Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County? Mr. Martin's money train is hauling it back

Rural America gets the short end of the stick from the nation's foundations and other philanthropies, but many of its natives have wealth that could greatly benefit their old hometowns. The latest example is Felix Martin Jr., right, who died just over a year ago. When the retired investor and lifelong bachelor returned to his native Greenville, Ky., in 1996, "People knew him but they didn't know the extent of his wealth. He was private about it," his friend Roderick Tompkins said yesterday -- when the wealth became very public, with the announcement that Martin had left $50 million to create a foundation or trust "for the benefit of the education, civic and cultural needs" of Muhlenberg County.

The county of 32,000 is synonymous with the Western Kentucky Coal Field, where mining has been an up-and-down industry that has brought temporary prosperity to many, wealth to a relative few, and lasting human and environmental damage to some. Many know it best as the locale of John Prine's 1967 song "Paradise," from which the title of this item is taken.

"C. Dennis Riggs, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville, which is administering the trust, said the gift may be one of the largest bequests to a community in the country," reports Emily Udell of The Courier-Journal. (C-J map) "He said the money will be a resource to help retool the county's work force." Yesterday the foundation, headed by Tompkins, announced a $150,000 grant to help establish an arts extension agent through the University of Kentucky and a $110,000 grant to boost a scholarship program for local students at nearby Madisonville Community and Technical College. Half a million dollars will be available for "nonprofits serving Muhlenberg County residents during an initial application period," Udell writes. (Read more)

For more background on rural philanthropy, click here.