The Kentucky Enquirer from Covington, Kentucky • A20

Kentuckyobituaries TaylorMillpassed peacefullyinhis sleeponJune vivedbyhiswifeDe- DirkesandDenise (Joe)Bowmanand hisbelovedgrand- Anne(Keith)Sand- ersandElaine(Matt) brotherSteveandsisterMary.Thoughheloved enjoyedspendingtimewithandrootingonMa- MemorialsaresuggestedtoCovingtonCatholic from11amuntil1pm.MassofChristianBurial willbeheldatSt.PiusXat2pm. DIRKES Catherine Dungan, 90, of Florence, passed away Sunday, June 18, 2017. She is preceded in death by her husband, Calvin Dungan. She is survived by her children, Sharon (Jim) Woods, Steven Dungan and Scott (Hilary) Dungan; 7 grandchildren; 6 great grandchildren; sister, Nancy Washburn. A memorial service will be held on Monday, July 10 at 6 PM at Florence United Methodist Church 8585 Old Toll Rd.

Florence, KY 41042. Memorials can be made to St. Elizabeth Hospice 483 S. Loop Rd. Edgewood, KY 41017 or Florence United Methodist Church.

Online condolences www.stithfuneralhomes.com DUNGAN Jeffrey Joseph Gardner, 71, of DeMossville, Kentucky, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, June 21, 2017. He is preceded in death by his sons, Joseph Gardner and Terry Reams; and his sister, Nancy Puro. Jeffrey is survived by Barbara Spillman Gardner, his loving wife of more than 50 years. He will be dearly missed by his daughters, Toni Roberts, Tracy Ice, and Tina Courtney (John); and his sister Susan Federico (Danny). He was a loving Grandfather to 11 and Great-Grandfather to 18.

Jeffrey touched many lives as a foster-father and will be fondly remembered. He served our country in the United States Army, during the Vietnam War. Visitation will take place on Monday, June 26, 2017, at Stith Funeral Home, 7500 U.S. Highway 42, Florence, Kentucky 41042, beginning at 10:00 a.m. until the time of Service at 1:00 p.m.

Burial will immediately follow at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Memorial donations are suggested to any cancer or heart research organization of the choice. Stith Funeral Home, Florence is assisting the family. Online condolences may be left at: www.stithfuneralhome.com. GARDNER 20A THE ENQUIRER KENTUCKY national news DENVER Take a black-market business that relies on cash.

Move the business out of the shadows by giving it government oversight. Hire new regulators to keep watch on the business, all without any experience regulating a brand-new industry. The result can be a recipe for government corruption. Recent cases in Colorado and Washington are the first known instances of current or former pot regulators being accused of having improper dealings with the industry. The two recreational marijuana states are the oldest, approving legal weed in defiance of federal law in 2012.

Apair of cases several years into the legal-weed experiment might not seem like much, but they give a black eye to all marijuana regulators and fuel old fears about the criminal influence. In a case that has caught the U.S. Justice attention, former Colorado marijuana enforcement officer Renee Rayton is accused of helping pot growers raise plants for illegal out-of-state sales. State investigators say the marijuana warehouse inspector quit her job last year and immediately went to work for the illegal pot ring, taking an job. AJune 7 indictment says Rayton told the pot growers she could help them through her contacts at the Colorado agency that oversees the marijuana industry.

The indictment says Rayton had of marijuana regulations and have been that other defendants in the case were growing pot illegally. She is charged with conspiracy to illegally grow pot. attorney told The Associated Press she is innocent. In Washington, the state agency that regulates pot recently fired an employee who leased land to a prospective pot grower. Marijuana licensing specialist Grant Bulski was leasing 25 acres to a marijuana entrepreneur for $2,834 a month, The Spokesman-Review reported.

That violated Washington rules prohibiting pot regulators from having a financial stake in the business. Bulski was not charged with a crime. Pot the first product in the U.S. to go from illegal to legit. Alcohol and gambling made similar transitions last century.

But since recreational pot remains off-limits in most states and in the U.S. eyes, a massive black market remains. is unique because so front and center in the public said Lewis Koski, who became top marijuana enforcement officer after regulating the gambling and alcohol industries. Now a government consultant who teaches public policy at the Univer- sity of Colorado-Denver, Koski said government employees who regulate any business face tension. Regulators know the industry monitoring well.

And in the case of the marijuana business, those regulators have no guidance from federal authorities and little precedent to rely on. And because the federal government considers all pot business illegal, making it difficult for those businesses to access banking products as basic as checking accounts, the pot industry remains cash-heavy. The Colorado and Washington cases were uncovered by state officials, not federal drug authorities. They highlight how critical it is for states to tightly regulate a business still coming out of the black market, Koski said. sides government agencies and the industry are working hard to establish Koski said.

it makes it more concerning when you have people going back and Pot regulators face increasing scrutiny KRISTEN WYATT ASSOCIATED PRESS BRENTWOOD, N.Y. One student wrote how his parents were fed up with paying to street gangs in Honduras. Another told how he finally left that country after he was hit in the leg by a stray bullet from a police gunfight. And yet another described his harrowing trip from El Salvador with a smuggler who kept apistol on his dashboard, just in case. Not exactly the stories of typical sixth-graders.

But this bilingual class on Long Island is hardly typical, made up almost entirely of 11-, 12- and 13- year-olds who fled street gangs in their native Central America only to wind up in a suburb now caught in the grip of violence from a street gang with Central American ties, MS-13. I look back at how much I have suffered, I realize that challenges make you wrote Jocsan Hernandez, the boy struck by the stray bullet, who was among more than 20 students at East Middle School who have contributed stories to a class book titled por un mejor for a Better The 88-page book, handwritten in Spanish and illustrated with colorful drawings, was an end-of-year project that grew out of a classroom discussion about the experiences back in Central America, their immigration journeys and hopes for a better life in the United States. Some of the kids came as recently as October with a brother, sister or cousin, while others came with a parent. Some were granted asylum or came with a visa. Some were held in border detention centers and are still going through immigration court proceedings.

they went through it all, but they come to school every day with a smile on their face, and they are said teacher Maria Mendoza. is positive. They find the courage enough to put it on That theme of hope amid hardship comes through on every page. Alongside 11-year-old Ismael illustrated account of his passage from El Salvador with the help of an armed smuggler were police stops and they would take our optimistic images of brown dirt paths that lead to the U.S., surrounded by green mountains and flowers. Very little in the book deals with a new reality of their American homeland that most of the children have yet to experience: the MS-13 gang been blamed for 11 killings of mostly teenagers who have been discovered in woods and vacant lots in Brentwood and neighboring Central Islip since the start of the school year.

Law enforcement officials say gangs with Central American ties such as MS-13 have recruited heavily from the ranks of the more than 165,000 unaccompanied minor immigrants who have been placed in the U.S. since 2013. Long Island has been afrequent landing spot. Suffolk County, which includes Brentwood and Central Islip, has gotten 4,500. On the last day of the school year, the students showed off the book to parents who visited their classroom.

CLAUDIA TORRENS ASSOCIATED PRESS NOBLE JR. Ervin Rivera, a sixth-grade Salvadoran immigrant, reads his story to teacher Alison DeFaclo in Brentwood, N.Y. Young immigrants have written about how they fled street gangs. Young immigrants write about their hope in gang-scarred town.