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Saturday January 24, 2026
Local Connection
Although Thunder Over Louisville feature the largest annual fireworks display in North America, Waterfront Park isn’t the only place around Louisville with an explosive display this weekend. Knob Creek Gun Range, just south of Louisville in West Point plays host to a large gun show twice a year.
The event draws people from all over the United States and around the world to see fully automatic firearms, explosions and vendor exhibits. Visit the official page for more details. If you are a firearms enthusiast looking for an alternative to the waterfront events, the Machine Gun Shoot might be just what you are looking for.
Courtesy: Kentuckytourism.com
Spring has sprung in Kentuckiana and that means one thing: Louisville is transforming into Derby City.
The 140th running of the Kentucky Derby is Saturday, May 3, 2014 under the twin spires of Churchill Downs. Are you ready for “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports?”
Leading up to The Run for the Roses is the Kentucky Derby Festival that lasts from April 12 through Oaks Day on Friday, May 2. As always, Thunder Over Louisville kicks off three weeks of exciting events that are sure to be fun for the whole family. See the full schedlue below.
So, Louisville, use the comments below to tell us about your Derby plans. Are you having a Derby party? Are you watching the races from Millionaires Row, the infield, from home or not at all? Will you be catching the fireworks and aerobatic excitement of Thunder? Will you be among the throng lining the streets for the Pegasus Parade?
Kentucky Derby Festival Schedule
04/12/2014
- Give A Day: Mayor’s Week of Service
- Thunder Over Louisville
- Ford’s Thunder on the Ground
04/14/2014
- King Southern Bank Kentucky Derby Festival Foundation Pro-Am Golf Tournament
04/17/2014
- Horseshoe Foundation Night of the Future Stars
- Race Expo And Packet Pickup
- Stock Yard’s Bank & Trust $1 Million Dollar Hole-in-One Golf Contest
04/18/2014
- Basketball Classic presented by Papa John’s
04/19/2014
- NPC Derby Championships
- Volleyball Classic
- Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon & miniMarathon presented by Walmart and HumanaVitality
04/24/2014
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest: Great Balloon Glimmer
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest: Crew Challenge
- Chow Wagon
- Kroger’s Fest-a-Ville on the Waterfront
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest
04/25/2014
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest: Great Balloon Glow
- Zumba Fitness Party
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest: Great Balloon Rush-Hour Race
04/26/2014
- U.S. Bank Great BalloonFest: Great Balloon Race
- ACO Derbyhole Classic
- Da’Ville Classic Drum Line Showcase
04/27/2014
- miniFun Run presented by HumanaVitality and Subway Restaurants
- Louisville Youth Orchestra Concert
- GospelFest presented by Passport Health Plan
- Celebration Sunday with 88.5 WJIE featuring Audio Adrenaline
- Mayor’s Derby Brunch on the River
- Tour de Lou
- Children’s Tea with the Kentucky Derby Festival Princesses
04/28/2014
- Great Bed Races
- Don Fightmaster Golf Outing
- Discovery Day
- HappyTail Hour
- Knights of Columbus Charity Dinner
04/29/2014
- Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Health Fair
- BetAmerica Texas Hold’Em Tournament
- Republic Bank Pegasus Parade Preview Party
- Kentucky Proud WineFest
- Tuesday Concert feat. Ohio Players and Lakeside
- Kentucky Derby Festival Foundation Student Art Contest presented by the Kentucky School of Art
04/30/2014
- Great Steamboat Race
- Battle of the Bounce
- Wednesday Concert feat. Sam Roberts Band with LEAGUES
05/01/2014
- Waterfront Jam presented by Laura’s Lean Beef
- Celebrity Day at the Downs
- Republic Bank Pegasus Parade
05/02/2014
- Waterfront Jam presented by Laura’s Lean Beef: Friday Concert feat. Scotty McCreery with special guest Cassadee Pope, and Steve Holy
Just a reminder to Louisvillians that April 15th is Tax Day and it is just around the corner! This is the deadline to file your state, local and federal income taxes (or file for an extension) and for business owners to pay their first quarterly estimated tax installment. Don’t forget that your filing paperwork and payments must be postmarked to the IRS by midnight, April 15.
The IRS offers the following tax time tips to help out. Visit the IRS website for more details on their tips:
- Gather your records.
- Report all your income.
- Get answers.
- Use Free File.
- Try IRS e-file.
- Weigh your filing options
- Use direct deposit.
- Visit the IRS website 24/7.
- Check out number 17.
- Review your return.
Find Louisville business resources, including information on filing local taxes on the LouieBiz website.
