Midway business offers panoply of wellness options

ZENERGY, A NEW WELLNESS BUSINESS, on Midway’s Main Street, opened in June. Pictured are co-owners Sean McDonald and Rebecca Herpick. (Photo by Scott White)

By Scott White

Woodford Sun Staff

     Sean McDonald and Rebecca Herpick moved their established health

and wellness business, Zenergy, from Lexington to Midway’s Main Street.

It was a homecoming for Herpick, a fifth-generation Woodford Countian

who attended Mortonsville Elementary School and finished at Woodford

County High School in 1989. In fact, when her mother, Sandy Carter, took

her to the first day of third grade, she was able to introduce her to

the same teacher who had taught her, “Mrs. Morris.” The teacher

remarked, “This may be a sign it’s time for me to retire!”

     Those deep roots convinced Herpick and McDonald to look at Midway,

and the success of so many small businesses there, when their lease was

about to expire in Lexington. Karma came into in to play since the store

long occupied by Freedman’s Harness & Saddlery Co. moved to their new

Midway location, which opened up the perfect location. McDonald took the

lead in overseeing a complete gutting and renovation of the space. It

has been open since June and is already becoming integrated into the

Midway scene.

     Zenergy offers quite a menu of health and wellness options that

enable them to carry out their brand slogan: relax, detox, regenerate. A

patron can choose from long-established, traditional therapies like deep

tissue massage, biofeedback, and acupuncture. Or experience significant

technologically advanced modalities that, as McDonald says, “helps

people come into a state of wellness.” These include the use of

low-level lasers for non-invasive pain relief known as “Pulsed

Electromagnetic Field Therapy” which has also successfully been used

with horses in keeping with the area’s culture.

Another is the Energy Enhancement System (EESystem) which uses twelve

custom-installed computers that generate bio-active energy fields known

as “scaler waves.” These promote cell rejuvenation by improving

individual cells’ electrical charge. Cells see a decrease in their

charge due to aging or a disease process, and EESystems “re-charges” the

cells to a healthy level.

McDonald cautions though that wellness tools are “not designed or

intended to cure or heal any condition.” Rather, Zenergy “provides an

environment and modalities that help people improve their well-being

through natural processes.”

Herpick is a well-trained and accomplished acupuncture practitioner. She

earned a four-year Master of Science degree in Traditional Oriental

Medicine from Southwest Acupuncture College in Albuquerque, NM, where

she studied all aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (T.C.M). Her

training included studying Tui Na (Chinese medical massage), Chinese

herbal medicine, acupuncture, dietary therapy, Tai Ji Chuan and Qi Gong.

She is a Kentucky-licensed acupuncturist and is nationally certified and

licensed to practice oriental medicine by the National Certification

Commission for Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine.

McDonald, on the other hand, became interested in wellness as a way of

life through Herpick. He was a journalist for many years, including a

stint at Georgetown’s News Graphic. He is responsible for the business

and marketing side of the business, including the re-branding of the

original business to Zenergy. This included navigating a three-month

business closure between the time they closed in Lexington and re-opened

under its new name in Midway. The two have already seen the business

grow. It now includes a retail shop offering wellness products and

original art featuring Kentucky artists and artisans.

More exciting for residents and visitors, Zenergy is immersing itself in

Midway. Since opening, Zenergy has hosted community-style acupuncture

sessions. Not only is this good for the community’s wellness, but it

introduces folks to a centuries-old Chinese practice who had never

experienced it before. Adding to this, just last Friday, Zenergy hosted

its first “Healthy Happy Hour”, which it plans to offer once a month.

Patrons can enjoy all of the modalities in shorter sessions at

discounted prices – and they even bring in other practitioners from as

far as Louisville to participate.

For Woodford County, it is well established that Midway welcomes,

supports and envelops new businesses -- seeing them as a positive for

everyone. And Herpick and McDonald have adopted that ethos with not just

their services unique to Midway but joining as active members of the

Midway Merchants Association and offering these fun events. Things,

indeed, are happening in Midway.

FROM THE FILES OF THE SUN: 10 - 25 - 40 years ago

 

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 From our Files

10 Years Ago

August 1, 2013

Corine Cox Woolums, 81, former Woodford County Clerk, died July 30,

2013. Her career in the Woodford County Clerk’s office began in 1953

under then Clerk Albert Rose. She also worked as a deputy clerk under

Bill Crain and Barbara Mook prior to being elected to the office in 1983

in a special election. She was re-elected to the office until her

retirement in 2008.

