Mentelle Neighborhood Association

The Mentelle Neighborhood Association will have its 2018 membership meeting Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. at Ashland Elementary School, 195 N. Ashland Ave.

Officers and board members will be elected for the coming year, and members will hear from Ashland’s new principal, Shannon Blackburn.

Please email President Ann Olliges (annolliges@gmail.com) with suggestions for any topics you would like to discuss at the meeting.

A nominating committee is now putting together a slate. If you are interested in placing your name in nomination for a seat on the board or for president, vice president, secretary or treasurer, please email Secretary Tom Eblen (tomeblen@gmail.com).

The board has approved two changes to the bylaws, which will be voted on by the membership at the meeting. One changes the membership meeting requirement from two to one per year, to conform with actual practice in recent years.

The other bylaws change alters membership requirements to allow long-term renters in the neighborhood to become members. Currently, only property owners may be members of the association, although all residents are encouraged to attend all neighborhood activities and events.

Here is the exact language. Please email board member Bethany Baxter (BethanyBaxter@gmail.com) with any questions:

CURRENT LANGUAGE:

1. I) Membership
   1) Membership: Upon payment of dues, membership shall be extended to any individual person, family, partnership or corporation owning property in
 the area in Lexington, Kentucky, bounded as follows: Main Street (north
side), Walton Ave (east side), National Ave (both sides), Mentelle Park and
 Memory Lane. One membership per address. Membership is automatically
 terminated when the property is sold.

(II) Meetings
1) Biannual meetings of the membership shall be held in the spring and fall of each year. At the fall meeting, the membership shall elect officers and directors to serve for the following year.

PROPOSED LANGUAGE:

1. I) Membership
   1) Membership may be extended to:

Any individual person, family, partnership or corporation owning property in the area in Lexington, Kentucky, bounded as follows: Main Street (north
side), Walton Ave (east side), National Ave (both sides), Mentelle Park and Memory Lane (hereinafter “Mentelle Neighborhood”); or

Any individual person, family, partnership or corporation who has resided in or operated a business as a tenant within the Mentelle Neighborhood for a continuous period of one (1) or more years.

Membership is limited to one (1) per address, but is not limited to one (1) per property.

Any individual person, family, partnership or corporation who owns, resides in, and/or operates a business in more than one (1) address within the Mentelle Neighborhood shall be limited to one (1) membership.

Membership is automatically terminated when a property is sold, and/or upon termination of tenancy in the Mentelle Neighborhood address.

(II) Meetings
1) Annual meetings of the membership shall be held in the fall of each year. At that meeting, the membership shall elect officers and directors to serve for the following year.

To read the bylaws in full, go to the Bylaws tab on Mentelle.org.

The annual Mentelle Neighborhood picnic, postponed Sunday because of rain predictions, has been rescheduled for Sept. 30. It will be from  5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the Cramer Avenue end of the Mentelle Park median. The Mentelle Neighborhood Association will furnish hamburgers and hotdogs; please bring your own drinks and a side dish to share. There will be music and special activities for kids. Everyone who lives in the neighborhood is encouraged to attend.

Today’s annual Mentelle Neighborhood Picnic has been postponed because of rain expected this afternoon from Hurricane Florence.  Next weekend’s forecast doesn’t look good, either. The MNA board will decide on a new date later this week. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The annual Mentelle Neighborhood picnic will be Sunday, Sept. 16, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the Cramer Avenue end of the Mentelle Park median. The Mentelle Neighborhood Association will furnish hamburgers and hotdogs; please bring your own drinks and a side dish to share. There will be music and special activities for kids. Everyone who lives in the neighborhood is encouraged to attend.

Mentelle Neighborhood is home to many writers and artists. Two of those writers have new books published.

Willie Davis will read from his novel, Nightwolf, at 6 p.m. Thursday (Aug. 30) at Brier Books, 319 S. Ashland Ave. Click here for more information.   Willie is a winner of the Katherine Anne Porter and Willesden Herald International Short Story prizes. His work has appeared in Salon, The Guardian, The Kenyon Review and other publications.

