 Tonight, on EKB Evening News at 6, leaders hash out issues during a forum at U-Pike last night. Good evening. I'm Gary Slott. And I'm Cindy Mae Johnson. Last night, four of the five legislators who represent Pike County took part in a legislative review on the U-Pike campus. One of the major issues discussed during the evening was the state's coal severance tax, which has continued to dwindle as the coal industry has taken a downturn. The EKB news reporter Shelby Steele attended the forum and spoke to the leaders about this issue. The significant decline in coal production in eastern Kentucky continues to impact families in our region daily. Now that coal production is declining, that means coal severance taxes are getting smaller. During a legislative review held at U-Pike and Booth Auditorium Tuesday evening, coal severance taxes were the hot topic among the legislators. State Senator Ray Jones explains that coal severance was originally intended as a cushion for the state. Coal severance tax was intended to guarantee a future for eastern Kentucky once coal was no longer the mainstay of our economy. And unfortunately, that day has arrived more rapidly than anyone could have ever thought. Representative Chris Harris adds that now that we're seeing a decline in coal severance, farmers need to be more proactive in the way they spend tax money. We have to be safer and more thrifty with the way we spend our coal severance money. It has to be spent for projects that are valuable and that are substantive to helping our economy and helping us diversify into different areas. Representative John Short says that the most important thing needed in eastern Kentucky right now is economic development to create opportunities for the next generation. We've got to get jobs in here for the future of our children and for the future of the people that's wanting to work here and live here. We have to stand up for the people of eastern Kentucky and spend the money wisely. Representative Leslie Combs agrees with Short stating economic development is important, but we also need to pay attention to other needs. Pike County as a whole obviously has a lot of infrastructure needs still and water and sewer and we have economic development needs. When we did the last budget as far as using coal severance dollars, that's what we were trying to keep in mind was that money was originally intended for economic development use and that's why we structured it the way we did. For EKB Evening News at 6, I'm Shelby Steele. Tomorrow Shelby will bring us part two of that report. It focuses on one potential source of diversification many people are talking about. That's tourism. So during last night's forum another item on the agenda was working together in cooperation from everyone including county, city and state. 94th District State Representative Leslie Combs says this is imperative if we want our region to thrive. I think we've got a good future ahead of us. The main thing I think that was emphasized tonight is that it's so important that all the officials in Pike County from the state, from the federal down to the state down to the local level work in concert with one another and that's I think that was the main theme tonight. We need to work together. I think we've got a good future. An opportunity for leaders from around eastern Kentucky to work together will take place in Pikeville next week when the SOAR initiative returns to the east Kentucky Expo Center for a strategy summit. In the first part of a two-part series, EKB news reporter Shannon Deskins take a look at what SOAR it is and perhaps more importantly what it aims to achieve. In 2013 Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and U.S. Representative Hal Rogers launched an initiative aimed at diversifying the economy of eastern Kentucky, SOAR, which stands for shaping our Appalachian region is working to help the region develop and put into action locally oriented strategies to attack challenges facing eastern Kentucky. SOAR is about rallying and unifying the region, the state, federal partners around one vision of what the region can be and then being the catalyst for change to get us there and making sure investments are strategic throughout the region and that local leadership they have the capacity to grow their communities and how do we do that. Arnett said our region has always faced economic problems but the recent downturn in the coal market has pushed some communities to the point of losing hope. What we hope to do is inspire communities hope at the end of the day because a lot of them have lost hope and think they can't do anything but they see SOAR as wow everybody's together we are getting federal attention, we are getting investment, there are opportunities for grants and planning grants and we can assist in that and facilitating and kind of be in the middle person and directing them that way so we're open to communicating with anybody who wants to make a difference in their community. According to Arnett, the best way to learn more about the SOAR initiative and to reach out with questions or ideas is through their website. Our website is