Published: November 25, 2009 08:59 am      

Clay County not what some think it to be

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

Clay County’s reputation isn’t what most outsiders think, said Charles House, president of the Clay County Historical Society.

House, a former newspaper editor and biographer, recently returned to his Manchester home. In his capacity with the historical society, he was somewhat inundated by reporters coming from all over.

When news of Sparkman’s death was revealed, “we had reporters here from everywhere,” House said. They wanted “Clay County stories,” he explained.

He compared the most recent reporter barrage with national reporting that has come out of Clay County for many years.

“It’s like the things they’ve done over the last 30 or 40 years with the TV networks. When they have a Clay County story they prepare their script in advance. Then they send their producer here and they find the requisite number of stereotypes to mouth the words for their script. They pose them in the stereotypical setting, usually Pat’s Pool Room. And the story tells itself,” he said.

“Then they go home and everybody’s happy, except for Clay County which has been smeared once again.”

And with each Clay County story its reputation continues to develop, but not in a good light.

“Clay County has this patina that keeps getting a little thicker with each story.” This story, the story of Bill Sparkman, “had legs, it went around the world,” and the rest of the world saw the county through another layer of misunderstanding.

House described Clay as “a mountain county with all the disadvantages of the mountain counties. It’s not that much different from the counties around it, Perry, Breathitt, Leslie, Letcher, Pike. It has built-in stops to progress. It also has the same amount of inducements for people living here that people born in the mountains love and can’t get away from and don’t want to get away from.”

In reality, he admitted, “Clay County is no more different from any other county. It just has a reputation because of the stories that have built upon themselves.”

He cited the fact that there have been no murders in Clay County for the past couple of years. He added, “I don’t think Laurel County can say that, and I don’t remember ever when an outsider came into Clay County and met up with violence.”

House said Clay County’s reputation of being deadly “is ridiculous.”

The Genesis of that reputation came not from recent activities but family feuds in the early days of Clay County. “That’s where it got its reputation. That’s where it started,” he said.

“But as far as somebody coming in from out of county and getting hurt, much less murdered, it’s pretty much unheard of. That’s why nobody around here believed for one second that (Sparkman was murdered). Nobody around here believed it was a census story and I think nobody around here believed it was a Clay County story, had nothing to do with Clay County whatsoever, but we got tainted.”