STATE
Entrepreneurs Receive Awards for Innovation

In recognition of entrepreneurs who have demonstrated extraordinary success in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities, Ernst & Young has selected seven individuals as winners of the Kentucky/Southern Indiana 1999 Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Recipients of this year’s awards are:

Wholesale/Distribution -- Kenneth Berry, president and owner of Bluefin Seafoods, Inc. of Louisville, a wholesaler that supplies 40,000 pounds of seafood each week to restaurants in Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati and Indianapolis.

Young Entrepreneur -- Dennis Crum, president of APB Energy, Inc., a Louisville energy brokerage firm with a staff of 100 that works with buyers and sellers of natural gas and electricity.

Manufacturing/Consumer Products -- J.D. Hamilton, president and CEO of Mas-Hamilton Group, a Lexington manufacturer of electronic safety locks used by banking and cash-handling industries. The company now employs 160 people and has offices worldwide.

Supporter -- Robert L. Ogden, president of Ogden & Associates, Inc., an investment banking firm in Louisville that specializes in financing for privately-held, fast-growing concerns. Ogden is also the founder of the Venture Club of Louisville, which partners investors and entrepreneurs needing money for future growth.

Technology/Communications -- Steve Smith, president and CEO of Axxis, Inc., who took a small audiovisual rental company and built it into a company that now specializes in designing and developing advanced communications systems and networks for corporate and institutional clients. Between its offices in Louisville, Richmond, Indiana and Cincinnati, Axxis employs 150 people who handle a $4 million inventory of equipment.

Emerging -- Jim Strozdas, president and CEO of Quality Communications, Inc., a Louisville-based telecommunications consulting firm that employs 100 people and has offices in Chicago, Dallas and Tampa.

Services -- Alva Ray Sullivan, president and CEO of Sullivan College System, which now includes three colleges (Sullivan College, which offers training in the fields of business and hospitality; Spencerian College, which trains students in business and healthcare, and the Louisville Technical Institute, which provides training in interior design and high-tech areas). The system operates with a staff of more than 650 and has an enrollment in excess of 3,000.

1999 award recipients are eligible for Ernst & Young’s national competition, with national winners being announced in November. John Schnatter, founder of the Louisville-based Papa John’s pizza chain, was the 1998 national winner in the retail division and was the first national award recipient to come from the Kentucky program.

Mary Lou Marzian, a state representative from Louisville, was one of 10 women recently honored in Washington, D.C. with the second annual Good Housekeeping Award for Women in Government. The award recognizes individuals who "have improved the lives of others through personal integrity and dedication to public service." Marzian was elected to the General Assembly from the thirty-fourth district in 1994.

Marzian was lauded for her efforts to push legislation regarding women’s health and income and her efforts to pass a law giving nurse practitioners the right to prescribe medicine.

Entrepreneurs looking to pursue additional training, technical assistance and loans may find a few more doors open to them through Community Ventures Corporation (CVC), a Lexington-based non-profit organization that has been awarded $900,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration to assist businesses in 12 rural Kentucky counties. The program’s loans are specifically designed to assist existing businesses that are unable to get loans from a bank but have strong business plans and potential for growth.

Some $350,000 of the funding is targeted for CVC’s first satellite office, which opened last year in Danville to serve Boyle, Garrard, Lincoln and Mercer counties. Another $350,000 is slated for the new Campbellsville office, which opened just last month, serving Adair, Casey, Green, Hart, Larue, Marion, Taylor and Washington counties.

"The [Campbellsville] area has lost a lot of industry," said CVC President and CEO Kevin Smith. "Although revitalization efforts have begun, there’s still a great need for economic development and a lot of opportunity for small business owners in the region."

The remaining monies will be used to continue business training and lending assistance to "non-bankable" business owners in Anderson, Bourbon, Clark, Estill, Fayette, Franklin, Harrison, Jessamine, Nicholas, Madison, Powell, Scott and Woodford counties.

Since CVC began four years ago, more than $1.2 million in loans have been made to business owners, resulting in 21 new businesses and the expansion of 156 existing businesses. Recent statistics indicate that in the first six months of 1999, 57 percent of CVC’s business loan clients were African American; 64 percent were women.

A listing compiled and published by U.S. News & World Report names three Kentucky hospitals as being among the nation’s top healthcare facilities.

