Mayfield’s second Class A state championship in the six-year era of six-class football bore a strong resemblance to the first one.

As was the case against Hazard in 2010, the Cardinals paired an opportunistic defense with a balanced offense that simply wasn’t going be stopped.

The results were eerily similar — Mayfield bombed Fairview 55-8 on Friday afternoon at Western Kentucky University’s Houchens-Smith Stadium, living up to its preseason No. 1 ranking and establishing a running clock late in the third quarter against a Fairview outfit that was averaging 47 points per game.

“We held them to eight points,” Mayfield coach Joe Morris said. “That’s some defense right there. We’re not real big up front, but we move those guys around and let (linebackers Jonathan and Dondre Jackson) clean up. It’s worked pretty well for us all year.”

In the end, the miscues probably did little more than delay the inevitable, for it seemed the Eagles weren’t ever going to be able to keep Mayfield’s potent offense in check. Jonathan Jackson ran for 278 yards and three touchdowns, never touching the ball after the four-minute mark of the third quarter. Jake Guhy threw for two scores, the first one on a 56-yard screen pass to Jackson on the Cardinals’ opening series.

There was a sense of atonement for last year’s 24-6 loss to Hazard, a game in which several key Cardinals were out or playing with injuries.

Parade sets the spirit for holiday

Santa Claus, dozens of elves and one person-sized pink bunny helped bring the Christmas spirit to downtown Paducah Saturday.

The city’s annual Christmas parade stretched along Broadway from Second to 14th streets. Warm temperatures didn’t stop parade goers from getting into the spirit of the season.

Jennifer Bagwell of Paducah waited near Eighth Street with daughter Evelyn, 9, and son Austin, 5, for the parade to start.

“They love it,” Bagwell said. “This kind of starts Christmas for us. If you ask them, they’ll say the best part is the candy.”

The parade included marching bands from Paducah Tilghman and the future McCracken County High School. Santa Claus anchored the entries, just a few car lengths behind the Market House Theatre’s “A Christmas Story” star Davin Belt, 11, wearing the play’s iconic pink bunny suit.

The theme was “Christmas Time in the City” with 94 entries registered before the event got rolling at 5 p.m. Murray State University President Randy Dunn served as grand marshal. The parade kicked off Paducah Renaissance Alliance’s 12 Days of Merriment, an effort to showcase local businesses in Paducah’s Renaissance District.

Weekend art show benefits

students’ education

While the number of sales alone could prove a local college arts fest was boon enough for Paducah School of Art students, the benefits gleaned from the holiday exhibit stretched far beyond the tangible.

As part of West Kentucky Community & Technical College’s second Weekend of Art — hosted at the Clemens Fine Arts Center over the weekend — PSA held its yearly Student and Faculty Holiday Art Sale to great success.

The exhibition featured more than 1,600 works from current and past students throughout the region and, as of Sunday afternoon, had generated more than $8,500 from sales. Paul Aho, PSA dean, said both figures represented a large increase from last year’s sale.

“Our success was immeasurably better, not only in terms of the amount of money we made for our students, but in terms of the number of works on display and the quality,” Aho said. “That states the art school is growing and raising the bar in terms of the work of our students.”

With proceeds from the art sale representing some fledgling artists’ first-ever earned income, and a small commission taken out to bolster the school’s art club expenditures, students benefited from the sale through experience and enrichment opportunities.

The art club will use the income to visit regional university art programs, invite class speakers and put the money toward varying programs as decided upon by the club, Aho said.

“It’s basically a reinvestment act of the students,” he said. “It’s about making the experience of the students more engaging and ultimately more rewarding.”