In another poem, "Miz Cassidy's Vision," Johnston writes about an experience she had at a writer's workshop in Lexington. The group was mostly women with two men in a small room. The only people of color were Johnston and the older woman preparing the food.

"It's discussing that even in modern times the disconnect in racial relations and how we fit in," she said.

Johnston explores guilt she felt to be writing while she is being waited upon, but concludes that she is doing things and living a life that Miz Cassidy, and so many others, fought to give blacks.

"I have this sense of responsibility," she said. "(She is saying) ‘You are the future this generation hoped for — creating poetry, not in the kitchen.' The living generation has a responsibility to go in these fields."

Johnston's words have strength on paper, but even more so when read aloud.

"Performing brings what you've written to life," she said. "I find the overall effect is you can connect with other people on another level."

She is well appreciated by both fellow poets and workers.

"It's a treat to hear her performance," said Lauri Mackellar, Johnston's co-worker and fellow member of the roundtable. "I've been very impressed. She gets grants and makes the whole college look good."

Johnston also received praise from Mick Kennedy, an assistant professor of arts and humanities at ECTC and editor of the Heartland Review, ECTC's arts magazine.

"I think her talent is continuing to emerge, in my view," he said. "From a critical standpoint, she's continuing to develop and improve."

Johnston intends to maintain her focus on social matters. Everything is political, she said, and she is an activist.

"Everyone should accept that title," she said. "When you vote, in conversation, when you are creating that dialogue."

It is especially heartening for her to see young people become involved and aware of the world around them. "Young people need to know that they can be a part of it," she said.

Writing socially is something that Johnston said she will do "until her hands fall off." But it is a responsibility to tell the truth and be accurate with the message.

"We are living in a time of smoke and mirrors," she said. "We need to get back to saying what we really mean."