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In my world, the big news this week wasn’t local.
One of my favorite writers of all time, Elmore Leonard, passed away this week. And on Wednesday, it seems like every other post on my Facebook page was another tribute to Leonard, who was 87. My tribute in the podcast was to talk about Leonard’s famous 10 Tips for writing. The best-known is the advice to leave out the parts people usually skip. But the most useful may have been Leonard’s opinion on writing dialogue — never use anything other than the word “said” in writing what people say.
No adverbs, either. I’ve kept this in mind ever since I learned the tips years ago. 
My guests on the show this week, Ben Rhodes and John Boel, share a powerful attribute – determination.
Boel told me he thinks he may be the only person to have finished all of the Louisville Ironman competitions, since it came to town in 2007. Now that’s more amazing when you consider he went through a terrible ordeal — losing his job due to drinking, going through rehab and then re-emerging as the city’s top investigative reporter on TV, at WAVE.
Rhodes, at 16, has the kind of single-minded focus that’s rare for anyone, but especially a teen-ager. He’s had a long string of near-misses, mor ethan 18 months’ worth, but in the last two weekends won three races in competition on the K&N Pro Series circuit — the Triple A level of NASCAR.