The University of Kentucky was rated as being 28th in urology and 47th in gynecology, with the Markey Cancer Center ranking 17th in the country in terms of cancer treatment. Louisville’s Jewish Hospital was rated as being 33rd in respiratory disorders and 49th in neurology and neurosurgery. The University of Louisville Hospital’s rheumatology department was ranked 36th.

To be eligible for the rankings, hospitals had to first meet at least one of the following standards: membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, affiliation with a medical school or have at least nine items of medical technology from a list of 17. The rankings were based on a hospital’s overall score, which was based on the hospital’s reputation, mortality rate and other data such as technology and nursing care. In producing the listings, U.S. News & World Report surveyed 2,400 board-certified specialists (chosen at random from the American Medical Associations’ database of 684,000 physicians) who were asked to name the five hospitals they considered the best in their specialty, without regard to location or expense.

Covington-based Omnicare Inc., a leader in the field of geriatric pharmaceuticals, has announced plans to streamline company operations through a "productivity and consolidation" program that is expected to result in an annualized savings of approximately $46 million by December 2000. With that, however, will come the elimination of some 1,700 full- and part-time positions from Omnicare’s workforce of approximately 11,500 employees.

The personnel reductions are expected to take place over the next 18 months and Omnicare officials say that the company will make use of normal attrition and transfers to other locations, when possible. Employees whose jobs are cut will be offered severance packages.

As a part of the productivity initiative, Omnicare’s roster of pharmacies and other operating locations will be reconfigured through consolidations, relocations, the creation of nine new sites and the closing of approximately 20 sites. Upon completion of the plan, the company will have 140 pharmacy units, 23 global contract research sites and two software development and marketing operations.

Over the last decade, Omnicare has pursued an aggressive growth strategy that has involved 85 pharmacy acquisitions.

"To gain maximum benefit from our acquisition program and to respond to recent changes in the healthcare industry, we have identified synergies which make it possible to generate greater economies of scale," explained Joel Gemunder, president of Omnicare.

Omnicare currently serves some 617,000 residents in more than 86,000 long-term care facilities in 43 states.

Lumber giant Weyerhauser Company has announced that it will acquire MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. in a stock transaction valued at approximately $2.45 billion. Among MacMillan Bloedel’s assets is its Henderson paper mill, which recycles corrugated boxes to produce linerboard, a paper product used to manufacture new boxes. The Henderson plant, opened in 1995, is MacMillan Bloedel’s newest paper mill and currently employs approximately 90 people.

Though MacMillan Bloedel is involved in various aspects of forest products, the company had reported losses in its packaging business over the last year and was reportedly considering getting out of that segment of the market. Weyerhauser, on the other hand, was looking to expand its packaging business and the location of MacMillan Bloedel’s packaging plants made a merger even more attractive, as MacMillan’s plants are actually closer to the Weyerhauser manufacturing plants (which includes a facility in Bowling Green) than Weyerhauser’s own mills.

Weyerhauser is already the world’s largest producer of softwood lumber and market pulp and the second largest manufacturer of oriented strand board (OSB), an alternative to plywood. The acquisition with MacMillan Bloedel makes Weyerhauser one of the top three producers of packaging solutions.

The deal has garnered unanimous support from both boards of directors and is expected to close this fall, subject to normal regulatory approvals in the U.S. and Canada (where MacMillan Bloedel is based) and court approval in Canada. The transaction also requires approval of MacMillan Bloedel shareholders.

MOUNT VERNON
Federal Grant to Help Fund New Manufacturing Facility

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a $461,854 grant to Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation, which plans to use the funds to help finance a new manufacturing plant in Mount Vernon.

Kentucky Highlands plans to use the majority of the funds, which are part of the 1999 Rural Housing and Economic Development Grant Program, to purchase an equity interest in Integrity Mold & Die, Ltd., a small company that specializes in molds and machine tools for the food industry. The investment company then plans to borrow additional monies to construct a new 24,000-square-foot facility in the Rockcastle County Industrial Park. More than $3 million has already been secured for the project.

Approximately $100,000 of the grant will be set aside for an apprenticeship program at Integrity.

As a result of the grant award, Integrity will add 13 new positions, which will pay between $35,000 and $45,000 per year. The company currently employs 15.

