Coming up on Kentucky Life... Let's go square dancing.

Come along as I try my hand at the longest running community-sponsored square dance in the state.

We'll take you to the RiverBOaT Rumble, where some of Kentucky's best students face off against others in a battle of robots.

We'll explore the setting for this week's show, Nolin Lake State Park.

And we'll take you to Winchester to learn the story of a newly revived soft drink that a century ago led to the creation of a Kentucky staple.

All that's next on Kentucky Life.

[music playing] Hey, everybody, and welcome to Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston.

This entire season of Kentucky Life is being spent celebrating the 100th anniversary of the state park system here in the Commonwealth, and our travels today bring us to this amazing site.

Welcome to Nolin Lake State Park.

This gorgeous body of water and the park are located on the northern perimeter of Mammoth Cave National Park.

The lake is stocked with bass, walleye, catfish, and crappie.

And the park offers bird watchers a chance to see everything from the great blue heron to the bald eagle.

We'll check it all out here shortly.

But first, the square dance is a tradition known all across America.

And in a tiny town in Eastern Kentucky, a community center claims the title of the longest running community-sponsored square dance in the state.

It's called the Carcassonne Square Dance, and it brings together people near and far for a night of food, fellowship, and do-si-dos.

And in one of the most intimidating things that I've done in a long time, I grabbed a partner and tried my hand at this American tradition.

[music playing] Mike, thanks so much for having us here today.

This has been a lot of fun already.

It's wonderful having you all here.

So, the history of this building, tell us about what this used to be and how it became a community center.

Well, as early as 1920, there were no high schools in this area.

If a kid wanted to go on past eighth grade, they had to move off or they had to walk to a neighboring high school, which could be as far as 10 miles away, or either that or go live with family.

So, my grandfather said, my grandmother said, we need a high school in the area.

And he was fortunate enough to get a job building a road to the top of the mountain, which has a story of its own.

But he took the money from that, bought a sawmill, and cut down his own trees.

The community came in and helped.

He sawed the lumber, and they built the first building here in 1923.

So, let's look at the square dance.

This is billed as the longest-running square dance in Kentucky.

How did that really start off?

And why do you think it's gone on for so long?

We need two more adjectives in there.

Which are?

Longest running, continuous, community-sponsored square dance in the state of Kentucky.

And possibly even in the USA.

We've been saying that for some time now.

And nobody's told you otherwise.

Nobody's told us otherwise, so we're gonna keep saying that until somebody proves us wrong.

Square dances were held if you had a working, if you had a barn raising, if you built a house, or if just everybody got together and helped to hoe your corn.

Then at the end of that, the ladies would fix a meal, and the gentlemen would come in and wash up, and they would scoot all the furniture to one side of the biggest room and sometimes even out into the yard.

And they would square dance, and local musicians would play.

So then, the dances just kind of caught on and never really stopped here, is that right?

Never did.

They started, I think, in about 1966.

The building was incorporated as the Carcassonne Community Center Incorporated in 1969.

And the only change that we moved in recent council meetings is we've become a 501(c)(3) public charity.

But even though the dances in this building started in the 60s, again, as you said, the history goes way back.

The history goes way back.

You know, if you have friends in for working of any kind, you have to provide some entertainment for them.

And dancing is the name of the game here, which is why I can admit I was scared to death the first time I walked into the building.

My square-dancing career had ended in Mrs. Basham's fifth-grade class back at Carrick Elementary School.

But the great folks at Carcassonne immediately showed me some basic steps so I'd be up to speed.

You're standing there with your partner.

You're holding hands with your partner.

And I'll call for a do-si-do, and the gent stands still, and the lady walks all the way around in front, and then back to where she started.

So, that's a do-si-do.

The way it'll work is we would have just been coming out of a figure.

We would've got done dancing a figure, been circling left, and then the call's gonna be do-si-do.

You swing mine, and I'll swing yours.

And then we come back around through.

Oh, we're swinging.

Wait a minute.

[laughs] Hang on, hang on.

I was still thinking she was doing all the work through there.

And so it was time to start.

Here's where I quickly realized the Carcassonne crew were quite possibly some of the nicest people I'd ever met.

They were so welcoming and showing me the ropes and just making sure everyone had a good time.

So, I twirled, spun, and I even do-si-doed a little bit.

My dance partner for part of the night was 78-year-old Rose Ballard from Harrison, Ohio.

Once a month, she drives the nearly eight hours round trip to Carcassonne to be part of the excitement.

Why do you travel all the way from Ohio for this?

I love the music here.

I love the people.

I love this building.

If you walk in and look at the old stoves, it takes me back to a time in childhood that don't exist anymore.

