Wednesday November 12, 2025
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The Southwest Festival, a one-day event, starts tomorrow at Sun Valley Community Center in Valley Station. Following tradition, the Valley’s Woman’s Club will host a Bean Soup Dinner tonight, starting at 4:30 PM. All proceeds from the dinner will go to support the club.
Starting at 8:00 AM on Saturday, Plumb Lodge #862 will host their annual pancake breakfast. All proceeds from the breakfast go to fun their scholarship fund. This year the event will be headlined by the Louisville Crashers. Other attractions include Toddler Town, Kids’ City, Teen City, chance to meet many local businesses, and the annual car and motorcycle show. Food and drinks will be available for purchase on site.
While the event itself is free, parking will be $5 per vehicle, and includes a chance to win one of the many door prizes. Festival organizers request that attendees leave their pets at home, only service animals will be allowed into the festival area.
Louder Than Life will be making it’s annual appearance at Champions Park this weekend and weather will be just about perfect. The two-day festival features music, food and drinks. Headlining performances will feature Ozzy Osbourne with Zakk Wylde, Rob Zombie, Incubus, Stone Sour, Halestorm, and many more. For the foodie, food will be showcasing many local and regional favorites ranging from fried chicken, barbecue, grilled cheese, hot dogs, tacos and gelato. For the bourbon lover, many Kentucky bourbon distilleries will be featured, including Angel’s Envy, Jim Beam, and Buffalo Trace.
Gates open at 11:00 AM on both days. Tickets are still available and prices range from $69.50 for Sunday only, $90 for Saturday only, $120 minimum for the entire weekend, to $280 for a VIP package. If you are planning to attend, be sure to check the information page for what items are allowed to be taken in with you, pay close attention to the bag size restrictions.
If you have not attended the show before, check out last year’s Louder Than Life Festival.
More than 40 students from the Jefferson County Public School (JCPS) District are among the 16,000 across the country named 2018 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.
Semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program were announced today by the National Merit Scholarship Corp. and will compete for scholarships worth about $32 million. Semifinalists from JCPS include students from Ballard, Brown, DuPont Manual, Eastern and Male Traditional High. The students are:
- Ballard High School’s Claire Keum, Sarang Park and Alexander Reaugh
- Brown High School’s Sovann Chang
- DuPont Manual High School’s Alec Adamov, Anirudh Adavi, Tanner Bielefeld Pruitt, Priyadarshini Chandrashekhar, Emily Clark, Alice Deters, Caroline Foshee, Ryan Hassel, Micah Herndon, Brandon Huff, Charles Im, Benjamin Jiang, Jobi Jose, Govind Krishna, Sophie Lai, Lindsey Lapinski, William Morgan, Joshua Olliges, Alan Pascua, Riti Pathak, David Qiu, Saralee Renick, Haylee Richter, Camille Rougier, Amit Sahoo, Gregory Schwartz, Luke Sheridan-Rabideau, Elijah Shina, Harshini Sirvisetty, Madison Sneve, Lucy Suo, Spencer Thompson, Megan Wang, Shelby Young and Annie Zhang.
- Eastern High School’s Truman Smith
- Male Traditional High School’s Dylan Boone
“JCPS continues to produce some of the best and brightest students in the state and country, and the achievements of these talented students today are an example of that,” said JCPS Acting Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio. “I am very proud of what they are accomplishing both in and out of the classroom.”
The students were among approximately 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools who entered the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which serves as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
To become a finalist, the semifinalist and his or her high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.
From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level. Finalists will be announced early next year.
Photo: Louisville Housing and Community Development
Louisville Creating Affordable Residences for Economic Success (CARES) and the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund (LAHTF) will be jointly hosting four informational meetings regarding the upcoming round of funding available for these two sources. This round of funding is comprised of $14.5 million dollars and is designed to provide gap and/or bridge financing to developers building affordable workforce housing or incorporating affordable workforce housing into market rate projects.
CARES and LAHTF encourage adaptive re-use of vacant and abandoned properties, energy efficiency, universal design and mixed income projects integrating low-income housing.
Meetings will be held at the following dates, times and locations:
- September 27 at 10:00 am at Middletown Firehouse (108 Urton Lane)
- September 28 at 9:00 a.m. at Edison Center (701 W. Ormsby Lane)
- September 28 at 2:00 p.m. at Southwest Regional Library (3920 Dixie Highway)
- September 29 at 10:00 a.m. at South Central Regional Library (7300 Jefferson Boulevard)
For more information, please visit https://louisvilleky.gov/government/housing-community-development
Mayor Greg Fischer today announced a $200 million economic development plan for about 35 underused acres in Butchertown that will be anchored by a 10,000-seat, 15-acre soccer stadium, allowing Louisville to compete for an MLS franchise.
“This is an exciting, worthwhile project that takes an underused, very visible swath of land and creates a vibrant new stadium district that builds on the momentum downtown, in Nulu and Butchertown,” the Mayor said. “This is a smart opportunity, and when smart opportunities to move our city forward come up, we’re going to grab them.”