LG&E Energy Corp. has acquired CRC Holdings Corp., the parent company of CRC-Evans Pipeline International, Inc., the world’s leading provider of specialized equipment and services used in the construction and rehabilitation of gas and oil transmission pipelines. LG&E purchased the Houston-based company, which has approximately 500 employees worldwide, for $83.5 million in cash and assumed debt.

LG&E’s Chairman and CEO Roger Hale noted that the acquisition was "consistent with our strategic goal of acquiring energy-related companies" and added that CRC-Evans is expected to "continue growing as the demand for...pipelines around the world escalates."

CRC-Evans supplies equipment for purchase and rental and provides other services to major pipeline construction contractors, but does not perform actual pipeline construction. The company and its predecessors have been leaders in the specialized pipeline construction equipment industry since 1933.

CRC-Evans, which will remain in Houston, will operate as a subsidiary of LG&E Capital Corp., the umbrella company of LG&E Energy’s non-regulated businesses. CRC-Evans also has manufacturing and maintenance operations in Tulsa, Oklahoma and sales offices in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada.

Dr. Jeffrey Okeson, professor and director of the Orofacial Pain Center at the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, and Dr. David Nash, former dean and professor at UK are among 25 dental professionals named as "visionaries in American dentistry" by the American Student Dental Association. The dentists are listed in the summer edition of Dentistry99, the quarterly journal of the American Student Dental Association.

Nash is cited for his work in laying the groundwork for the philosophy that "dental education must become more integrated with medicine and the wider healthcare community."

Okeson established the Orofacial Pain Center at UK, one of only three graduate orofacial pain programs in the country. The clinic opened in 1977 as a training program for graduate dentists and was established as a master’s program in 1993. It was the first graduate training program in orofacial pain to receive national accreditation by the National Accrediting Organization.

LEXINGTON
The Red Mile Suspends Simulcasting, 25 Workers Laid Off as a Result

Faced with a system that track officials say was resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars, The Red Mile has suspended simulcasting and laid off 25 workers at the harness racing track.

State law dictates that The Red Mile is required to hand over half of its handle to other harness tracks in Kentucky that are racing live while The Red Mile is simulcasting. Although The Red Mile estimates that it would lose as much as $175,000 by simulcasting during live meets held at Thunder Ridge in Prestonsburg and Bluegrass Downs in Paducah, the Kentucky Racing Commission has refused to become involved in the matter. Red Mile officials had appealed to the Racing Commission to allow them to withhold payments from the other tracks, maintaining that they did not qualify for the host track designation.

In a trifecta for economic development, state officials have approved $27 million in tax incentives that will allow three Louisville companies to add 1,300 jobs.

The largest project, with 1,000 jobs, involves the expansion of First Select Corp., a credit card services company that is a subsidiary of Providian Financial. San Francisco-based Providian, one of the 10 largest bank card issuers in the nation, established a banking operations center in Kentucky in 1995, when it was a division of the former Providian Corporation, then headquartered in Louisville. Average annual salaries for the new jobs will fall in the $32,000 range, according to company officials.

Tube Turns Technologies, located in Louisville’s West End, is planning a new 180,000-square-foot addition to its plant on West Broadway. The new addition will result in the addition of 180 new jobs (the company currently employs 220 people) at an average wage of $14.50 an hour. The company manufacturers forge parts for the automotive, construction and truck markets.

Agora Interactive, a young company that has been in business only since 1996, plans to expand its workforce ten-fold, adding 161 workers as it increases its manufacturing system of interactive video and audio systems. Salaries for the new jobs will average around $37,000 per year.

Hillerich & Bradsby Co. Inc., the internationally-known manufacturer of Louisville Slugger baseball bats, has licensed its trademarked name to new line of sports drinks.

The sports drinks are being produced by National Beverage Corp. of Fort Lauderdale and sold through Walgreen’s Drug Stores in Louisville and in test markets in Miami, New Orleans and Philadelphia. Retailing for $1.39 for a 20-ounce size, the "Louisville Slugger" beverages come in a baseball bat-shaped bottle with simulated wood-grain packaging.

In addition, the company is reportedly seeking purchase of or merger with another noted name in baseball equipment, Rawlings Sporting Goods Company. Rawlings, a St. Louis-based publicly-traded company with $170 million in reported revenues, is the larger company of the two, but Hillerich & Bradsby is more profitable, according to local stock analysts. Rawlings’ earnings have been declining, affected by a high debt load, according to The St. Louis Business Journal. Only four shareholders, all investment or management companies, hold 48 percent of its stock, a situation that could make a merger relatively easy to manage.

