My favorite is the "back saver"kind with the bent handle and a metal strip. A wide pusher of some sort could also be useful, especially with drier snow.
Eljefino has a point about having to pitch the snow onto high banks as the season wears on, but that may not be an issue in Kentucky. Compared to lifting with the straight handle, that effort is worth it to me. I spent 3 winters in West Michigan without a snowblower, including a year with 120-something inches of snow. Clearing a 2-car driveway and the sidewalk out front, I wore the blade off the landlord's straight shovel, then an ergonomic one, and most of another ergonomic one. I have been using that last shovel two or three times per year in Virginia for a decade now.
I told a guy in Michigan that I was taking my snow shovel to VA just in case. He said I would be like Odysseus, carrying his oar so far from the sea that nobody knew what it was. I am the only one on my block that seems to own, or at least use, a snow shovel. (I do know parts of VA get substantial snow, but I'm in the part of the state where you have to buy all of the bread and milk when snow is forecast.)