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Local News

  • Our precious loss: May 14, 1988: From park fun to roadway tragedy

    It wasn’t until a few days before the trip to King’s Island north of Cincinnati that Jerry and Jeff Wheeler knew for certain they would be allowed to attend.

    “I remember begging mom to let us go,” said Jerry Wheeler. “I wanted to go to maybe meet some new people. It was a really fun day leading up to what happened on the way home.”

  • Our precious loss: Carrollton crash ignited local efforts in SADD, MADD

    It was clear to Maria Batistoni what the agenda of the first meeting of the newly-formed Students Against Driving Drunk at North Hardin High School needed to be in the fall of 1988.

    “They needed to heal, they were raw,” she said of the students.

    More than 200 students had joined the club, formed months after the bus crash near Carrollton that killed 27 people, including 24 children. Some were students at North.

    “What do the kids need?” Batistoni said she asked herself. “What do I need? We need a hug.”

  • David Lee Murphy to perform at Summer Blast

    Country music is dominating Hardin County this summer.

    Radcliff has landed country musician David Lee Murphy to headline its Summer Blast concert on June 29. Murphy announced the stop as part of his summer tour on his official website.

    Known for hits like “Dust on the Bottle” and “Party Crowd,” Murphy’s performance will follow an appearance by Trace Adkins at Fort Knox. Tracy Lawrence also has been scheduled to headline Elizabethtown’s Heartland Festival in late August.

  • Police: Man accelerated through KSP roadblock

    A Radcliff man was arrested Monday morning after state troopers say he sped through a traffic safety checkpoint on Ky. 313 without stopping and nearly struck several officers with his vehicle.

    Drew M. McCormick, 23, faces three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment, second-degree criminal mischief, driving under the influence, license to be in possession, reckless driving, resisting arrest, no insurance and menacing.

  • Our precious loss: A home destroyed, a life renewed

    On May 14, 1988, Lee Williams’ life ceased to make sense. Family was replaced with emptiness, routine swallowed up by chaos.

    He lost everything in a bus crash on Interstate 71 that killed 27 people, leaving him alone to contemplate the senseless violence of one destructive decision by a drunken driver.

  • Our precious loss: Old glove still catches memories

    Before Larry Mahoney chose to consume alcohol, climb behind the wheel of a pickup truck and drive the wrong way on Interstate 71, a young girl returned to the U.S. from Germany and told her parents she wanted to play softball.

    Before a group of children and chaperones from Radcliff First Assembly of God cheerfully prepared for a trip to King’s Island, their hopes and dreams intact, there was a worn ball glove belonging to the girl’s father, its dimensions never quite conforming to her small hand.

  • Our precious loss: Congregation bonded by grief

    Martha Tennison had preached many times at Radcliff First Assembly of God. but no previous sermon prepared her to deliver the message of God’s faithfulness to the weeping congregation May 15, 1988, in a voice choked with tears.

    Martha called her husband at 11 the night before to see whether their 15-year-old son had made it back from a trip to King’s Island on a bus with other church youth, chaperones and guests.

  • Our precious loss: Bus safety improved after crash

    Twenty-five years ago, 15-year-old Quinton Higgins spent about a month in Kosair Children’s Hospital after suffering lung damage and second- and third-degree burns  in the fiery bus crash.

    Today, Higgins drives a Hardin County Schools bus.

    The differences between the bus he drives every school day and the repurposed 1977 Ford B-700 school bus he was in that night in 1988 are like “night and day,” Higgins said.

    “It’s just a totally different bus today,” he said.

  • Our precious loss: DUI statutes toughened, judicial tolerance lowered

    If a Kentucky resident was found driving under the influence on intoxicants in 1988, there was no mandatory jail time or alcohol and drug education. According to officials, license suspension was significantly reduced or waived if an offender sought treatment.

    Locally, one out of five motorists who were presumed to be under the influence of alcohol in 1988 received lesser charges than a DUI, according to The News-Enterprise archives.

  • Our precious loss: 25 years after the bus crash

    Some days, without warning, Darrin Jaquess is taken back to that dark place on Interstate 71 late on a Saturday night in May, nearly 25 years ago, after a fun-filled, memory-making day at King’s Island.

    Harold Dennis, Carey Aurentz Cummins and Ciaran Foran Madden are reminded of that night with a look in the mirror or when they get out of bed each day.

     Jaquess remembers the smell from the burning school bus that had carried 67 people to the amusement park and the start of the return trip to Radcliff. Only 40 would make it home alive.