Grown Up Courage In A Pint-Size Package

Michael Hesson, a fourth year medical student working at the Children’s Hospital Foundation Building in Louisville, completes a portion of Ainsly Liter's regular check up on Wednesday, August 30. Until this visit, Ainsly had to come in every three months for a series of blood tests and other screenings in order to ensure that her Leukemia had not come back. After this visit and another clean bill of health, Ainsly's doctor, Salvatore Bertolone told her that she could cut back to only visiting twice a year. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Six-year-old Ainsly Liter and her sister Delany, 9, ride figure-8s on their bicycles on the rain-dampened asphalt in the driveway of their home on Madison's hilltop. Their mother, Gerri, watches from the open garage door as the girls giggle and a light drizzle falls on their heads.

It was not long ago when the Liter family lived in uncertainty, unsure if Ainsly would ever have a normal childhood or live to be a teenager.

Gerri Liter and her husband, Gary, sought medical help in April 2002 when Ainsly was 22 months old. Ainsly had begun bruising easily, was crying constantly and had developed an unexplained swollen abdomen. Doctors at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Ky., recognized the symptoms, and after a round of tests Ainsly was diagnosed with leukemia.

Over the next two years, Ainsly received chemotherapy to fight the disease. Some sessions were done in a doctor's office, some at home.

Gerri said there were many days when Ainsly would be able to get up and play with her sisters soon after the treatment was over. Ainsly would also have her bad days, though, when her body responded poorly to the treatments and she would be too tired and feeling too nauseous to do anything but lie at home.

"There were times when she couldn't be very active," Gerri said.

Ainsly's chemotherapy treatments ended in May 2004, and with no leukemia found in her body, she was considered to be in remission.

On a recent follow-up appointment at the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Specialists office at the Children's Hospital Foundation Building in Louisville, Dr. Salvatore Bertolone gave the Liters the news that they have waited to hear. "Statistically, the first two years are the best chance for a relapse," Bertolone said. Now that Ainsly has more than two years free of leukemia, he said she is most likely done with the disease.

Ainsly will still go in for periodic checkups. Her next visit will be in six months, but Bertolone said she should be able to carry on like any other child her age.

"We have seen some kids slightly off the growth levels of other children their age after chemotherapy," Bertolone said. "But Ainsly seems to be right on track."

With two years having passed since her chemotherapy ended, Ainsly said she doesn't think about her sick days very often. She doesn't remember losing her hair, and now she is much more interested in playing with her friends and having fun.

"It was great to see her start playing with her sisters and friends again," Gerri said.

Gerri said she still has moments of worry when Ainsly catches a cold or gets a fever, but the family spends most of their concerns on more day-to-day events, like making it to soccer games and dance practice on time, and doing school work.

Ainsly is a first-grader at Anderson Elementary School, and according to her teacher, Ann Motenko, she has no problem keeping up with her peers.

This is evident as Ainsly hurls a ball at a classmate during a recent game of dodge ball in the gymnasium. As another ball zips past her head, she and her friends scream playfully and dash to the other side of the court. An outsider who didn't know any better, would never be able to tell that Ainsly had ever been different from the other kids in class. (Story - ©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Ainsly's mother, Gerri Liter, looks on as Hesson completes a portion of Ainsly's check up (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Ainsly Liter dances with her classmates during the "Name Game" song in their first grade class at Anderson Elementary School on Monday, September 11. Despite a more than 2-year battle against leukemia, Liter carries on like any other first grader now that she is in remission. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Ainsly Liter sits with her classmates during lunch at Anderson Elementary School on Monday, September 11. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Harvesting Cliché’s

Sosimo Ramirez picks an Ida Red apple from a tree at Bray's Orchards in Trimble County, Ky., on Tuesday, September 26. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

I was very excited when this assignment came up in a staff meeting. My friend William P. Cannon had done a great package on an orchard at the paper we had worked at together. So with that in mind, I went out for my shot at the subject.

While I like the color and light, I feel like I missed something. There’s lots of !POP! without any feeling. (If you haven’t guessed, most of my least favorite work from each month is posted toward the end of the month.)