Photo: Shawn Skriver
Thunder Over Louisville is the explosive kick off event for the weeks-long Kentucky Derby Festival leading up to the May 3, 2014 Run For the Roses. Held since 1990, Thunder combines a collossal air show, a huge waterfront fair atmosphere and North America’s largest annual fireworks display that lasts nearly half an hour with pyrotechnics launched from bridges and barges. It’s pretty spectacular stuff. Since 1997, Thunder boasts an average attendance of 625,000 people at the all-day event.
Thunder Over Louisville 2014 is Saturday April 12 with the center of action at Waterfront Park. The airshow this year boasts such popular features as the Navy Blue Angels and a nearly window-shattering F22 Raptor demonstration as well as numerous aerobatic acts. Breaks in the all-day airshow offer a perfect opportunity to wander around Ford’s Thunder on the Ground – a fairground atmosphere that features a climbing wall, rides and no shortage of vendors and greasy food from the Chow Wagon.
Don’t spend too much time wandering, though. The action does not stop with the airshow or at the midway. Waterfront Park fills up fast, so you will want to be sure to stake out a good viewing location for the nighttime fireworks display that starts at 9:30PM.
Every Thunder Over Louisville event has had an underlying theme for the musically choreographed pyrotechnic display. Past themes have included Americana, Hollywood, the Millennium celebration, country music, rock music, television, Broadway and more. The 2014 display is called Throwback Thunder and will incorporate a “best of” style display that draws elements from past shows.
Admission to all of the riverfront fun is included with your Pegasus Pin, available at locations around Kentuckiana.
Credit: LMPD
Louisville Metro Government has updated their online crime map to now show crimes that take place within the city’s parks.
Previously, crimes committed within parks were reported with the location given by GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, however, the crime map accepted only physical address. As a result of this map limitation, crimes in parks were displayed as having occurred in a parking lot at 5th and Liberty streets, the geographic coordinate for “The City of Louisville.”
According to the Metro Government’s news release, this change stems from questions that arose after the recent crimes that started in Waterfront Park and moved into parts of downtown. The city’s maps show Part I FBI crimes — the most serious charges that includes homicides, auto theft, assaults, vandalism and robbery. Although the map now displays crime locations more accurately than they were before upgrade, due to the large area covered by the parks, crimes will show as a single pin at the park’s address. To see all crimes from a given park, users should click on the pin within that park.
The Metro Crime Maps page is here.
Louisville received a dubious distinction when it topped the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America list of 2014’s Spring Allergy Capitals. This climb from last year’s 5th place ranking marks the third time that Louisville has ranked number one since the AAFA has been releasing the list. Of course, for many in the Ohio River Valley, this announcement does not come as any surprise at all.
The list of the “100 most challenging places to live with allergies” is based off of data that factors pollen scores (including airborne grass, tree and weed pollen as well as mold spores), number of allergy medications used per patient and the number of allergy specialists per patient.
The full list of Allergy Capitals gives Louisville a maximum score of 100 points, followed by Memphis, Baton Rouge, Oklahoma City and Jackson, Mississippi in the top five with scores rapidly dropping off. The average score of the 100 worst cities was just below 60.
Nearly 45 million Americans are living with nasal allergies and 25 million have asthma. These patients already have a chronic sensitivity to things like pollen, mold and other airborne allergens, but they can also be more susceptible to rapid changes in temperature and moisture, and to catching a common cold or flu. A blending of the winter and spring means these patients are at risk of multiple symptoms simultaneously. But with the proper planning and early treatment, patients can prepare and find relief.
Keep your eye out for AAFA’s Fall Allergy list to be released in September.
Crews from the R.J. Corman company were hard at work yesterday to replace ties along the P&L Railway track as part of routine maintenance that the company is contracted to do.
The 9 foot long, 200 pound wooden ties, which serve as part of the foundation for the track bed, are periodically replaced to ensure that the rail cars are fully supported. Wooden ties have a relatively long life span – typically between 40 and 70 years, although numerous factors can affect that longevity.
Unlike in past decades, the process of replacing the ties is a much less daunting task these days. Rather than having to manually pull spikes, dig out and replace ties, and hammer in new spikes, much of the backbreaking labor is now handled by heavy equipment built especially for the task. That equipment includes tie extractors/inserters, spike pullers, tampers and more. The foreman at the site I observed told me that, using this equipment, their team can replace approximately 2,000 ties per day.
You may recall R.J. Corman and the P&L Railway being in the news together after the R.J. Corman Derailment team responded to the October 29, 2012, derailment of a P&L train. The derailment at mile post 20.2 just south of Valley Station caused over $700,000 in damages to rail equipment, including damage to ten of the 33 HAZMAT train cars. The damage to the HAZMAT cars resulted in the release of chemicals that prompted widespread evacuation and Continue reading