Wesley Field of Versailles graduated cum laude from the Tufts University

School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering with a

bachelor’s degree in biology.

25 Years Ago

August 6, 1998

Kathie Lamb has joined the Versailles Police Department as its first

female patrol officer. Patrick Shryock is also a new member of the

department.

Winfrey Adkins has announced his candidacy for the Versailles City Council.

Officials of Kentucky American Water Co. in Lexington fielded questions

at Monday’s Midway City Council meeting on the company’s proposed

pipeline from Louisville to Lexington, a portion of which would pass

near Midway.

40 Years Ago

August 4, 1983

Members of the cast of the musical “Godspell,” a production sponsored by

the Woodford Ministerial Association next week at Woodford County High

School, are Carol West, Diddy Bond, Kent Miller, Steve Moscoe, Susan

Simandle, Tommy McDaniel, Jenny Fisher, Julie Rodgers, Norman Morton and

Bob Klier.

Youngsters who won a costume contest at the Woodford County Library and

were treated to dinner at a local restaurant were Shea Parker, Megan

Hubbard, Shannon Hughes, Kim Hubbard, Nancy Fogle and Robin Hubbard.

Josephine Young Schoberth, former secretary of the local draft board and

office manager at Pin Oak Farm, died Friday at the age of 76.

Tridib Goswami, who teaches tennis at the Winchester Country club, won

the Woodford Hills Country Club Open Invitational Tennis Tournament last

weekend.

CLIPPINGS FROM THE HISTORIC BLUEGRASS CLIPPER

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August 6, 1903…

The first homegrown watermelons were on the market this week.

The good ladies of Midway who go tripping along on their toes with their

heels throwing their bodies forward out of plumb, should take warning

from the fate of Mrs. Hunter, the Louisville woman who is now critically

ill as a result of the high heel habit. She faces an amputation and still

her life may not be saved.

Will James, of Shelbyville, attempted to rob some of his friends on an

excursion to Georgetown Tuesday which passed through here. On being

detected, he jumped from the train and made a dash for liberty but ran

in the wrong direction. He ran through Tin Cup and hid in the cellar

under Mrs. Louise Wise’s house. He was soon captured by Marshal Stephens

and lodged in jail, awaiting information from Georgetown. As he left the

train, someone fired a number of shots at him, but he escaped unhurt.

August 7, 1924… 

A car driven by Mrs. Victor Crain, with Mrs. F.J. Smither as passenger,

was hit head-0n by a car driven by a Missouri man in front of the Frank

Watts place. They were enroute to Frankfort. Both machines were damaged,

but injuries were slight.

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Noel are rejoicing over the birth of a son born

Monday, Aug. 4. He has been named Paul Noel Jr.

Mrs. Mayme Sacra Spotznagle, 40, died Wednesday after an operation at

St. Joseph Hospital. She was a native of Midway. She is survived by her

husband and two children. Her husband is proprietor of Faywood Mills.

Miss Elizabeth Wise has returned from Cincinnati where she had been

studying at the Conservatory of Music.

Miss Ida Courtney, operator at the telephone exchange, is taking her

vacation and Miss Louise McKinney is acting as substitute.

Former Governor and Mrs. J.C.W. Beckham of Louisville are spending the

weekend with Dr. and Mrs. B.F. Parrish.

Aa barn on the farm of W.M. Ditto, near Brookie’s Crossroads, was

destroyed by fire Sunday.

State Auditor candidate Kim Reeder visits Woodford County

STATE AUDITOR CANDIDATE Kim Reeder was hosted by the Woodford

County Young Democrats at a reception. Pictured from left, Ian

VanSteenbergh, Annabel Nagel, Reeder and Connor Johnson(Photo by Scott

White)

By Scott White

Woodford Sun Staff

Auditor of Public Accounts candidate on the Democrat side Kim Reeder

rolled into Versailles last Tuesday in a vintage 1993 RV driven by her

brother. Reeder is hitting all 120 Kentucky counties as she builds name

recognition and shares her bona fides and ideas with voters. She is

hoping to turn the trend from the last statewide cycle which saw the

Republican party trounce Democratic candidates in all the down-ballot races.

