March 19, 2025
One-room school, 1982
Teacher Meredith Slone surveyed his 18 pupils at Daniels Creek School in the Floyd County community of Banner on Aug. 24, 1982. Daniels Creek School, which began its 59th school year the day before, was one of only three one-room schools remaining in Kentucky at the time. The school was for students in first through eighth grades. The school was closed at the end of the 1986-87 school year. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff
UK at LSU, 1998
LSU running back Kevin Faulk, left, congratulated Kentucky quarterback Tim Couch after the Cats defeated LSU, 39-36, on the road on Oct. 17, 1998. It’s the last time that Kentucky has won at the stadium known as Death Valley. LSU leads the overall series with 39 wins to Kentucky’s 16 wins. There was one tie, in 1953. Photo by Frank Anderson | Staff
Tubby Smith at Midnight Madness, 1998
University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach Tubby Smith entered Memorial Coliseum on Oct. 16, 1998, dressed as boxing promoter Don King as part of the Midnight Madness “Main Event.” The 17th annual Midnight Madness, which signals the start of the team’s practice, drew its usual capacity crowd of 8,700. The coach of the national defending champions said he was nervous because he felt like anyone else in the stands: not knowing how his team would do that season. Photo by Janet Worne | Staff
UK midnight practice, 1982
The University of Kentucky’s first “Midnight Special,” which has evolved into Big Blue Madness, was Oct. 14, 1982, in Memorial Coliseum. More than 8,500 fans attended that first practice in the 12,000-seat Memorial Coliseum. Troy McKinley, right, and Derrick Hord led the way through a paper banner that read “The Cats will Run at 12:01.” The event was the brainchild of then-coach Joe B. Hall, according to UKAthletics.com. Hall was seeking to pump up fan interest for the coming season. He was inspired by a similar event organized by Maryland coach Lefty Driesell nearly a decade earlier. Kentucky’s “Special” or “Madness” was held in Memorial Coliseum until 2005, when it moved to Rupp Arena. Here is another photo from our archives of Tubby Smith dressed as Don King during Big Blue Madness in 1998. And one of fans attending in 1994. Photo by E. Martin Jessee | Staff
Muhammad Ali visits Lexington, 1995
Saida Grundy, 13, got a hug from Muhammad Ali after she presented him with a sculpture by Lexington artist LaVon Williams during Ali’s visit to Lexington’s Dunbar Community Center on Feb. 18, 1995. During a daylong visit to the city, Ali, a Louisville native, mingled with the public in the morning, then attended a University of Kentucky basketball game and a reception in his honor afterward. He posed for pictures, signed autographs and playfully shadowboxed with kids. The visit, part of African-American History Month, was intended to promote the play Ali the next weekend at the Lexington Opera House. Ali, then 53, did not speak much during his 2 1/2-hour morning visit with about 300 at Dunbar Community Center. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and talking is difficult for him. But he cuddled and kissed babies, embraced his fans and signed scraps of paper, boxing gloves and a Muhammad Ali pinball machine. By the time he left, he had a smear of pink lipstick on his left cheek and dozens of small boys clutching at his coattails. Photo by David Perry | Staff
Kentucky Theatre, 1987
Kentucky Theatre manager Fred Mills inspected fire damage on Oct. 6, 1987. A fire in a restaurant next door to the theater caused extensive smoke and water damage, and it was closed for five years. In that time, it was extensively renovated, and the grand reopening was held April 11, 1992. Photo by John C. Wyatt | Staff
Aylesford House, 1944
Aylesford House, originally known as Elley Villa, a Greek Revival residence at 320 Linden Walk, photographed in 1944. The house was built in the mid-1850s by John McMurtry, a noted Lexington architect and builder, for William R. Elley, a Mississippi cotton planter whose wife, Louisa, had grown up in the nearby Pope Villa. McMurtry also designed Ingleside and Loudoun, among other houses. Several outbuildings and a race course once existed behind the villa. The property passed to John L. Barclay and then to Judge William C. Goodloe, who became owner of the house in the 1860s. In 1875, St. Joseph Hospital was established there and operated until 1878. General W.T. Withers next occupied the house. Oliver Perry Alford bought the property in 1885 and named it Aylesford. It was occupied by the University of Kentucky chapter of the Kappa Alpha fraternity from 1925 to about 1942, when the chapter folded because of the war. It is now a private home.
Carp fisherman, 1948
Shadrach Gill posed with 26-pound, 11-ounce carp he caught on North Elkhorn Creek in 1948. Published in the Lexington Herald-Leader on April 25, 1948.
EKU football coach Roy Kidd, 1982
Eastern Kentucky University football coach Roy Kidd got a ride to the locker room after his Colonels earned their fourth straight trip to the NCAA Division I-AA football championship game with a 13-7 victory over Tennessee State on Dec. 11, 1982. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff
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