McCarty was the King Bee

The passing of long-time businessman Charlie McCarty last week was a sad time for his family and the community. However, it did also stir up some recollections of his sports days.
McCarty opened then Burger Queen around 1970 and it was a big deal for Campbellsville. He also fielded a softball team — one he was the left-handed catcher on.
“He would slide head first,” fondly remembered former outfielder Frank Gaskins earlier this week. “He hated losing.”
McCarty would usually be sweaty and dirty from head to toe as he only knew one way to play the game and that was all-out, not to let the youngsters he played with and coached out-do him.
“He would tell us to come by tomorrow if we won and he would give us a Royal Burger (the Burger Queen trademark sandwich). I guess that made us pro,” laughed Gaskins who was an outfielder on the B League team at Miller Park.
Gaskins said he remembered Craig Tincher as the pitcher, Randy Watson as the shortstop and the team also consisted of Scotty Shofner, who worked many years at Burger Queen, Clavis Wilson, Donald Holmes and nowadays mailman Gary Gilpin.
Getting Gaskins going on McCarty was easy and he also offered some remembrances of the softball days at Miller Park.
Charles Richardson ran the leagues after Father Bowling and he would use high school and early college-age students as his “ground crew” — usually Mike Gumm, Steve Skaggs and Randy Watson and later Russell Blevins.
“Charlie (Richardson) dragged the field one time by tying the drag to the trunk lid of his new pale green Pontiac Bonneville,” Gaskins looked back at his former teacher at Campbellsville High School. “But, he had to drive around with the trunk open for a month. He got mad when we laughed.”
Gaskins also remembers Gilpin trading his 1965 Mustang for a 1941 Chevrolet.
“One night the hood blew off of it. But, he drove with no hood for the rest of the summer.”
Those type stories were Charlie McCarty who was immediately involved in Campbellsville from day one.
Evidently what McCarty did and does work as the family business, now Druthers, still operates the same successful way it did when the “King Bee” started it over 40 years ago.

Thoughts and notes
•Thank goodness the summer Olympics only comes every four years. Don’t get me wrong. All the events are exciting. But, watching something after you know the results, isn’t a lot of fun.
Waiting to see if Michael Phelps wins another gold medal is exciting. But, knowing that he did or didn’t takes away from the actual moment.
Most folks understand advertisers do pay most of the bills and they want their commercials seen during prime time.
It’s also frustrating to see that team handball and men’s badminton have replaced baseball and softball at the Olympics.
Then again, if that’s all we have to worry or gripe about, it’s still a pretty good USA we live in.
•Kentucky Christian Academy fourth-grader Hayes Mason shot 105 (53-52) to finish eight out of 16 golfers in the 10-and-under division in the Pepsi Junior Golf Tournament of Champions at Oxmoor Country Club last week in Louisville.
•Kyle Todd (6-3, 225), son of former Taylor County High School head coach Brad Todd, is a freshman walk-on quarterback at the University of Louisville. Todd passed for 3,200+ yards and 27 touchdowns as a senior at Elizabethtown High.