>> We're excited to be at the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, and we're even more excited for you to join us on Kentucky Life.

Welcome to Kentucky Life.

I'm Doug Flynn, visiting one of Kentucky's best kept secrets, the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, with over 20,000 square feet of space, and two hangers full of jets, planes, helicopters, even hot air balloons.

The A-4 Skyhawk you see here served with the Blue Angels Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron from 1974 to 1986.

This aircraft was painted in Blue Angels colors when it arrived at the museum, in honor of us Navy Lieutenant Mike Nord, a Kentucky native who flew with the Blue Angels.

On my way in, I spotted an aircraft with a Hollywood history, that I'm going to get a closer look at while you get a closer look at this story.

[MUSIC] >> Cats are unique because they are extremely loyal to the people in their family.

Once you make a bond with your cat, it is unbreakable.

And it's amazing to me.

And we see that happen every single time when a cat walks up and chooses that person.

And you go, "Well, I guess you got to adopt that cat now."

>> One of my favorite parts of this concept is how much outreach the Kentucky Humane Society has been able to really supply us with cats.

If they're coming from across the whole state, there's over 37 different shelters that this feeds.

So the need was very, very great, but one of the areas that has been a challenge for them is what they honestly call the retail piece of it, which is being able to get the kitties into homes.

That's where a cat cafe comes in.

>> It's a wild journey and it's a great story the way it got started.

I was vacationing with my wife in Charleston, South Carolina, and I saw this concept and I said, "Wow, this is really, really unique."

I got to see the space.

I got to see, they had a bar in there and all kinds of fun things.

And I said, "You know what?

I've got to bring this back to Kentucky."

Some of the more common misconceptions about the cafe is yes, not only do people think that they're going to have to eat with cats, but this area right in here is our separate room.

This is Medusa.

And this is all glassed in.

People can come in and see the experience and just really kind of be a part of the kitties.

>> So as far as the environment for the kitties here, we are really, really proud of how free they are.

And our concept of this cat cafe is cuddles, not cages.

We can give them plenty of space and exercise and free food.

They can run up and down the stairs during adult cat season.

If they want to stay away, they can get up on the shelf and have a little alone time.

And so part of the process here is even if you're not looking to adopt, you can spend time in this lounge, in this nice big space, and play with the cats, cuddle with the cats, help them trust people.

And that's really, really important.

>> Kids are a huge, important part of this process.

And it is important that these cats are able to see kids.

It's important that they're able to see the dogs that walk by.

Most people have cats, kids, or dogs in the household.

So that's part of that socialization process in order to ensure that the adoption is successful.

This location, both here in Louisville, and in Covington, Kentucky, the wonderful thing about it is it's become a draw.

It is actually a big tourist kind of thing to do now with people that are animal lovers.

>> So we do many, many special events.

We have Friday night cat yoga with cats all over you.

We have our Purr, Paint, Sip class, and you get to take home your artwork.

We have various trivia nights.

>> We have Kids With a Cause classes now, where for instance, they might be making cat toys for the Kentucky Humane Society.

So it's all about teaching children that they can have a purpose.

It doesn't really matter how small you are, you can make a change in the world of shelter animals.

Every single cup of coffee or event you attend, not just coming in here to enjoy the kitties and the kitty lounge, it all goes to help the Kentucky Humane Society, and to help us keep this place warm and cozy and well supplied for our cats.

Just over the past two years, we've started receiving kitties from Hazard, from far, far, Western Kentucky, all the way past Paducah, all the way in far Eastern Kentucky.

And normally that would be unheard of.

And we have actually heard back from the Kentucky Humane Society that shelters have contacted them to say, "We no longer have to euthanize," because of the work we're able to do here at the cat cafe.

Because technically when you adopt a cat, you're saving two, because you're sending one to the home, but you're opening up the shelter for another one to get transferred in.

So we are really, really proud of our exclusive partnership with the Kentucky Humane Society.

I love >> that this is a business with a purpose.

And what I love is that all of our team here is just so coordinated >> around that same mission.

And this can be such a job that gives back to me as much as I'm able to give back to it.

And I guess the most rewarding piece of that is that our hearts, our effort, >> and everything that we have put into this as a team is being so well supported by the community around us.

We know we are making a difference in not just the cat's lives, but we're also making a difference in people's lives.

It makes us smile every day, because we meet so many different people from all around the world coming to the cat cafe.

And there are times where after you finish an adoption, and they've lost their cat that they had for 22 years, >> and they cry and they give you a hug, especially people who live alone, when they end up adopting, you know that that person is going to have a constant companion for the rest of their life, which is really uplifting to us.

>> What I think about cats is that they just have an amazing calming effect.

We've had a lot of people come in here and tell us that this is just therapy for them.

They might come in and have a really, really difficult day.

They just have this ability to calm you down and relax you.

And we just had so many people tell us that, especially during COVID.

And they just have the ability to just kind of take your emotions and put them in the right place.

>> Made famous by Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in the 1986 film Top Gun, the F-14 Tomcat was used by the US Navy from 1974 until 2006, with over 700 produced.

Now the Aviation Museum of Kentucky has one of the few F-14s left by the Navy on display to see up close.

I'm going to go see about getting into one of these extraordinary aircrafts, >> and you can get into this.

In December of 1997, Governor Paul Patton opened the door for seven Rocky Mountain elk that would begin the journey to restoring elk to Kentucky.

Years of over hunting and habitat loss would see the end to this amazing creature in our state.

Now, after 25 years of restoration efforts, Kentucky has the largest elk herd east of the Rocky Mountains.

>> This is a restoration, and it's of a scale that's seldom seen.

And I think by anyone's definition, this would be considered one of the most successful animal reintroductions anywhere on the planet.

Pioneers like Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone, when they came into Kentucky, they referred to it as sort of a game paradise, but unfortunately that was quickly lost.

Within a few decades, we saw that bison disappeared, and we think that elk disappeared in Kentucky sometime before the Civil War.

>> Today, we're at Kentucky Fish and Wildlife's Salato Wildlife Education Center.

Behind me is our demonstration elk herd.

We have this herd here to inform and educate the public about elk and elk in Kentucky.

We went from elk all across the Blue Grass in the 17 and 1800s, to mid to late 1800s, they were completely gone.

And then fast forward to the 1990s, and our agency was on the heels of restoring wild turkey, on the heels of restoring whitetail deer.

And for us, it was the next step.

What species do we need to work on next?

>> In the mid-'90s, I'd been hearing about reintroduction of elk in the Eastern part of the United States, specifically, Pennsylvania.

And then