probably the best place to start on that go to www.sore-ky.org there's a contact button on there you can fill that form out send us an email our office numbers on there so you can call our office and we'll help however we can. Tomorrow we will bring you more from our interview with Jared Arnett and preview the 2015 SOAR strategy summit which will take place in Pikeville on Monday. For EKB Evening News at 6, I'm Shannon Deskins. Well tomorrow night as Shannon mentioned in part two of her report she'll be previewing next week's conference. Police are looking for a Perry County man while another remains in the hospital following a shooting last night at Airy. Many state police troopers were called to a residence at Coates Branch where they found Robert Earl Miller lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the face. Officers were told Miller had been in an altercation with 61-year-old James D. Brewer just before the shooting. Brewer allegedly fled the scene before police arrived. Brewer had been charged or has been charged with first degree assault. Police are asking the public to report any information concerning Brewer's whereabouts to Kentucky State Police post 13 at 606-435-6069. Coming up, coal miners will soon have a new and freeway to be tested for black lung. And trees were planted at Bob Ames Park today. We'll be back to tell you about it in two minutes. A Pike County star athlete was arrested today following a fight during a baseball game yesterday. Eighteen-year-old Bradley Elkins has been charged with second degree assault. The charge is a felony, carrying a possible prison term of five to ten years. According to the arrest warrant, Elkins allegedly punched an opposing player during Pike Central's game against Lawrence County, knocking him unconscious. There was an altercation last night at Pike County Central High School between one of the players from Pike County Central and a player from Lawrence County. They got into a fight and they ended up calling Amelots and the boy from Lawrence County was transported to Pikeville Medical Center. The other player who is not being identified because he was a juvenile was transported to Pikeville Medical Center for emergency treatment. According to the arrest warrant, he remains under a doctor's care. Southside Elementary's second graders, along with some boy scouts and students from the Honors Biology class at Belfry High School, planted chestnut trees in Pikeville today at Bob Ames Park. Thanks to the American Chestnut Foundation, Green Forest Works, the Office of Surface Minds and Reclamation, and the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative, students were given the opportunity to plant twenty trees. EKB News reporter Shelby Steele tells us more. Southside Elementary's second graders, along with boy scouts and students from Belfry High School's Honors Biology class, gathered today at Bob Ames Park in Pikeville to plant twenty chestnut trees on an old mine land. Second grade teacher Alice Tackett and her students have been working on a project where they have to solve a problem within the community. The problem we looked at was the mine land that's been abandoned and had minimum reclamation done to it. And what could we do with that land to make it useful and beneficial to our community again? And we decided that because there's so much change taking place in Eastern Kentucky that animals needed a place to live and kids love animals, so we decided to plant trees. And so we began to study about the American Chestnut Tree. During the early 1900s, a fungus caused a blight or a major die off of the American Chestnut Tree. The president of the American Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation says giving young students the opportunity to plant this tree in Eastern Kentucky is the experience of a lifetime. When we lost the American Chestnut, we lost the very important component of our eastern forest ecosystem. These are ones that we have bred to have a level of resistance to the blight. And this is in our early stages of planting some blight resistant trees back. It was given a 2,500 stem grant and the Appalachian Renaissance Initiative also provided computers to help make this project possible. Chestnut trees were also provided by the federal office of surface mining and reclamation. There was 32 American Chestnut trees donated to Southside Elementary School up in Belferry, Kentucky. And that came from a combination of the American Chestnut Foundation and a non-profit called Green Forests Work. Green Forests Work is a non-profit organization that works to patch the holes in deforestation across Appalachia. For EKB Evening News at 6, I'm Shelby Steele. Beginning next month, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will offer a series of free, confidential health screenings to coal miners throughout the country. These screenings are intended to promote early detection of black lung. The screenings will take place in the Institute's new mobile testing unit. The screenings provided by NIOSH will include a work history questionnaire. A chest radiograph, blood pressure screenings and others will