WHY CLAY COUNTY IS DRY Visitors often ask me why my home county is "dry"' as far as the legal sale of alcohol is concerned. My answer is three told, the church people, the bootleggers and my father. In 1933, when the newly elected president, Franklin D. Roosevelt spearheaded a successful effort to repeal the Prohibition Amendment to the constitution, the next thing that happened was inevitable. Clay County had its share of licker stores. Cousin Carl "Puny" Maggard built Puny's Playhouse and Oscar Smith changed his garage into a whiskey store at nearby Burning Springs. In the meanwhile, the Kentucky legislature passed a local option law that provided that the voters in a county or a precinct of a county could petition for an election to test the will of a majority of voters as to their wishes, concerning the sale of alcohol beverages. It was not long until the church people petitioned for a local option election. With the best wishes and some unpublicized help from the bootleggers, John Barleycorn was given the heave-ho by a vote ot three to one. However, someone in the county clerk's office managed to get the election voided on some technicality or other and Clay County continued to be counted among the wet areas in Kentucky . In due course another petition and another election and the people of Clay County voted five to one to forbid the legal sale of whiskey. Again that someone or several someones managed, somehow, to void that election. For a third time an election was held. This time the vote was an undisputable, ten to one for the "drys."' My father hauled "dry" voters to the poles in each election. After delivering the last car full of voters to their respective homes he stopped at Oscar Smith's whiskey store and bought himself a fifth of good Kentucky Bourbon. I did not ask him what his motive was but no doubt he would have answered that he had too many sons and nephews who might be led astray if alcohol continued to be legal in our neighborhood .