Jeff Worley’s latest poetry collection, Lucky Talk, also is available at Brier Books, where he gave a reading Aug. 14. Worley, an award-winning poet, has published nine previous collections and edited What Comes Down to Us: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets, which included a forward by another Mentelle neighborhood resident, Ed McClanahan.

Both Willie and Jeff live on Aurora Avenue, as does Brier Books co-owner Samantha Sipple, a poet and short-story writer.

Mark your calendar for two important Mentelle Neighborhood events. More details to follow:

• The neighborhood picnic will be Sunday, Sept. 16, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the Cramer Avenue end of the Mentelle Park median. The Mentelle Neighborhood Association will furnish hamburgers and hotdogs; please bring your own drinks and a side dish to share. There will be music and special activities for kids. All neighborhood residents are encouraged to attend.
• The Mentelle Neighborhood Association’s annual membership meeting, which will include the election of officers, will be Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria of Ashland Elementary School.

Holly Salisbury, a longtime Mentelle Park resident and retired director of UK’s Singletary Center for the Arts, died unexpectedly Saturday after a routine medical procedure. She was 74.

A celebration of her life is planned at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Singletary Center, 405 Rose St.

Holly, a visual artist and art teacher, was active in the neighborhood. She will be greatly missed by her friends and neighbors.

Holly moved to Mentelle Park in 1978, renting the house of a family friend. It was in front of that house her father had proposed to her mother, she said in a Herald-Leader article in 2000. In 1986, Holly bought the house next door and lived there the rest of her life.

“I laugh and say I was meant to be in Mentelle Park,” she told reporter Bettye Lee Mastin.

For more information about Holly’s life, read this Herald-Leader news story and her obituary. Memorial contributions are suggested to Lexington’s Central Music Academy or Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra.

Randolph Runyon, who in May 2016 attended our historic marker dedication on Mentelle Park and spoke at our neighborhood history program, has published his book, The Mentelles: Mary Todd Lincoln, Henry Clay, and the Immigrant Family Who Educated Antebellum Kentucky  (University Press of Kentucky, $40).

It is an excellent read, with a lot of surprising information about this famous French couple Lexingtonians didn’t know as well as they thought. I have written my Herald-Leader column for Sunday’s paper about it. You can read it now online by clicking here.

The book is available in local bookstores, such as Brier Books on South Ashland Avenue or Wild Fig Books on North Limestone Street.

Runyon will be speaking and signing the book at a July 18 luncheon at Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate. Click here for reservations and more information. Ashland has offered to give Mentelle Neighborhood Association members the Ashland members’ discount on tickets. Space is limited.

It may be tiny, but you can’t miss the Tiny Library installed June 5 on the large lawn in front of Temple Adath Israel, 124 North Ashland Ave.

An initiative of the Lexington Public Library, it is one of about 30 book-filled boxes around the city. More installations are planned, but for the moment the box at Temple Adath Israel is the only Tiny Library in the Mentelle, Bell Court, Kenwick, Ashland Park, Chevy Chase, Fairway, Idle Hour, Shriners and Lansdowne Merrick neighborhoods along Richmond and Tates Creek roads.

(Mentelle neighborhood already has a couple of Little Library boxes neighbors have installed that aren’t affiliated with the Lexington Public Library.)

The idea is that passersby may take a book for themselves to enjoy or leave one that others might like. The library’s website describes a Tiny Library as a “miniature community center for sharing books. It’s hyper-local — right in your neighborhood — and it’s free, easy and fun.”

The box arrived at The Temple already stocked with books for children and adults. The Temple will be responsible for making sure it remains filled with an enticing array of choices.

The Tiny Library boxes were designed by Nomi Design, a Lexington firm that donated its services. They sit on a concrete base and are made of steel, wood and plexiglass, “with an eye toward elegance, durability and ease of use,” according Lexpublib.org. Sponsorship of a Tiny Library is $250 per installation. For more information, go to Lexpublib.org/tinylibrary.