In early 2022, I was alerted by a local farmer that he had a suspicious ant mound in his raised bed- he was concerned that it was the red imported fire ant. I contacted the Office of the State Entomologist, who conducted a site visit and determined that it was the imported fire ant and treated the mound. A couple of months later, I was contacted again by the same farmer who noticed a mound on his neighbor's property, which was again confirmed that it was the imported fire ant. At that point, I put out a social media post and statement with local media sources urging people to report any sightings. Since then, two more reports were made and confirmed, one of which included more than 50 mounds on a single property. The Entomology team and I have worked diligently to try and remove these ants and address any concerns swiftly as they come in. Included is an email from Dr. Bessin: "Tracie, I want to thank you for all of your work to get the word out about appearance of fire ants in southern McCreary County, as well as your help walking fields to locate mounds so they can be eliminated.  Your use of social media to get the word out to have people report suspected colonies has been very helpful and identified a significant hot spot with dozens of mature mounds on a single farm.  We never expected McCreary County to be a focal point for movement of fire ants into Kentucky as all of our previous encounters have been in Western Kentucky.  The fire ants we found in your county have been the hybrid of the red and black fire ant species which is reported to be more cold tolerant, which means it is better adapted to survive our winters. While not all reports turn out to be fire ants, it is important for us to check them out.  Our goal is to eliminate these mounds when we learn of them in order to keep Kentucky free of fire ants and avoid burdensome quarantines on some ag commodities." The lasting result from this discovery is that many local citizens are now educated on the issue and recognize the importance of reporting invasive species.