In this climate, it is fair to call Reeder the underdog in the race

which pits her against the Republican term limited State Treasurer

Allison Ball who is hoping to continue her political career as the next

auditor.

Reeder is a native of Rowan County. After graduating from high school,

she went on to Yale followed by a dual graduate degree program where she

earned a master’s degree in public policy from Duke and a law degree

from North Carolina-Chapel Hill. From there, she went onto a very

successful career in state and local tax law with legal and accounting

firms winding up in the I.T. industry in Silicon Valley for nearly 20 years.

When her mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Reeder and her

daughter Ansley returned to Morehead in 2014 so she could be near her

mother in her last year of life.

In discussing her plans, Reeder said she expects “ . . . to focus on

performance audits . . . something the current auditor has not done much

of and which his predecessor, Crit Luallen, used with great effect to

benefit taxpayers.” Reeder says that performance audits are a key tool,

and one she regularly did in the private sector. As she explained, a

performance audit “is when the auditor, by statute, has the ability to

dig into an agency’s operations to see if it is conducting its duties,

engaging in programs and spending its budget in an efficient and

effective way.” As an example, she said “Kentucky just released its

first statewide data report on domestic violence. The auditor can, and

should, evaluate how effective efforts have been in producing the

expected results in decreasing domestic violence and what can be done to

get better results.”

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CLIPPINGS FROM THE HISTORIC BLUEGRASS CLIPPER

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July 30, 1903… 

The great Kentuckian, elected official, US Ambassador, newspaper publisher and, after hearing William Lloyd Garrison speak in 1832 while a student at Yale, became a leading Abolitionist (which cost him in his political endeavors), Gen. Cassius Marcellus Clay died at White Hall, Madison County, on Wednesday. He was a cousin of Henry Clay. The end came peacefully. He was in his 93rd year. His children by his first wife are left nothing except the estate lands of 2,022-¼ acres in Madison County, which was set aside for them in 1870 after the separation of Clay and his first wife.Among his other requests, he left $2,000 for the erection of a Methodist church near Pinckard, where his child bride, Dora Brock, lived while in Woodford.

During the storm last Tuesday night, the Henry Clay monument at Lexington was struck by lightning and the head of the statue was knocked off. 

The Red Men have just installed a new gas lighting machine in Collins’ Opera House.

July 31, 1924… 

The Clipper strongly supports Sen. Augustus Owsley Stanley for the U.S. Senate against John Junior Howe of Carrolton. Fred M. Sackett is favored to win the GOP nod on Aug. 2.

Henry L. Martin Sr. suffered a painful accident Friday when he was thrown from his buggy after his horse started rearing in the driveway of his son’s residence. Mr. Martin received head and shoulder lacerations and was treated by Dr. Risque.

Thomas Douthitt of Spring Station is a candidate for jailer. He is nearly six feet five inches tall, weighs about 240 pounds and which would make an ideal jailer.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ockerman, who live on the Simms farm, welcome a son born on July 24. 

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Shryock welcome a son born on July 23.

Grant Jones is lying seriously ill at his home on Railroad Street.

Woodford Sun Column. White Lines by Scott White "Support Democracy"