be offered. Typically, the process will take about 25 minutes. NIOSH provides the individual miner with the results of their own screening. By law, each person's results are confidential. No individual information is publicly disclosed. Well we will publicly disclose some information about both high school and professional baseball when we come back with Andrew Joyce. But first, EKB Chief Meteorologist Lathan Hopkins will be here with our forecast. We'll be back in two minutes. You know, another great summer-like day today. We're enjoying it. Temperatures force some of us into the upper 80s. Could we flirt with 90 before the weekend? Oh, you flirt? You flirt? I may just do that. I'll show you here in just a second. Some of us even dealing with some rain as we speak. That rain mainly south of Pikeville into southwestern portions of Virginia, but we do have a couple of showers right along the Kentucky-Virginia border. We will zoom in a little closer, right along 197 here from Elkhorn City stretching down toward Jenkins on 119. Heavier shower that is developed here just to the south of Jenkins in Weiss County. And we have another batch of rain. If this holds together right along 460 near Grundy, this is moving opposite to what we're used to. Normally we go west to east, but this is going east to west. So if this holds together, it will move closer to Clintwood and eventually over toward Weiss here within the next hour or two. One other little shower that has developed there near McVeigh and Phelps and if it holds together over toward Kemper can expect maybe a quick little shower over the next hour or so. All right. Let's pan out with the satellite and radar composite. You can see where the cloud cover has been confined through most of the day, mainly to the south in two parts of southwest Virginia and extreme southern and eastern parts of Kentucky. That has kept temperatures cooler there. 72 right now in Grundy. 68 rain cooled over in Weiss. But for the rest of the area, 84 Pikeville, 85 Prestonburg, 86 Painesville, 85 Inez. Look at Williamson. 88 degrees as we speak. And it's been the highest so far today in Williamson. All right. As far as the Amonet goes, 85. That was the official high for today. Close to a record. The record was 88. That was set back in 1986. The overnight low 56 and the record low, not even close 37. I don't think we'll see temperatures that cool for quite some time sunrise in the morning at 628 sunset at 825. What are we watching? Well, we're actually sandwiched in between two systems, one to the south across parts of the Atlantic coastline. The other you see severe thunderstorm watch boxes, tornado watch boxes. This is a system that will try to move in, but the good news is big blue age, high pressure in control of the forecast, and it's not moving. And it's just going to kind of hold this system off to the West over the next couple of days. It may be late next or early next week before we finally get into a decent chance of showers and thunderstorms. I want to show you this little system down to the south and we've been talking about it all week, still think about a 60% chance that that would develop into something tropical or subtropical. It's possible we could see a tropical storm as we head into the weekend, making landfall somewhere in the Carolinas. We'll keep you up to date with that over the next couple of days. Alright, pollen count time, of course, sponsored by the fine folks at Faith Pharmacy, Adams Plaza in Pikeville. Well, not looking good for the folks suffering from the allergies. Wednesday, 10.6, 10.9 on Thursday, and then as we head into Friday, 11.1. So yes, get ready, we'll be filling the effects of the pollen here over the next couple of days. 7 day forecast time, temperatures over the next several days, 87 Thursday, Friday, 88 on Saturday. I think that will be the best chance of making a run toward 90 degrees, yes, showers and thunderstorms. The best chance Monday into Tuesday. Notice what happens to the temperatures though, 82 Monday, 78 Tuesday, 72, very comfortable by the middle part of next week. So we knew it's a little too soon for these very warm temperatures may not last long, but I think by the end of the month, we're right back in the 80s. Rain on Mother's Day, don't like that part. Just a 30% chance, not a washout by any means, but of course we'll keep you posted. Good. Thanks, Latham. Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer, and volunteers and communities throughout the region are planning events and observance. The day calls for attention to the role of prayer in public and private life. Kelly Johnson, one of the organizers of the events in Pine County says throughout the nation's history, prayer has played a significant role. You know, prayer has been throughout our nation since it's been founded. I mean, George Washington set aside a day of fasting and prayer, which Abraham Lincoln said now it's a proclamation day of Thanksgiving, and we don't fast now, but we still give Thanksgiving for the bounty, and throughout history it's woven throughout our country that there have been prayer for the Continental Congress always opened in prayer, just all the way throughout history, our country has used prayer. Most events in the region will take place at noon, although they are morning and evening events planned as well. Those include a pancake breakfast in Prestonsburg in the morning, and a prayer walk in Logan at 5 p.m. and an observance in Elkhorn City at 7 p.m. You know, it's been proven that praying for things has a positive effect. Absolutely. That's good news. Yes. We'll be back to sports in just two minutes. That was a big night for the Reds last night. Absolutely. In Pittsburgh, taking on the National League's central rival, Pirates. In Major League action last night, the Reds and Pirates in Pittsburgh, we get things started in the second inning. Todd Frazier at the plate, bang, opposite field home run for the Reds' third baseman, and with that long ball, he now leads the National League with nine dingers. Red starter Michael Lorenzen didn't need a lot of offensive support. He went six innings, gave up just one run on three hits and struck out four on the night. Marlon Byrd had a big night as well. Hamilton makes the cancelling bird at the plate. That's a bases loaded double, and that gives Byrd four RBI. Reds seven, Pirates one. Tonight at 7 0 5, the Reds will face the Pirates and gain two of the series. Mike Leek on the mound for Cincinnati. Garrett Cole will get the start for the Pirates. Cincinnati will try to get over the 500 mark for the first time since April 22nd. And in high school baseball last night at the Hamley Complex, Belfrey facing Pikeville. Pirates got things started. They came out with bad swinging. Runner on first, Tyler Fields with a seeing eye single that brings Keaton Taylor to the plate. He'll drop the bunt in no man's land. That will load the bases for the Pirates. Jacob Francisco comes to the plate, hard comebacker to the pitcher. That forces the double plate and ends the Belfrey rally. Go to the top of the fourth. Taylor with the runner on first, Francisco with a gap or the right center for the double. That brings in a Belfrey run and the Pirates improve to eight and nine with a five to win. Pikeville falls to 20 and 10. In other action, Eastridge got a nine one win over Phelps, Johnson Central rallied to defeat Paintsville for three. Preston's bird came out on top over Letcher County, Central nine two. And we go to Pike Central, the hope the hogs hosting Lawrence County in a 60 a district showdown top of the third, Josh Cantrell with the head to center field to start things for the Bulldogs. Red Parks to the plate. He'll follow up and drive to center field to advance the runner. One price to the plate for Lawrence County. He'll hit a fly ball to right field Cantrell tags and will score on this act fly. Lawrence County takes that lead early. Morgan Miller will drive this one to the left center field fence and we'll go to the bottom of the third. Pike Central coming to the plate, Rad Elkins the shortstop. Bobble to the throw. He'll not get the speedy Elkins. Clark will come to the plate chopper to short, but the throw is wide Elkins will score trying to put them back in the game as Clark reached second on the error. Andrew Fields comes to the plate and he will ground out to the pictures Clark scores on the throw to first. That wasn't enough for the Hawks Lawrence County comes out on top nine to five tonight in high school baseball Paintsville goes cross town to face Johnson Central Betsy Lane is on the road to McGuffin County and Pike Central will be at South Floyd. In high school fast pinch action yesterday Betsy Lane's Lady Bobcats out and slugged South Floyd 10 to 8. Lawrence County's Lady Dog shut out Belfrey 14 nothing. Letcher County Central knocked off Knott County Central 17-2. The Pikeville ladies got an 8-6 win over Eastridge and Prestonsburg and Allen Central battled back and forth with a total of 41 runs crossing the plate. The Lady Blackcats came out on top 21-20. Tonight Phelps will travel to Lawrence County for a doubleheader Shelby Valleys, the Lady Badcats go to Eastridge Paintsville is at Knott Central and Prestonsburg will face South Floyd. Are you sure about that? That was a softball score? 21-20. It just didn't sound right to me. Tough night for both pitchers. That's a lot of runs. It is indeed. Wow. And we'll be back in two minutes. Everything, the warm weather continues. For several more days as a matter of fact, temperatures tonight back into the upper 50s, low 60s, tomorrow 87, isolated shower storm possible. We continue that trend all the way through Mother's Day and a better chance of rain moving in early next week. I like that warm weather. Yeah. Loving this weather. And we've got another new video show tonight. How about that Ted Meadows rocks it out with full throttle video. He leads that throttle wide open. Well that will do it for tonight's EKB Evening News. Remember, you can get more local news anytime by listening to the radio stations of East Kentucky Broadcasting. And you can follow EKB News and EKB TV on Facebook and Twitter. We leave you tonight with a time lapse video of the Levi Sephoric of the Big Sandy River. Good night. Thanks for watching.