Rawlings has retained BancBoston Robertson Stephens as its investment banker to explore its "strategic alternatives."

LOUISVILLE
U of L’s New Engineering Degree Designed to Help Student/Employees

The University of Louisville will be offering a new bachelor of science in engineering science degree that is designed to help students who are already employed in full- or part-time jobs and also meet the needs of employers hoping to retain and help workers who are studying toward their college degrees.

The new engineering evening courses are open to students who qualify from area industries and offers concentration in general engineering and environmental engineering. (More specialized degrees from UofL’s engineering school -- the Speed Scientific School -- require day classes.)

Evening courses in the initial offering this fall include calculus (analysis), computer algebra, engineering graphics and orientation to college. The deadline for admissions is August 16, with classes beginning August 23.

For additional information on the program, contact Joe Pierce, director of engineering evening programs, at 502/852-4415 or via e-mail at joe.pierce@louisville.edu. To apply for admission to the new evening program, contact Speed School’s academic advising office at 502/852-6100.

ASHLAND

• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has approved a five-year, $300 million contract with AEI Resources, Inc. to buy up to 12 million tons of Kentucky coal.

BARDSTOWN

• To mark the new millennium, Heaven Hill Distilleries has released a single-barrel bourbon named after Evan Williams, Kentucky’s first distiller, who brought his whiskey-making art to America from Wales in the 1780s. The Evan Williams Millennium Single Barrel Vintage Reserve is a one-time-only bottling and will be available only from September through December 1999.

BENTON

• The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $1 million in funding to acquire land for Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge, the only major bottomland hardwood area remaining in Kentucky. The funding request, which must now be considered by the Senate, was put forth by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, a member of the appropriations committee.

CAMPBELLSVILLE

• Campbellsville University is the recipient of a $2 million federal grant that will go towards the development of a new technology training center. The 10,000-square-foot technology training center, scheduled to be operational by next fall, will focus on occupational training in industrial technology, entrepreneurship and small business ownership, and accelerated computer operations. The center is being built in partnership with The Center for Rural Development, city and county governments, local school districts and economic development organizations. The university has also received an anonymous gift of $40,000 in honor of Dr. Ralph and Laura Tesseneer, former employees of the university. The gift will be used for general scholarship endowment.

CLAY CITY

• Daugherty Petroleum has sold its 80 percent stake in Red River Hardwoods to H&S Lumber, Inc., a saw mill and lumber company that operates in Clay City. Clay City is also the site of Red River’s manufacturing facility. Daugherty CEO William Daugherty said the sale of Red River was pursued to help reduce the company’s operating losses and will permit his company to concentrate on its energy-related business.

COVINGTON

• Ashland Inc. has said it is reviewing its role as 58 percent-owner in Arch Coal, Inc., a St.-Louis-based coal company that has seen its earnings decline over the last year as a result of weak coal prices. In announcing the review plans at an analysts meeting in Atlanta, Ashland CEO Paul Chellgren said his company is looking at "the strategic goals of Ashland and of Arch in order to enhance the prospects for each to achieve more focused and company-specific business objectives...".

ELIZABETHTOWN

• Copperweld Corporation has completed construction on its new plant in Elizabethtown, where it is now accepting orders for stainless steel tubing products. Copperweld is North America’s largest manufacturer of mechanical and structural steel tubing.

FRANKFORT

• The Frankfort City Commission has voted in favor of an ordinance that will increase taxes for landlords who collect more than $100,000 in rent and eliminate an exemption that allows constitutional officers to avoid paying occupational taxes on their government paychecks. The move was part of an ordinance increasing Frankfort’s occupational taxes from one percent to 1.75 percent. A second reading, which is required for final passage of the ordinance, is scheduled for January 1.

• State officials have announced that approximately $5.8 million in unclaimed lottery prizes has been transferred to the Kentucky Housing Corp.’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The funds will be used to build, buy or rehabilitate housing and to provide money for emergency rent and mortgage payments to help prevent people from becoming homeless.

GRAND RIVERS

• In a vote of 152-99, employees of Vulcan Materials’ Reed Quarry have voted against joining the International Union of Operating Engineers. The effort to unionize gained only six votes over the last tally, which took place in October 1997. Vulcan is the nation’s leading producer of construction aggregates and is a major producer of other construction materials.