You and I had fun dancing in there, didn't we?

Oh my god, you want to go do it again?

Let's do it again.

I think you're ready to go again.

But you loved that music, and you loved to dance, don't you?

Yes.

That is just a funny place, and you're not going to forget it.

Why is it good for Carcassonne?

Why is it that this is good for the community here?

Well, you said community, and we believe that you can't build community without unity.

And it holds us together.

Anybody who moves away from here, they have that tie that brings them back.

If they come back in and the Carcassonne Square Dance is happening that night, they try their best to make it to it.

But we enjoy teaching and sharing our history.

It's who we are, and it's who we've been.

[music playing] The Kentucky chapter of FIRST Robotics gives students the opportunity to build, operate, and compete with their own creations.

Competitions are held on the state, national, and international levels.

And during what's considered the off-season for the team at Louisville's Central High School, groups from across Kentucky, Indiana, and other states assemble their machines to face off in the RiverBOaT Rumble.

Drivers behind the line.

Three, two, one... FIRST Robotics events are like a sportings event, science fair, and concert, all in one.

I just love the experience.

It's just a great way to use my passion for engineering and, like, an actual sport.

It's a way to show off the work that we're so proud of.

You know, it's not really about the competition.

We call it the hardest fun you'll ever have.

You know, you finish this robot that, even if it didn't do well, you know, it runs, and it does certain things that you didn't think it could ever do.

I think hockey is a really apt comparison in which the, it's a fast pace, it's moving quick.

Sometimes there's some hits along the way.

Today, we've got the RiverBOaT Rumble going on.

Teams from Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Ohio, all here to compete with their robots that they've built from January to now.

Each alliance, you have three teams, and it is usually red alliance and blue alliance.

The three teams are trying to work together to score as most points as possible compared to the other three teams.

While the teams are competing against each other, they also work together throughout, and that's embedded in how the competition works.

We have a word that we use at FIRST called coopertition, because your opponent in one match may be your alliance partner in the next match.

So, it's embedded in that way, but it's also just the culture of FIRST to support the competition and to help everybody.

Every year, there's a different game.

This year, you have to pick up these rings and put them in either high goals or low goals.

And there's a lot of defenses involved.

You can block some other goals.

At the end, if you can climb up a chain, then you get extra points, for instance.

So, you got to build a robot to do multiple things.

This is the first time we've held one of these things in Louisville, and I've done robotic competitions here in this building before, but not one like this.

This is the big one.

There is not a FIRST Robotics Competition qualifying event here in the state of Kentucky.

We only have 19.

Our teams were very young.

Indiana has 65 teams.

So, what we're hoping to accomplish here with this off-season event and with this partnership is just growth across both states.

This is a way in which we can have an event here in the state.

Central High School just made sense as a location because Louisville is central.

We have three teams around here, and this is the only team affiliated with the high school.

It's our host team, Louisville Centrons.

Well, we started off with one little robot in 2015.

We have developed, we've gotten other robots, and other facilities.

We have this maker space that we build.

This is a really good opportunity for Central High School to showcase its robotics program.

To put it on at the public school level is very hard.

It takes a lot of good funding.

We have a lot of great people behind us, but it also takes kids that are willing to not have a success right away, that they've gotta go through the process of learning and experimenting, and there's some failure, and then you gotta pick up from that and handle the adversity.

It takes a village to build a robot.

You need everybody to be involved.

You got some people building the robot, some people programming it, and some people just watching videos and learning how to drive.

It's a lot of teamwork and team efforts.

But it's really just making sure everyone can rely on each other so we don't end up running into problems where one person is only doing this, doesn't get help, and the mechanism ends up failing.

So, I've been in it since fourth grade, and when I got to high school, it was like, "I really wanna do this again," and then they had the FRC, which was completely different from what I've ever done.

It was a lot more creative thinking, less boundaries on what you can and couldn't do.

I really wanted to be involved more in the robotics team than just sitting on the sidelines and helping out where I can.

I actually wanna be there.

The best thing about FIRST is the challenge.

A lot of our kids, there's not a playbook to how they have to live their lives or what they should do, and they have to figure it out, and they have to figure out the right way.

And we do that in the robotics as well.

7516 has planned a little bit of defense in the Red Alliance zone.

A lot of our alumni go to the Speed School of Engineering at Louisville.

We started with a trickle about sending more students to engineering school, but then, I mean, like last year, we sent 15 kids off to engineering school, and we got a big group going this year also.

They've gone on to work in robotics firms, electrical companies, and programming.

That's really what teaching's all about.

