By LARRY VAUGHT

The reports just keep coming from University of Kentucky fans who had bad experiences with Derrick Miller, the former UK basketball player who has been charged in recent ticket scam incidents.
Leroy Boone, a middle school teacher in Lincoln County, says his parents, Leroy Sr. and Nancy Boone, owned Boone’s Hardware in Stanford. When Leroy Boone was in college, he met Miller for the first time when he came to his father’s store.
“I thought this great thing had happened … A UK Wildcat basketball player in Boone’s Hardware! He sold ads to my father that were in a book that combined articles about the Wildcats from the previous season. Dad liked him but it frustrated him due to Derrick not leaving a book.  In fact, I think Dad kept on Derrick so much that after about three years he actually left a book, and autographed it.
“When I started teaching school Dad was tired of paying $95 per advertisement. This was also the time that Derrick Miller stopped coming to the store. It was now Ed Davender. Dad liked Ed, but in a nice way he told him that he was not seeing enough benefit from an advertisement that was almost $100 in cost, and few people were seeing. He informed Davender that he did not want advertisements at that time, and we saw neither again.”
Boone found four of the books in his middle school library and says all the ads in the books were from Stanford businesses — as they were supposed to be.
“I just thought it was interesting to see someone else talking about the fact that their family was buying the ads for what seems like the same reasons my parents did because it was a UK basketball player selling them,” Boone said in reference to a blog entry here last week from folks in Harrodsburg and Liberty who said they gave money to Miller never saw any ads. “I enjoyed talking to Derrick, and I hate what has happened.  My father told me that Ed Davender seemed like a very respectful and nice person also.”
Liberty pharmacist Steve Hill was one of those who felt Miller took advantage of him about five years ago. He says no one connected with the publication — that is legitimate — needs to come back to his business.
“What was so stupid on my part is I felt it was a scam from the beginning but the fact he played for UK just overrode my feelings at the time. He played the part very well,” Hill said of Miller.

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