HARLAN

• Faced with changes in the healthcare system that were resulting in increasing difficulties, Mountain Heritage Hospice has merged with the larger Hospice of the Bluegrass, which serves some 500 patients across 23 Kentucky counties. Mountain Heritage, which last year served 104 patients, will remain in Harlan but will now be able to expand its bereavement and community education programs as a result of the merger.

HAWESVILLE

• Southwire Co. has cut nine administrative jobs at its aluminum smelter near Hawesville and two positions at its Hancock County rod mill as part of a companywide restructuring that primarily affects jobs at the company’s headquarters in Carrollton, Georgia. Of the nine Hawesville jobs, five involved persons who elected to take the company’s early retirement offer. The remaining employees received severance packages and assistance locating new jobs, say company officials.

HENDERSON

• Accuride Corporation, which ranks as North America’s largest manufacturer and supplier of wheels for heavy/medium trucks and trailers, has acquired 49 percent of Accuride de Mexico (AdM) from Industria Automotriz S.A. de C.V. (IaSa) for $7.3 million. AdM is a joint venture formed in 1997 between Accuride and IaSa to service the growing Latin American wheel market. The acquisition gives Accuride 100 percent control of AdM.

HOPKINSVILLE

• Phelps Dodge Corporation, which operates mining and manufacturing facilities in 28 countries around the world, has announced that is closing the Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire plant in Hopkinsville as part of a companywide restructuring. Company officials say the plans involve consolidating Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire, Phelps Dodge International Corporation and Phelps Dodge High Performance Conductors into one wire and cable group in order to better support global customers. The restructuring will eliminate 670 jobs total, approximately 315 of which are in Hopkinsville.

LEXINGTON

• James T. Nash Builders, Inc. was named as the 1999 Small Business of the Year by the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce. Finalists included Central Kentucky Research Associates, Inc., the area’s first independent clinical drug research facility, and Hands On Originals, the parent company of a diverse group of businesses whose primary products include custom screenprinting and embroidery, custom signs, banners and displays.

• Long John Silver’s has donated more than $882,000 to 170 CMN Champions-affiliated childrens’ hospitals across the country. The funds were raised from employee contributions and various promotions offered through the restaurant chain during the past year.

• The Mighty Wurlitzer-Theatre Organ Project, Inc., a non-profit, volunteer corporation established to restore and maintain the historic Kentucky Theatre’s original Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ, has been named as an official project of Save America’s Treasures, a public-private partnership between the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The organization is dedicated to the preservation of the nation’s irreplaceable historic and cultural treasures.

• Former Governor Wallace Wilkinson has launched a new internet company specializing in college-related merchandise. Ecampus.com is a spin-off of Wallace’s College Book Co., Wallace’s Lexington-based business that ranks as the nation’s third-largest college textbook seller, and will include an auction area, new and used textbooks, electronics, computers, office supplies, music, gifts and campus-related merchandise.

• UB’s Restaurant Group, a Lexington-based company that operates the Uncle Bud’s Catfish, Chicken and Such restaurants, is converting its restaurants in Georgia and Kentucky to Aunt Vera’s Restaurants, a newly-developed concept that will offer a broader selection of Southern-style dishes. UB’s operates restaurants in Lexington and Elizabethtown.

• Employee Benefits Services Corporation and Benefit Plans of Kentucky have merged to form Employee Benefit Services of Kentucky (EBS), a brokerage firm that represents clientele to insurance companies and investment firms and markets and services employee and executive benefit packages.

• Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospitals has given $2 million to the University of Kentucky to establish an endowed chair and two endowed professorships in neurorehabilitation, focusing on traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury rehabilitation. The gift, which will be matched by the Research Challenge Trust Fund that Gov. Paul Patton and the General Assembly established last year, will be used to support the chair and professorships. Both Cardinal Hill and UK will be involved in the selection of candidates and the research.

• Fazoli’s has been ranked number 84 in Nation’s Restaurant News’ Top 100 Report, an analytical tool that helps define which chain concepts and market segments are prospering and where consumers are spending their dining-out dollars. The Lexington-based chain made its biggest leap in growth in sales per restaurant, moving from number 67 last year to the ninth position.