You know, I want the best for them, and so I hope to lay that foundation here for them.

During a competition day, I usually either do pit crew or I'm going up two matches to assist the driver with the laptop and the controller, making sure the robot is all ready to go once we turn it on.

So, we're in the pits right now.

This is where all of the teams get ready for their matches, fix anything that breaks down on the field, and do any maintenance, that sort of stuff.

If you've ever watched a NASCAR race, that's what I describe the pit area to be, where a NASCAR pit area is you have tools, you have people, you know, if there's a problem, you fix it, you test a little bit, and all your supplies are there.

With the robot Tiny Tim, it's the Robo Racers.

Our robot is a pickup from the ground robot, and so it has an intake that flips over and then intakes the note and then flips back and shoots it.

It's pretty unique to have a shooter and an intake as the same thing.

So, our robot this year, we have some unique climbing aspects here.

Basically, our shooter system, we're really happy with.

We made a lot of fail-safes in the design, so our hard stops, where we physically cannot go anymore, also happen to be like the set positions for many of our movements, so we're really happy about that.

I think we're a really good speaker score.

The speaker is the higher goal.

We're very, very fast with our cycle time from the source to the speaker, and I think we're just one of the fastest ones out there.

The biggest thing I hope for with our students is that they understand that learning and being competitive can go hand-in-hand, and there's always lessons to learn from successes and failures.

Just seeing how well the students find a space where they can really own it and flourish, but it's more than robots, and we're using robots to build students, not students to build robots.

[music playing] Our setting for this week's show, Nolin Lake State Park, is just minutes from Mammoth Cave National Park.

Here you will find an area brimming with activities for all ages.

You can go for a hike along the picturesque trails.

You can take a dip in the lake on a hot day or relax by the beach and even finish the day camping.

They also have a nature center and a butterfly house teeming with animal and plant species native to Kentucky.

We had a chance to explore the park a little earlier.

Let's take a look.

[music playing] We're here with Carlet Hagan.

She is the park manager here at Nolin Lake State Park.

Carlet, thanks so much for letting us be here today.

Absolutely.

Glad you're here.

And as it goes for state parks, Nolin is a relatively young one when we look at about 30 years or so.

But since the place first opened, how has it really evolved to where it is today?

What's that movement been like?

So, our facilities have changed.

Obviously, we keep up with the demand use.

We've also incorporated water throughout our campgrounds that is now frost-free.

So, our campgrounds get to stay open year-round.

Oh, wow, that's great.

[music playing] The lake was impounded in 1963 here at Nolin.

It was created for flood control.

As this reservoir is full in the summertime, it's around 5,800 acres.

In the winter, the drawdown is around 2,800 acres.

We were acquired in 1996.

We opened to the public in 2001 with renovations.

Throughout Nolin Lake State Park, we have around 333 acres.

We have 12 miles of hiking and mountain bike trails, and we have lots of programming all throughout the year.

Well, obviously, the water is a big draw here.

And fishing, I'm gonna get to wet a line here in just a little bit, which I'm really looking forward to.

But above and beyond the great fishing and things like that that you can do here, what are some other activities here for folks?

Absolutely.

We offer tons of opportunities, especially in the summertime.

There's boating to be done on the lake.

We try to keep the fun in the sun at the park here.

The trails, we do lead hikes.

We're able to go up and see the waterfall, able to see some native plants and trees, and identifications.

So, when we came in this morning, we saw an escape room.

We've been to a lot of state parks this year.

We have not seen escape rooms at any of them.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, so Chip, when campers get here, they want more to do than just camping.

So, we gotta give them something extraordinary to do.

And we developed this breakout or escape room that we allow them an hour to see if they can solve the riddles and puzzles and get out.

How do people usually do in there?

Some get trapped.

[laughs] No.

Most make it out.

But it is kind of to see who gets the best time and who gets the prize.

That sounds like a lot of fun.

And then the nature center here as well.

What can folks check out there?

All kinds of animals.

They call us the little zoo that we have here.

We have a bunny rabbit.

His name is Homer.

We've had him for about six years.

And he is definitely native to the state of Kentucky.

His color is black, which you normally would not see, but is definitely related to the Northern cottontail that we have hopping around the park all over.

We have Eastern box turtles that are very native.

Lots of sightings around the park, especially when it rains.

They like to come out of their holes.

Our ferret is Halo.

She is just turning a little over two years old.

Definitely in the badger family.

So, definitely native to the state of Kentucky as far as relation in that family.

She is just a burst of joy, has all kinds of energy, and is very popular amongst the kids that come into the nature center.

When you look at the 100-year anniversary of the state park system, how are you all working to kind of memorialize that this year?

