Kentucky Footnotes

Kentucky Footnotes is Byron Crawford’s third compilation of columns originally published by The Courier-Journal, where he served as the newspaper’s Kentucky Columnist for nearly three decades. His first two books, Crawford’s Journal, published in 1986, and Kentucky Stories, in 1994, have sold thousands of copies and remain popular among lovers of Kentucky lore.The San Francisco Chronicle once described Byron as The Courier-Journal’s “muddy shoes reporter,” and the late Charles Kuralt of CBS News proclaimed him “the best storyteller in Kentucky, if you count only the ones who tell the truth.” In Kentucky Footnotes, readers will find a memorable collection of some of the stories that helped make this Hall of Fame journalist among the most widely-read writers at The Courier-Journal.

Byron Crawford’s television and newspaper stories and photographs about Kentucky’s fascinating people and places have appeared in print and broadcasts from coast to coast and occasionally in Europe and Asia. But his thrice-weekly columns were most at home over the past 29 years in The Courier-Journal, from which he retired as Kentucky Columnist in December 2008.He was the last in a long line of distinguished writers, including the late Hall of Fame journalists Allan Trout and Joe Creason, whose assignments were to roam the Commonwealth from the Big Sandy to the Mississippi, sharing profiles and unique images of Kentucky with readers of the state’s largest newspaper.Before joining The Courier-Journal in 1979, Byron hosted the syndicated traveling television feature series, SideRoads, made popular on WHAS-11 television. He later hosted the Emmy Award-winning weekly KET production, Kentucky Life during its first five seasons.Byron grew up on a farm near Stanford, Kentucky, studied speech and broadcasting Murray State University and spent his early broadcast news career at radio stations WAKY in Louisville, WCKY in Cincinnati and WHAS.Byron and his wife, Jackie, live in Shelbyville. They have four children and eight grandchildren.