Local News

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.

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.

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.

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.