How are you celebrating that year?

We commemorative with a butterfly releases.

We released a hundred butterflies in our butterfly house brand new this year.

So, that was really cool.

Kentucky State Park is honestly an honor to be able to work at Kentucky State Park.

I love being able to put a smile on a kid's face, watch something new, and see something they've never seen before.

And I wanna leave a legacy of that.

I want someone else to fill in my shoes for the next hundred years.

[music playing] Ale-8-One Bottling Company has become a mainstay in Kentucky over the past century.

And honestly, it's one of my most favorite things in the whole world.

Founded by G.L.

Wainscott in the early 1900s, you'd be hard pressed to find a Kentuckian who hasn't at least tried the famous drink, but not many know that Ale-8-One was not Wainscott's first soda concoction.

In fact, there's another drink behind the origin of Ale-8-One.

And after a long absence, Roxa Kola has made a comeback.

Let's explore this drink's origin and the early days of Ale-8-One.

[music playing] [bottles clinking] When you went to school in Winchester, you got an Ale before you went to school.

And then after you got out of school, you got an Ale-8.

I thought I knew everything, a lot about Ale-8, but come to find out, I didn't know as much as I thought I knew.

G.L.

Wainscott was the inventor of Roxa Kola and Ale-8-One.

He is our founder, and he started with making fruit-flavored drinks and then Roxa Cola and then Ale-8.

He set the bar so high on creating a good-tasting product that we want to make sure we stay true to that.

So, the story I always heard about why G.L.

Wainscott founded the company.

Well, first of all, he was an entrepreneurial guy.

He was always trying to make a buck somehow.

He did some distribution.

He sold some beer.

He had that business kind of going.

And then one day, he saw one of these carbonation machines that carbonated water, and he just thought it was the coolest thing.

So, we decided, I'm gonna get into the soda business and actually started bottling and then started distributing that.

We brought Roxa back because Roxa is basically the reason why we have Ale-8.

Our founder, G.L.

Wainscott developed Roxa Kola in 1906, and he was getting sued for the Kola name.

So, as a backup plan, he made Ale-8-One and developed it in 1926.

So, we always say that Ale-8-One would not be here if it weren't for Roxa.

And so, bringing back Roxa is kind of going back to our roots and what started our company to begin with.

Roxa Kola is kind of a throwback to a Kola from about a hundred years ago.

It's kind of our own flavoring to it.

It's a little bit different than most normal colas.

Colas are very similar in terms of ingredients.

A majority of colas all include similar flavors, the cola flavor, nutmeg, cinnamon, citrus oils, and also vanilla.

To make colas different, you just mainly adjust the levels of each of those flavor ingredients, and you can move one up or down and completely change the profile of the product.

Roxa Kola is different from other colas because it is full sugar, and we kind of up the citrus and cinnamon so you get a nice citrus aroma in the beginning and a good cinnamon finish.

The line starts at the depalletizer.

We have pallets of glass that come in on layers, and the depalletizer deconstructs those pallets of glass by taking one layer off at a time.

From there, the bottles travel around to the labelers and we put labels on before filling, which is different than a lot of people.

Most people fill and then put labels on.

But we put our labels on the bottles, and then they go through a rinsing process where the bottles are washed out before they go to the filler.

The filler has syrup on one side and carbonated water on the other, and it'll mix two ounces of syrup with 10 ounces of carbonated water at the filler in about 600 bottles per minute.

And at that time, immediately after filling, the filler will attach a crown to the top, and then from there, it goes through a metal detector, gets a date code printed on the neck, and then it'll go through a warmer to warm the product back up because it's bottled at 32 degrees.

And then from there, it goes to the case packer, where it drops the bottles into the cases, and then to the depalletizer where it's put on a pallet and wrapped up and ready for shipping.

[music playing] Ale-8 is a very, very good supporter of our community.

We do projects as the Heritage Commission, and sometimes they'll come and help us out.

Of course, there's a plant there currently.

Anybody that needs help, they go to Ale-8 first, and Ale-8 is always good about responding.

Our community has grown up with it.

You know, economically, it's been wonderful for our community.

There was a whole lot of history and a great story behind Ale-8.

[bottles clinking] We've had an amazing time here today at Nolin Lake State Park.

Now, could a view like this ever get old?

I don't think so.

Many thanks to everybody here for their great hospitality today.

Now, if you've enjoyed the show, be sure to like the Kentucky Life Facebook page or subscribe to the KET YouTube channel for more of what we like to call Kentucky Life Extras, where you'll have access to lots of other great videos.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston, cherishing this Kentucky Life.

Come on now.

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