SUPPORT DEMOCRACY

By Scott White

There is a new sign on The Woodford Sun’s front door, “Subscribe: Support Democracy.” We at the Sun are the successors to 154 years of journalism that reports, investigates, and tells the stories of Woodford County and its small towns and hamlets. It is a role that is expressly required by both the United States and Kentucky constitutions.
Adopted in 1791, the First Amendment of the federal constitution states that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . ..” Section 8 of Kentucky’s 1891 Constitution says that “every person may freely and fully speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.” Though the responsibility of accountability is implicit in the First Amendment it is explicit in Section 8.
And this is something we take deadly serious at the Sun. Our reporters meet weekly to discuss possible stories, upcoming local government meetings and expected actions (or inactions), things the community is commemorating or worrying over, and holding each other accountable with respect to ethics, fairness, thoroughness and accuracy. We jealously guard against any attempt to intimidate, influence or give passes from potentially critical coverage. This ethos, drilled into us by our Hall of Fame editor and publisher Ben Chandler Jr. who shepherded the Sun for over 60 years, is our guiding principle.
At the risk of appearing self-congratulatory, the Sun does a pretty darn good job in fulfilling its constitutional duty to inform, challenge and celebrate Woodford Countians. 
Examples? Bob Vlach’s encyclopedic knowledge from the public library to the politics and policies of the public school system and land use planning. Bill Caine’s tireless coverage of every sport from elementary to high school whether girl’s golf or Dennis Johnson’s football teams. Melissa Patrick’s focused coverage of city hall and the fiscal court along with important pieces on current health care issues. Beyond this hard news, every week the Sun publishes features on interesting people, restaurants, local businesses, civic events, festivals and arts. Marla Carroll, our design editor, culls out news events published both in the Sun and its sister predecessor the Bluegrass Clipper between 10 and 125 years ago.
We do a lot.
Last week, I was fortunate to attend the third annual National Summit on Journalism in Rural America put on by the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism. Al Cross, the director of the Institute and highly respected former state government reporter and columnist at the Courier Journal and commentator on KET, gathered an incredible lineup of speakers from both academia and real world journalism. The topics did not focus on “how to do” journalism like some continuing education seminar. No, the focus was on how rural journalism can survive in an economy dominated by digital formats dolling out clickbait to lure advertisers and readers which, in large part, ignore the accountability required of a responsible free press.
Threats are not just digital outlets but corporations that purchase small newspapers who then centralize their functions to promote “efficiencies” to maximize profits which inevitably leads to a near absence of local reporting. Most of us already knew of the hundreds of papers that had closed due to bankruptcies or died from simply closing their doors (and presses) for lack of sufficient advertising revenues to support the business of putting out a paper. We already knew the reality that many local and reliable advertisers had been subsumed by national and regional chains that cut “local” papers from their operating budgets.
These are facts we deal with every day at the Sun. It is probably why our de facto leader Mimi Logsden spends so much time poring over accounts. Why Sherry Walsh, who runs advertising, worries when local businesses decline to advertise telling her, “We’ll think about it.”
It is why I went to the Rural Journalism Conference. And, what I learned filled me with real hope that the Sun will survive the new realities facing us.
Over the next few weeks, we are going to be exploring everything from enhancing digital advertising on our Facebook and websites, subscription rates, monetizing the relaunch of the Midway Messenger, leveraging our signature industries of bourbon and equine, partnering with other players in the community, and introducing an e-mail weekly newsletter. We are motivated to create healthy revenue sources not just for our business needs but to be able to fulfill our community obligation as the current stewards of the Sun.
The heartening thing about the Conference was hearing so many success stories and strategies that worked. David Woronoff, the publisher of The Pilot in Southern Pines, North Carolina, talked about how he used the truthful phrase that “advertising makes a free press possible” as the theme for building a consistent local advertiser base. Jack Rooney, the managing editor of the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire, told of how they use the paper’s anniversary to host a community festival that has become a significant revenue source. Joey and Lindsey Young who publish three weeklies in different rural Kansas counties explained how running a transparent, in-depth front-page story titled “The Cost to Print” led them to roll the dice by doubling the subscription price but still saw subscriptions increase 40 percent in two years. And Zachary Mathews of the prestigious School of Journalism at Northwestern University discussed existing foundations, like Knight, which provide grants to local journalism as part of its free press project. There was lots more.
The Woodford Sun is an exciting and fulfilling place to work. We get into the weeds of our local government and schools. We have our fingers on the pulse of what is important whether it’s good news or a threat to our way of life. We get to celebrate with you. We get to tell your stories. More headier, we are active participants, every day, in our country’s democracy.
We only ask you help us, which helps you. Subscribe, buy an ad, submit a “letter to the editor,” send us a picture or tell us about an event we need to tell others about. 
Support democracy.

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FREEDMAN'S HARNESS & SADDLERY CO. GRAND OPENING

FREEDMAN’S HARNESS & Saddlery Co. hosted its grand opening in Midway on Sunday, July 16. (TOP PHOTO) Catering for the event was provided by the Brown Barrel in Midway, with cocktails from the Bardstown Bourbon Company. Over 200 attended. Entertainment was provided by musician Ben Jones. Sculptor Alexa King, (PICTURED IMMEDIATELY ABOVE), talked about one of her bronze equine pieces during the grand opening of Freedman’s Midway store. 

(Photos by Scott White)

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