Rick has been a member of the WFPL News team since 2001 and has covered numerous beats and events over the years. Most recently he’s been tracking the Indiana General Assembly and the region’s passion for sports, especially college basketball.
Despite a less-than-ideal post position draw, Kentucky Derby winner Orb remains the solid favorite for tomorrow’s Preakness Stakes, the second leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.
Orb is coming off a two-and-a-half length Derby victory and trainer Shug McGaughey says he “couldn’t be more pleased” with the colt’s workouts over the past two weeks.
Preservationists are racing to raise money for the restoration of a 19th century plantation house in Bardstown. If the $500,000 goal is not met soon, most of the house will likely be dismantled to make way for a high school campus expansion project.
The site in history-rich Bardstown has a storied past. The plantation was the birthplace of a one-time slave who became a leader of the nation’s black Catholics and a renowned civil rights activist.
Shotgun houses and vacant and abandoned properties are at the top of this year’s ten most Endangered Historic Places list, compiled by Preservation Louisville.
The group says many of the signature shotgun-style homes in Louisville’s older neighborhoods are in distress, as are other, vacant houses with historic significance.
Also on the endangered list is the Colonial Gardens building in south Louisville, the city’s corner storefronts and Lampton Baptist Church on South Fourth Street.
Tuesday, May 14 marks the 25th anniversary of the deadliest drunk-driving crash in U.S. history.
Twenty-seven members of a Radcliff church group, most of them children, were killed when their bus was struck by a pickup traveling in the wrong direction on Interstate 71 in Carroll County, Kentucky.
The group was returning home from an amusement park outing.
The anniversary will be marked with a memorial service, and the screening of a new documentary about the tragedy.
A federal prosecutor is objecting to a request by Richie Farmer’s attorney that the former agriculture commissioner’s criminal trial be delayed until February.
Farmer’s trial on charges of misappropriating government resources was originally set for July, but his attorney, Guthrie True, wants to move it until early next year, saying he needs more time to prepare.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Taylor filed a court brief this week asking that the trial be scheduled for sometime this fall, saying a delay until February would be excessive.
The cremated remains of two Civil War soldiers from Indiana have been given a final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Union soldiers were brothers, Zuinglius and Lycurgus McCormack. Their remains had sat on an Indianapolis funeral home shelf for more than 100 years, unclaimed and largely forgotten.
On Thursday, the national cemetery dedicated a new columbarium court, designed to hold the cremated remains of more than 20,000 eligible service members and family.
Flags are flying at half-staff at state facilities across Indiana in honor of former Governor Otis "Doc" Bowen.
Bowen died Saturday at a northern Indiana nursing home. He was 95.
Bowen was Indiana’s Republican governor from 1973 to 1981.
He became secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1985, taking charge of the federal government's response to the spread of AIDS after the Reagan administration had been criticized by activists for a slow initial response.
Princess of Sylmar is the 2013 Kentucky Oaks champion.
With jockey Mike Smith aboard, the longshot filly surged down the stretch to win the race, overtaking second place finisher Beholder and Unlimited Budget, who came in third.
Princess of Sylmar was one of four Todd Pletcher-trained horses in the Oaks.
The morning line favorite, Dreaming of Julia, finished fourth after recovering from a rough start.
