The annual
Kentucky Easter Seals Volunteer of the Year Award is named
after Knott County native Paul w. Honeycutt, who was born at May,
Ky. In the headwaters of Carr Creek in November 1938.
This is what Paul says of his
early years in Knott County: "Going to school at Carr Creek, working in my Dad's general store or his
coal mine, delivering groceries into the heads of
hollows, campaigning for my uncle Ruby Watts at the
voting place, making
lifelong friends, leaning basic values
from my parents and grand-
parents, teachers and other role models from Knott
County…all these things shaped and molded me to be able
to complete in the business world and to learn how to
treat my fellow man. I attended school at Carr Creek
through the twelfth grade, attended summer school
at Alice Lloyd College, and then went to the University
of Kentucky in the fall of 1956".
"I could write volumes about
these formative years spent in Knott County, because of the
values and background it gave me. I thank God I was born and
raised in Knott County".
Paul, the son of the late Ira
and Nora Honeycutt, received the first ever Paul W. Honeycutt Award during Cardinal Hill's Annual Telethon in
1999. For nearly 35 years, Honeycutt has volunteered his
time to
the hospital and to Easter Seals, often ensuring that Knott County and Southeastern
Kentucky residents received needed rehabilitation.
He has also been instrumental in raising money for every
building
addition to the hospital families, including that of
Alfred Honeycutt,
Simeon Francis, James Fields, John Amburgey and others.
Although Paul left Knott
County to attend the University of Kentucky in 1956, he visits
often. He continues to support the Mallet Fork
Regular Baptist Church, the focal point in the lives of his
father, grandparents and so many other relatives. He
believes he achieved
his greatest accomplishment in 1959
when he married Knott County native Jean Terry,
the daughter of the late Sam and Gola Terry of Garner. Paul's daughter, Valarie
Honeycutt (his second greatest accomplishment), a
Lexington-Herald Leader reporter, was on a
team of journalists who used the proceeds of a
national journalism award to create the John S. Carroll Scholarship
at Alice Lloyd
College. in the last 30 years. Before receiving the Kentucky award, Honeycutt, who now
serves on
Cardinal Hills's board of trustees was given the
National
Volunteer of the Year Award of National Easter Seals.
He was the only Kentuckian to ever receive this honor.
Having just finished six years
on the National Easter Seal
board,
he is
one of seven
members of the National Easter
Seal Foundation,
national chairman of the President's Council
and Interim
Chairman of the Louisville Easter Seal Board.
He
also serves on the Kentucky Easter Seal board of directors.
But Honeycutt's impact on Kentucky
and Knott County goes
beyond the Easter Seals. A 1956 graduate of Carr Creek
High
School, he has helped host
several reunions of the 1956 Boy's
State Basketball Championship Team. He is a former president
of the Carr Creek Alumni Association. A former student
at Alice
Lloyd College at Pippa Passes, he has served on the school's
board of directors and was president of the Alumni Association.
Honeycutt is also a fellow at the University of
Kentucky, which he attended, and serves on a Urology
Committee at the University
of Kentucky
Medical Center. He sponsors the Honeycutt
Scholarship
in the UK School of Engineering. He also served on the
Urban
County Lexington Mounted Police
Commission. He is the president
of Honeycutt Mechanical
Contractors in Lexington, which has
employed
several Knott Countians over the years. He is involved in the
thoroughbred horse industry as an owner and
breeder and has real estate, farming and business
interests. Paul is a descendent of many
pioneering Knott County Submitted by Corbett Mullins
April 2003
|