 What makes for excellence in heart care? It starts with one of the most amazing teams of heart surgeons and cardiologists that I've seen assembled under one roof and the region's leading technology in a new $40 million facility. This is the nationally recognized Heart and Vascular Institute of Eastern Kentucky at Pikeville Medical Center. Pickleball, a sport similar to tennis, is gaining popularity all over the country and Pikeville is no exception. New data came out a few weeks ago that pegged the number of players in the country at 36 and a half million, which, if true, would make pickleball larger than golf, larger than tennis, larger than basketball. So it's grown pretty unbelievably. And what we're seeing is just influx of new sports fields, new proposals to the city to add court to the public rec centers and facilities and really more demand than supply right now. So it's pretty unbelievable what we've seen and the popularity that just keeps growing. Pikeville already has several courts where those interested can go to play the sport. The great thing about pickleball is you can you can fit a lot of people on a limited amount of space. You know, if you're playing tennis, there's typically two people. They're playing ADT Depart on a tennis court with pickleball. You can fit four pickleball courts on one tennis court and pickleball you typically play as doubles. You can actually have 16 people playing on that same tennis court. And so what you find is it's just a lot of times much better use of public space, gets more people out there. And then of course when you have 16 people playing on a small space, there's just more opportunity for socialization. And so a lot of people use it as a social outlet as warmer weather's approach. Many children, teens, young adults and even older adults will be looking for activities to engage in. For more information about pickleball and where to play in Pikeville, you can visit pickleheads.com. For mountaintop news, I'm Kelsey Dean.