Anyway, I know we all get harvest assignments. If you have some good examples of what good shots look like, add the website address to the comments page.

The morning sun filters through the trees as Margurito Hernandez picks Ida Red apples from a tree at Bray's Orchards in Trimble County, Ky., on Tuesday, September 26. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Margurito Hernandez picks Ida Red apples from a tree at Bray's Orchards in Trimble County, Ky., on Tuesday, September 26. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Ambassador Baby

Eight-month-old Ashley Fulton, of Hanover, looks over her mother Paula's shoulder at the beginning of the 2006 March of Dimes Madison Area Walk America event on Saturday, September 16. Ashley, who was born a month and a half premature, was this year's ambassador baby. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Portrait Woes

Ron Grimes displays his new book "Madison" which has a compilation of photos that Grimes compiled from the archives of the Jefferson County Historical Society. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Sometimes you just have to let go of an idea.

This guy is really cool. He is a retired cop from Chicago who moved with his wife to Madison several years ago. Grimes was recruited to take over the archives of the Jefferson County Historical Society shortly after moving to town.

Since then he has amassed a gargantuan collection of digitized copies of old photos. Everything from architecture of the town as it changed over the years, to random snapshots from the early 1900’s showcasing the clothing and modes of transportation of the time.
All of the photos are cataloged and can be called up instantly from the database on hand.

A selection of the photos were recently put into a book of images called “Madison.”

Anyway, as soon as I got into the archive room at the historical society, I saw a small section (two shelves about three feet wide) of ancient books.
I was so set on doing the portrait of Grimes in front of the old books that I ignored the voice that told me, “It’s not working, move on.”

The end result is this awkwardly positioned gentleman who played along kindly as I tried and tried to make this photo work.

I’ll have to try harder and know when to say when next time.

On the Parade Route in Canaan

A crowd of parade spectators watch the passing floats, fire trucks, marching bands and politicians at the Canaan Fall Festival parade on Saturday, September 9. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

The Pony Express riders make their way through the crowd at the end of the Canaan Fall Festival on Saturday, September 9. The festival has had a Pony Express route from Canaan to Madison every year for Four decades. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

With a raccoon hat and a dead squirrel on a stick, Trenton Mills, 7, of Canaan, plays the part of a trapper on the "Westward Bound to Canaan: 1812" float in the Canaan Fall Festival Parade on Saturday, September 9. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Finding A Nice Way To Say “Your Hummel is not that valuable.”

Tim Luke, of the Home and Garden Television show "Cash in the Attic," discusses the value of a Hummel figurine with owner Linda Moreillon, of Hanover, during a public appraisal session at the Lanier - Madison Visitor Center on Saturday, September 9. Luke said later that his favorite item that he saw during the weekend was a collection of presidential signatures including Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

If You Only Read One Blog Post Today

Please read the recent post on my friend

William P. Cannon's blog

He is the photo editor in Utica, NY, and he raises an interesting question about being a photojournalist as the first person at an accident scene (even before medics).

Fire Cleanup Continues

Adam Denning (left) and Daniel Thornton, both of Davis and Lockridge Construction in Hanover, dismantle a large piece of ductwork from the burned out interior of the Elks Lodge on West Street in Madison on Wednesday, September 27. A fire heavily damaged the Elks Lodge #524 on Friday, August 25. On August 29, the fire was ruled an arson. Davis and Lockridge Construction Co-Owner Rodney Lockridge said he expects his crew to be finished with their task in 7-10 days, not including any rain delays. After that he said a structural engineer would be brought in to determine how much of the building is salvageable. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

While I was away from town, working on an assignment in Indianapolis a couple of months ago, Madison had the worst fire in several years, which destroyed a couple of historic downtown buildings and has had the city buzzing ever since about who may have been the arson.

Missing out on the major spot news was bad but I have been able to follow the developments since, which are in now way as exciting, but are still of major interest to most of our readers.

Anyway, these shots wouldn’t have made it to the blog except that I love the light. I hope you do too.