LONDON

• London was recently recognized by Southern Business and Development magazine as one of the top "small markets" in the region for its efforts in recruiting large-scale industry to the Laurel County area. London was cited for attracting the Renaissance BankCard Services call center, which could produce up to 500 jobs. The magazine also cited Union City, Tennessee; Ada, Oklahoma and Anderson, South Carolina.

LOUISVILLE

• Carter Media Management, Inc. has been acquired by Iron Mountain Incorporated, a Boston-based company that operates more than 300 records and information management services centers, servicing 70,000 accounts.

• john conti Coffee Co. Inc. has finalized the purchase of Tri-County Coffee & Supply, an Illinois company that provides john conti with approximately 220 coffee service accounts in Northern Illinois. The acquisition represents john conti’s sixth buyout in the last five years. Terms of the Tri-County deal have not been disclosed.

• ResCare, Inc. has been awarded the National Job Corps Association’s Member of the Year award. ResCare has been a contractor for the federally-funded Job Corps program since 1976 and currently operates 15 Job Corps centers, including the nation’s largest Job Corps center in Morganfield, Kentucky.

• MSX International, Inc., a Michigan-based provider of engineering, staffing and business services, has opened an office in Louisville on New LaGrange Road. MSX established the new office to support the needs of the automotive industry and other businesses in and around Kentucky.

• Louisville companies Corvus Digital Solutions, Inc. and Emerge LLC have merged to form one of the largest, single-source Internet and multimedia development companies in the region. Corvus develops, market and sells interactive training software and customized business and communication solutions. Prior to the merger, Emerge was a privately-held information technology firm specializing in Internet and Extranet design and development. The combined company, which will go under the name of Corvus Digital Solutions, now employs a staff of 35.

• In a survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, LG&E Energy Corp. received the top score in the nation in terms of residential customer satisfaction. The survey compared the Top 118 electric utilities nationwide serving over 81 million residential customers, representing 90 percent of the households in the United States.

• The first wave of job cuts at Louisville’s Philip Morris cigarette plant has resulted in the elimination of 320 hourly workers. Of those, 55 employees left voluntarily and 242 retired. Approximately 1,000 workers remain at the plant, which is slated to close by the end of next year.

• Shareholders of Churchill Downs have approved amending the corporate articles to allow the issuance of 50 million shares of stock. Prior to shareholder approval the company was issuing 20 million shares for trade.

NICHOLASVILLE

• Biotechnology firm Alltech Inc. USA has invested $4.3 million in its new 42,000-square-foot bioscience center in Dunboyne, Ireland. In addition to its Nicholasville headquarters, the company also has a facility in England.

NORTHERN KENTUCKY

• COMAIR, Inc. set a single-day boarding record on Friday, May 28, with 24,460 customer boardings.

OWENSBORO

• In an effort to compete with giant grocery chains like Kroger and Wal-Mart, Wyndall’s Enterprises, which operates six Foodland supermarkets in Owensboro, has purchased the city’s three Wetzel’s stores. Terms of the sale have not been disclosed.

PADUCAH

• Business increased nearly 30 percent at Barkley Regional Airport in June as a result of drastic cuts in airfares by Northwest Airlink and Trans World Express. Both airlines reduced ticket prices in May by an average of 50 to 75 percent to encourage passengers to fly their airlines rather than driving to larger airports such as Nashville and utilizing other air carriers. The price cuts brought ticket prices to within $20-40 dollars of those offered out of Nashville.

PARIS

• CFM Majestic Inc. has announced its intentions to acquire the assets of Monessen Hearth Systems, Inc., a Paris-based company that ranks as one of the largest manufacturers of vent-free fireplaces in the country. Monessen, which employs 164 people, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of CFM and will produce the company’s higher-end lines. The transaction is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

VERSAILLES

• Kentucky Equine Research, a Versailles-based consultation and product development company that specializes in equine nutrition, has opened an office in Melbourne, Australia to service the horse feed industry in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

WESTERN KENTUCKY

• A four percent rate reduction promised to residential customers of Kenergy Corp., the newly-formed company resulting from the merger between Henderson Union Electric Cooperative Corp. and Green River Electric Corp., has been nixed by state regulators. The state’s Public Service Commission reasoned that if Kenergy offered the rate cut to the majority of its 48,000 residential customers, it must also offer it to its industrial customers. Kenergy officials say the company can’t afford to offer across-the-board cuts, but will continue to search for a way to reduce the residential rates as promised.

WHITESBURG