Two buses — one blue, the other white — left Lexington on Saturday morning, snaking their way east along the Mountain Parkway.
The ultimate destination for those aboard would be the Appalachian Wireless Arena in Pikeville, home to this year’s Kentucky basketball Blue-White Game, a preseason scrimmage usually played in Rupp Arena but moved this time around as part of the program’s ongoing efforts to help those affected by the devastating flooding in the region nearly three months ago.
Before the Wildcats arrived in Pikeville, however, they had a stop to make.
A few hours before the scheduled tipoff of the Blue-White Game, those two buses pulled up to the campground at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Floyd County, a site that for the past three months has been home to folks displaced by the flooding that killed 43 people across Eastern Kentucky.
The Wildcats were there to pass out winter clothing to those still unable to return to their homes. They signed autographs, posed for pictures and mingled with the crowd as folks flocked from their campers toward the area’s pavilion, surrounding the players with smiling, excited faces.
“I think they’ve got the biggest hearts,” said Brittany Bartrum, a Floyd County resident who has been living at the campground with her family since early August. “Coach Cal said it was their decision — that they made the decision to come. I’m just impressed with them. They’ve got big hearts. And it means a lot to us.”
As Bartrum spoke, her three sons — Blake (12), Kason (9) and Ryker (4) — ran excitedly around the grounds. Kason, a student at May Valley Elementary in Martin — and the ballplayer in the family, according to his mom — showed off the player autographs on his new UK sweatshirt. A few hours later, he’d be heading off to Pikeville to see the Cats on the court.
“I’m proud of them,” she said of her boys, watching them play, smiling and holding back tears at the same time. “They’ve handled all of this well. They’ve just been champs through it all. It’s been chaos, and they’ve done great. … We just keep going.”
Bartrum said this part of their ordeal is almost finished. In a few days, they’d be moving into a family home. Not the one they lived in before the flooding hit, but a roof over their heads after more than two months in a camper at the state park.
A few minutes later, a few miles up the road, there were similar stories.
The May Lodge at the park was the second stop for the Kentucky basketball traveling party. More than 100 people displaced by the flooding are still living in rooms there, waiting to get back into their homes or trying to figure out what to do next.
There, in the lobby of the lodge, John Calipari spoke to the crowd — like he had at the campground a little earlier in the day — and assured them that they had not been forgotten. The Kentucky coach said he’d already heard one woman’s story and that he’d like to hear everyone else’s before the team departed. He told them that there was a room set up with winter clothing, UK gear, hoodies, socks, clothes for children, and other necessities.
“We’re here, because we want you to understand we haven’t forgotten,” Calipari said. “We just want you to know that we’ll keep fighting and do this together and help wherever we can.”
As families filed into the room to pick out their winter gear, Calipari spotted a woman and a young girl standing off to the side. He walked over, put his arm around the woman, Sharon Newsome, and guided her and her granddaughter, Railey, into the room.
“Bless you,” Newsome told him. “You bring us so much joy.”
The coach then walked the two to each station set up around the room, picking out clothes, making sure they got the right sizes.
Newsome later explained that her home in Hi Hat — near Wheelwright — was a “total loss” as a result of the flooding. She said they were “lucky enough” to get a room at the lodge the day after the devastation hit, and they’d been there ever since. On Friday, her home was demolished, making way for a trailer to go on the property. They hope to return in a couple of weeks.
“Things are looking up,” she said. “… I just hope people don’t forget about it and think it’s over, because it isn’t. There’s a lot of need still yet.”
Newsome and her granddaughter walked back to their room, Railey proudly wearing her new Kentucky hoodie and winter coat, giddily telling her grandma how much she enjoyed what had just happened.
“This is something we’ll never forget,” Newsome said. “And thank everybody who had anything to do with it. It’s a blessing.”
‘They bleed blue’
Kentucky’s pregame visit to Floyd County on Saturday took plenty of planning. And the hardest part might have been keeping a lid on the trip.
If everyone in the community knew the Cats were going to be in town?
“They would be lined up for miles,” said Missy Allen, a local official who has been helping coordinate flood relief efforts in the region.
The point of this trip was for UK’s program to bring something special to those who had been specifically affected by the flooding. Not only were the Wildcats bringing winter clothing to the folks who could use it most, they were also delivering tickets to the Blue-White Game.
That initiative started days earlier.
Floyd County Judge-Executive Robbie Williams said UK sent scrimmage tickets to local officials in several counties that had been hit by the flooding, hoping they would know who could most benefit.
“We’re out here in these communities,” Williams said. “We know who got hit the hardest.”
He said he handed out some of the tickets himself. He gave some to the mayor of Wayland — “probably the hardest hit town in Floyd County,” Williams said — to be dispersed among the residents there. He gave some of the tickets to the fire chiefs in Garrett and Maytown.
“It was a nice gesture,” Williams said of UK sending the tickets. “Some of these people — this is the only opportunity they’ll get to ever watch them. In their life. I mean, these people — they bleed blue. And the response has been overwhelming.”
Allen, formerly a CEO in the nursing home industry, came out of retirement last year to help Floyd County coordinate its share of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. When the flooding hit, her role shifted to helping victims of the devastation left behind.
“We have people that are in different phases of trying to get back to some semblance of normal,” she said. “We have some folks who are working on their homes every day, trying to get back. We’re trying to help those folks as much as we can. … And then we have a few that, honestly, I don’t know that they know what they’re going to do. It’s been overwhelming. And we’re trying to help them, step by step.”
The Blue-White Game was an opportunity for a few hours of fun amid the heartache of the past few months. Just knowing that the Cats would be coming to town was enough to offer some bright moments, put some smiles on faces that hadn’t had much to smile about in a while.
“I would challenge anyone to find a bigger fan base than there is in eastern Kentucky for the University of Kentucky basketball,” Allen said. “I think it’s huge for them to be willing to do this and help these folks.”
At the campground, kids bounced around happily, beaming up at the larger-than-life Kentucky basketball players. Oscar Tshiebwe, the reigning national player of the year, stood in the middle of the pavilion area, holding court amid a pack of children half his size.
Bartrum’s two youngest boys were right there in the mix, looking up and hanging on every word.
“These are just the best memories for them,” she said. “We’ve had a hard time, and just having all these guys come out here makes their day a little bit better.”