Chris Denning pushes a wheel barrel out to a ramp that leads to a dumpster in front of the Elks Lodge on West Street in Madison while his coworkers from Davis and Lockridge Construction work together to clear out the charred wreckage from the building's interior on Wednesday, September 27. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Rodney Lockridge (left) and Phil Mohn work to dismantle an industrial air ventilation blower in the middle of the fire-gutted top story of the Elks Lodge on Wednesday, September 27. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Right Place at the Right Time

While driving around for wild art on a slow day last month, I passed by the house pictured and noticed a detective’s unmarked car. As I kept driving I saw a police cruiser heading in the same direction with its lights off. I pulled over to see what, if anything was going on. There had been nothing on the police scanner from this street all morning, but I knew something was up.

A Madison Police Department vehicle is parked in front of the house at 921 Walnut Street where Gerald Lee "Bubby" Roberts was found on Tuesday, September 12. Roberts was transported to King's Daughters' Hospital where he was pronounced dead. An investigation into the cause of death is ongoing. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

After calling back to the office and sharing the limited information with one of our best reporters and my editor, I began shooting and asking for accounts of the morning from neighbors on the street.

With our collective digging, mine on the street and our reporter on the phone with everyone who might know anything official, we pieced together that there had been a likely beating death of a local man.

Without picking up on the subtle clues, we would have missed a major news story, which had been kept silent on the scanner.

At the end of the same week I was walking the two blocks from our office to a formal dinner for the National Historic Landmark designation that was awarded to our town (We have the largest recognized district in the nation). As I was passing the police station, which sits between our office and the banquet hall, the detectives from the murder investigation were standing near the door to the police station and were obviously waiting for something.

Then two squad cars pulled in and had a man in the back of one of the cars. I raced over to the cars adjusting my camera for the outdoor light as quickly as possible. I asked one of the detectives if the man in cuffs was involved with the murder investigation. He told me he could not comment, which I took as a yes unless future facts proved different, and I snapped off some perp walk photos as quick as I could.

My exposure was way off, but I kept the frames in case the guy was actually involved.

After shooting the banquet, I went back to the office and edited my take. As I was turning in my banquet photos a fax came over from the PD saying a suspect had been charged with the murder. I toned my photo as quickly as possible and rushed it over to the detectives to get confirmation that it was the man they had charged. It was.

Even though I am not thrilled with the quality of the photos, I was proud to have picked up on the clues that led to us having both stories, with art, in our newspaper. I am better at, and enjoy the feature side of the job more than the news side, but at the end of the day we are still a NEWSpaper and I am happy to know that, at least during that week, I had what it took to do the real job.

Gary Dennis Jackson, 52, is escorted to the Madison Police Department by MPD Officer Jamie Royce on Friday, September 15. Jackson has been charged with aggravated battery and murder in connection with the death Gerald Lee "Bubby" Roberts, who died on Tuesday as a result of subdermal hematoma. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Jazz for Jesus

Pianist Yvonne Davis, (from left) saxophonist Rick Bennett and trumpeter Brook Reindollar practice for a “Jazz for Jesus” concert. The trio will perform the improvisational jazz showcase of classical hymns, spirituals and contemporary praise music at 6 p.m. Sunday at First Assembly of God church in Madison. The concert will be free to the public, though donations will be accepted. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Poster Signing

Kevin Carlson signs numbered prints of the Madison Chautauqua Festival of Art 2006 poster at the Madison Art Gallery on Friday, September 15. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Farmer Becomes Honorary Mayor

Benny Chandler, 74, of Shelby Township holds onto the reigns of his Haflinger ponies Bo and Dan, as they are taken out for a practice pull on Tuesday, September 5. Chandler will be the acting Mayor of Canaan for this weekend's Canaan Fall Festival. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)

Kids View Wreckage From the School Playground

A gaggle of children from Lydia Middleton Elementary School watch as King's Daughters' Hospital paramedics take Brenda Calvert, of Bedford, away from an accident scene in front of the school on Tuesday afternoon. Officer Dan Slygh, of the Madison Police Department, said that a ball made its way over the fence surrounding the school playground and bounced across Main Street. When Calvert stopped for the ball, she was rear-ended by William Jackson of Madison. Jackson was not taken to the hospital. (©Ken Ritchie/The Madison Courier)