City Official of the Year...

Well, as if we don't have enough excitement in our lives, Claude was given the honor of being selected by Kentucky League of Cities as the 'City Official of the Year'. 

This award was given at the final brunch of their annual conference. This year it was held in Owensboro, Kentucky. He was nominated by our former City Clerk, Cindy Foster. There was a large group of city officials nominated. A panel reviews all the possibilities and then presents the one name they feel should receive the award. To say Claude was surprised is truly an understatement. He was just blown away by the honor. I happened to have stepped into his office here in our home as he received the phone call and he was totally flabbergasted. 

Cindy has moved to Versailles, Kentucky. I drove to Versailles and picked her up on Friday morning early and we made it to Owensboro for the brunch. Claude had been in Owensboro since Tuesday. 

Wednesday evening, at the big dinner, he was sworn in as 1st Vice President of the Kentucky League of Cities. He was to have been 2nd Vice President this year but ended up filling someone else's term as 1st Vice President. This year will be his actual term as 1st Vice President. Next year he will be the President of Kentucky League of Cities.

Cindy and I had a nice 3 hour drive from Versailles to Owensboro. We found the Convention Center with no problem and met Claude after he finished a meeting. We all enjoyed the nice buffet lunch and then the program began. 

When it came time for the award to be given to Claude, a nice young lawyer from the Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing practice, Claire Parsons, was the presenter. She was given a nice bio of Claude and read that while KLC played a slideshow of pictures of Claude doing things as Mayor of Sadieville.

This picture is of Jon Steiner, CEO of KLC handing the award to Mayor Claude Christensen (1st Vice President of KLC) and Mayor Roddy Harrison (President of KLC & Mayor of Williamsburg). 

This is Claire Parsons with Mayor Claude Christensen. Fun to visit with Claire and learn that she is to have her second child in January. 

This is Cindy Foster, Sadieville's former City Clerk, who nominated Claude for the award.

This is me with a Minion!! I mean really...who had the best time?

And, finally, this is the article in the Georgetown News-Graphic about the award.

We were going to follow Claude out of town and on toward home. However, he stopped for gasoline. So Cindy and I headed on home. It was starting to rain and we knew Claude could find his own way. 

As it turns out, we had an interesting time getting back on the highway to go home. I had printed directions to get to the Convention Center from Google Maps and MapQuest. I had also printed 4 of the maps of the interchanges where we would change parkways. All we had to do was reverse that order. We made it to Hwy 60. But the ramp to get on Hwy 60 was a little difficult to tell in the rain. We turned onto what we thought was the ramp but it was actually the entrance to a Menards that was just before the turn for the ramp to get on Hwy 60. Not a problem, we made a U-turn and then a right turn and were up on Hwy 60. 

I was not sure how long we drove Hwy 60 and had the length of it confused with the William H. Natcher Parkway which was our next highway to drive. We saw a sign for William H. Natcher Parkway but it said it went to Bowling Green and we knew we didn't want to go there. We decided to drive down a little further and see if there was an entrance to the William H. Natcher Parkway going the other direction. Alas, this portion of Hwy 60 was under construction and, not only was there no other entrance to William H. Natcher Parkway, there was no exit to the right from Hwy 60 for some distance due to that construction. After several miles, we found an exit, got off Hwy 60, crossed over Hwy 60 and entered back on to Hwy 60 going back the way we came. 

Again we pass the William H. Natcher Parkway going toward Bowling Green. Cindy felt the one going the way we should be going was further north.  The light bulb came on inside my head and I told her I remembered, when printing the maps, that this Natcher Parkway turned off the other Parkway we had been on and went north for a bit to Owensboro. I told her it might be possible that we did go in the direction of Bowling Green until we picked up the other parkway and it would head east. That made sense. However, Cindy was still sure we should go north a bit more. As we approached where we got off of Hwy 60 to go to the Convention Center originally, I assured her we shouldn't go further north than that, but she thought we should. I told her I would go one exit and if that wasn't right we would turn around again. We went north one exit and then turned around and came back.

Then Cindy figured out while trying to read the maps and think backwards that Owensboro was on the Ohio River. The beginning of the Natcher Parkway was at Owensboro. We did indeed need to take that Natcher exit headed toward Bowling Green and get off it on our next parkway without ever reaching Bowling Green. We made the exit to the William H. Natcher Parkway going south to Bowling Green and all was well. We just drove in the rain back to Versailles.

It was fun having time with Cindy. We miss her in Sadieville. She and Claude worked very well together as Mayor and City Clerk. Grateful she nominated Claude. So very happy he was selected and honored for all the good work he has done and continues to do in Sadieville's behalf.