By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
With the assistance from the federal government, the Cave City agriculture exposition center is one step closer to becoming a reality.
After getting a call from U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell’s office on Feb. 3, Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd announced that $20 million had been earmarked for the agriculture center in the federal appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2026. The federal government’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the next year, which means fiscal year 2026 began on Oct. 1, 2025 and ends Sept. 30, 2026.
“It is so awesome that we got this money,” Byrd said during a Feb. 3 Glasgow News 1 interview.
This funding will be used for the construction of the regional agriculture center, and the separate “prep room” that will be connected to the Cave Area Conference Center, Byrd told Glasgow News 1.
“The ag center will be a 3,000-seat venue…that has a multipurpose floor…commercial restrooms, commercial concessions — all indoors — and a large prep room that will also be heated and cooled,” Byrd said. “It’s two separate buildings. One big arena and a separate prep building that’ll be connected by a covered walkway.”
Byrd told Glasgow News 1 that she would speak with the project’s architects, Sherman Carter Barnhart, which was approved to handle “everything” up to construction in April 2025, and discuss what could be included given the $20 million limit. Byrd has rough renderings of the center that will be finalized ideally in April or May.
“We sit down with [the architects] and say ‘this is where we’re at; this is the money we’re getting, what are we looking at; can we do it within this budget?’ And really go from their and decide [what] that gets us,” Byrd said.
The construction of this 3,000-seat center will likely be broken down into phases, Byrd said.
Much of the final design will be determined by the committee overseeing this project, which include the architects, Byrd, a Hart County Judge-Executive representative, UK Extension Agent Chris Schalk, Cave City Mayor Dwayne Hatcher, Barren County Magistrate Tim Coomer, and other agriculture- and equine-minded community members, Byrd said.
“Now that we’ve got the funding, we’ll probably put a [construction] bid out in — it would be dreamworld to do it in April-ish — but I’m not going to rush it,” she said.
Byrd also told Glasgow News 1 that this federal appropriation was obtained with the help of the federal lobbyist, whose contract was approved by the county in February 2025.
Discussions of the dormant project, which Byrd said tried to start in the early 2000s, began to heat up in 2023 with a “pitch” meeting, and in 2024 with several focus groups that met at the extension office in Glasgow. Focus groups included those with government, and tourism officials and Barren County farmers.
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