Between his two weekly live shows on QVC and his broad digital platform, Mr. Venable last year sold more than $250 million worth of egg poachers, frozen crab cakes and backyard smokers. When he posted a recipe for Philadelphia cheesesteak dip, it reached 5.5 million people on Facebook.
This appeared in The Star-January 7, 1997. Country star Marty Stuart has set up home with Nashville legend Connie Smith--who is 17 years older than him. Marty, whose string of hits include Tempted and The Whiskey Ain't Workin', was only 6 when Connie had her No. 1 country hit Once A Day. Now he's 38--and she's 55.
JESSE STUART, POET, DIES AT 76. Jesse Stuart, the poet laureate of Kentucky and chronicler of its mountain country, died Friday at a nursing home in Ironton, Ohio, after a long illness. He was 76 years old and a lifelong resident of W-Hollow, Ky. James Hilton Stuart was born Aug. 8, 1907, in a log cabin in W-Hollow, where he was reared. His father, Mitchell, was a farmer, coal miner and railroad section hand. ''My father's family was Scotch,'' Mr. Stuart once wrote.