(Listen to Mayor Greg Fischer Podcast segment about the development and stadium)
Louisville City Football Club (LCFC) will build the $50 million stadium and serve as developer of the overall project, which will include retail, a hotel and offices, built by private investment.
Louisville Metro Government’s sole investment is $30 million to purchase the land for the development and do brownfield remediation and public infrastructure improvements. The project is expected to increase hotel, restaurant and retail amenities nearby and create a “stadium district” where the soccer stadium, Louisville Slugger Field and the Yum! Center are all within blocks of each other, along the same line of sight.
The city’s $30 million portion will be covered by general obligation bond — $25 million to buy the land and $5 million as a contribution to brownfield remediation and public infrastructure.
No Metro tax dollars will be used for stadium construction. In fact, LCFC will pay $14.5 million back to the city over 20 years from sales of land, rent from leases of land, and stadium rent. In addition, if the stadium hits certain financial markers, the city has an opportunity to share in the upside of that growth, up to $2 million.
(See the factsheet about the development and stadium)
On behalf of Louisville City Football Club, Chairman and President John Neace, thanked Mayor Fischer and Louisville Forward “for their commitment to the growth of professional soccer in Louisville.
“Today marks another important step in our vision to be the best United Soccer League club in the country, with the ultimate goal of bringing Major League Soccer to Louisville,” Neace said. “We look forward to building a world-class soccer stadium and surrounding development that continues revitalization in the Butchertown neighborhood.”
With Metro Council approval, the city will work with LCFC on an application to the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) for a mixed-use TIF for the project.
To be eligible for state participation in a TIF, the local applicant (the city) must have some financial participation in the project; in this case, the city’s participation would be the money spent on land acquisition, brownfield remediation and debt service of the bonds to pay for the land.
The city will not commit any of its local property tax revenues to be included in the TIF.
Construction of the project will comply with Metro Ordinance 37.75 with respect to minority, women and local participation goals: 20 percent minority participation, 5 percent women participation, with 75 percent of the work going to residents of the Louisville MSA.
A city-commissioned feasibility study confirmed that a soccer-specific stadium is needed to maintain and grown professional soccer in Louisville. The study called for a soccer-specific stadium, with the ability to hold 10,000 seats, to be built by 2020.
Photo: Actors Theatre of Louisville
Author: Actor’s Theatre, Laura Humble
The Most Frequently Asked Questions About This Chilling Louisville Tradition Every fall, Count Dracula takes the Bingham Theatre by storm, continuing his bloodthirsty reign of terror in a production that’s become a Louisville tradition. From our special recipes for fake blood to our four-legged cast members and talented backstage crew, here we reveal answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from Dracula Fans.
This is the first part of a five-part series.
Photo: Louisville Metro Parks and Recreation
The “Canoemobile” is making its annual stop in Louisville on October 3-7, bringing fun and exploration through free trips for all ages on 24-foot Voyageur canoes on the Ohio River. The program, locally in its sixth year, is organized by Louisville Parks and Recreation’s Natural Areas Division based at Jefferson Memorial Forest in partnership with Wilderness Inquiry, Inc. of Minneapolis.
Additional funding support is being provided by the United States Forest Service through the Outdoor Foundation. The Canoemobile will offer trips from 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. at Shawnee Park on Friday, Oct. 6, and at Riverview Park on Saturday, Oct.7 from 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
On Tuesday-Thursday, Oct. 3-5, the Louisville ECHO (Louisville is Engaging Children in the Outdoors) initiative, facilitated by JMF/Natural Areas, will host education days at Riverview Park with Chenoweth, Portland, and Coral Ridge elementary schools as part of the Canoemobile program. As part of this education day, students will canoe as well as learn about erosion and insects.
On Friday, JMF will be launching our first canoe built in our #CanoesBuildCommunity program, with assistance from Steam Exchange and Cabbage Patch Settlement House. The program inspires confidence and encourages ownership of paddling through kid-built canoes, from start to finish. With support from Canoe Kentucky, partners build canoes to keep.
“The Canoemobile program is a fun and safe way to introduce kids to the outdoors and part of our mission to expand outdoor recreation opportunities in the Louisville area,” said Seve Ghose, Director of Louisville Parks and Recreation. “We encourage everyone who is interested to come and take advantage of this great opportunity.”
The Voyageur canoes are safe, stable and can carry 9 participants per trip. Safety equipment and trained staff will be provided. Organizers suggest wearing comfortable outdoor clothing that can get wet, but no flip-flops. Water coolers will be available, so bring a refillable water bottle. Food also will be available for purchase.
Pre-registration is not required, and all trips will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Trips will leave every 30 minutes. All participants must sign a waiver, and those under the age of 18 must have a waiver signed by a parent or legal guardian. Forms can be found at memorialforest.com.
SCHEDULE
Friday, October 6
10 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. Shawnee Park 4501 West Broadway 40211
* Event is located at the end of Southwestern Parkway on the north side of the park
Saturday, October 7
10 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. Riverview Park 8202 Greenwood Rd 40258
