The Frazier’s 20th anniversary gala—you know, that blowout party we’ve been promoting all spring?—has officially come and gone.

’Twas a doozie!

Hundreds of guests in natty attire turned out Friday night to fill the museum with laughing, dancing, and memory-making, all to support the Frazier and its mission.

Musicians such as Tony and the Tan Lines and Ponyboy Slings packed the dance floors. Cirque Louis silk and flow performers dangled from the rafters. Ars Poetica poets cranked out verse on demand. Magician Josh Weidner oohed and aahed with card tricks. Frazier staff led tours, sang “Kentucky-oke” (karaoke with Kentucky songs), and hosted games like Guess Who: Kentucky Edition. Our eight caterers kept guests’ bellies full with savory bites and sweet treats, while our fourteen drinks vendors topped off their spirits, cocktails, and refreshments.

At one point, when I was working as an elevator attendant, I made a special announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re riding this elevator with the two coolest E’s in Louisville: Ed Hamilton the sculptor and Ethan the dog!” (Later, when Elmer Lucille Allen boarded, I began to doubt my rankings.) Ed, who has a Hometown Heroes banner, congratulated Ethan for his new banner.

During the seated dinner for our Friends of Owsley guests, we announced the recipient of our inaugural Owsley Brown Frazier Impact Award: our board chairman J. McCauley “Mac” Brown. Congratulations to Mac, who has done an excellent job carrying on our late founder’s mission!

Thank you to everyone who turned out Friday night to support the Frazier History Museum, where the world meets Kentucky.

Here’s to twenty more years!

Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist
Frazier History Museum

This Week in the Museum

Frazier and Log Still Distillery Team Up for the Monk’s Road Experience

Recently I had a wonderful opportunity to experience all that makes Monk’s Road at Log Still Distillery so special. If you haven’t had the chance to visit, I can assure you, it is pretty special!

From the beautiful drive through the rolling hills of Kentucky, past the Abbey of Gethsemane, and onto the expanding property that hosts the distillery, the Legacy tasting room and events venue, the AMP theatre, welcome center, multiple homesteads, a fishing lake, and much more—that experience was the inspiration for the next featured event in our Bourbon lineup at the Frazier.

While I know we cannot recreate the beautiful environment that is Log Still, we can bring a bit of the experience to all of you here at 829 West Main Street. That’s why I’m excited that in just ten days, we’ll host the Monk’s Road Experience here at the Frazier.

With music from Kaleb Cecil, an AMP music venue regular; food from the soon-to-open Monk’s Road Boiler House on Main, and outstanding Bourbon, we are taking a deeper dive into the experience. Guests will hear president and distiller Wally Dant’s incredible story, enjoy multiple tastings culminating with our very special barrel selection, and be among the first to taste food from the much-anticipated Boiler House restaurant. I invite you to live a little, come have a taste!

Andy Treinen
President & CEO

Frazier Offering $20 Craft-Your-Own-Mint-Julep Classes

As we slowly close in on the 150th Run for the Roses on Saturday, May 4, the Frazier has the perfect way to get you in the Derby spirit: we will offer a Craft-Your-Own-Mint-Julep Class every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 3 p.m., during April—and we’ll offer the class daily at 3 p.m. during Derby week, April 29–May 5!

Come learn the special secret to making this traditional Derby cocktail that all your Derby party guests will savor. The class costs $20—which includes the cost of admission to the museum as well as the cost of the class, as we have found yet another way for the Frazier to celebrate our 20-year anniversary.

The best deal in town just got better with a Derby twist! Click here to make your reservation today.

Stephen Yates
Community & Corporate Sales Manager

Aimee Boyd on the Very First Thunder Over Louisville, 1990

With Thunder Over Louisville this Saturday, I was inspired to find one of the vintage jackets I wore for our coverage when I worked at WHAS-TV. Thunder has been around for years, but it hasn’t always been the huge event it is now. Yes, it had humble beginnings. We asked Aimee Boyd with the Kentucky Derby Festival to take a stroll down memory lane and give us the history of the inaugural Thunder Over Louisville.—Rachel Platt, VP of Mission

Thunder Over Louisville is one of the Kentucky Derby Festival’s most well-known events. Now in its thirty-fifth year, and set for Saturday, April 20, 2024, starting at 3 p.m. with the airshow, it’s hard to remember a Festival season without the annual rumbles of aircraft and booms of fireworks. Though Thunder is known for attracting upwards of 300 to 500,000 spectators to both sides of the Ohio River for a day full of festivities, its beginning is a little out of left field.

In the late 1980s, Festival organizers looked for a way to create an “Opening Ceremonies” for the springtime community celebration. That’s when they enlisted the assistance of Thunder producer Wayne Hettinger, whose company, Visual Presentations, was already working with the Festival on a separate event.

“We were approaching the whole thing as if the Derby Festival needed to have a grand opening equal to the kickoff to the Olympics,” Hettinger says.

The very first Thunder Over Louisville took place in 1990. That year, it was held on a Friday night. The location was the old Cardinal Stadium at the Kentucky Exposition Center. The Louisville Redbirds minor league baseball team played a double-header to a full house at the stadium.

After the games, there was a live concert. As the fireworks segment approached, the crowd spilled out into the parking lot of the fairgrounds, and eventually, traffic on the interstate came to a halt. The enormous crowd was treated to a laser light show and the biggest fireworks display ever seen in the Commonwealth.

The event was a home run, but it was evident to organizers that the show would need more space in the future. The late Dan Mangeot, who was president and CEO of the Festival from 1979 to 1997, determined that the Ohio River waterfront was the only venue that could accommodate the Thunder crowd.

Mangeot’s sentiment about Thunder still resonates today. “Thunder is a massive event that is very, very difficult to produce, has more headaches than you could ever imagine—logistics, safety, those kinds of things—but also is one of the most wonderful things we’ve ever done for this community.”

Thunder moved to the Waterfront in 1991. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Aimee Boyd
VP of Communications & Media Relations, Kentucky Derby Festival
Guest Contributor

Highlights of 120: Lincoln County: Racing Counterclockwise

Moving forward, in each issue of Frazier Weekly, we are excited to share some of the incredible stories featured in our new exhibit 120: Cool KY Counties. As the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby is fast approaching, this week’s story sheds some light on horseracing traditions. Have you ever wondered why the Kentucky Derby, and other horse races in America, are run counterclockwise? It turns out that the answer goes back to some good old Kentucky stubbornness. You can learn more in Lincoln County’s story “Racing Counterclockwise.”—Amanda Briede, Sr. Curator of Exhibitions

Lincoln County was formed in 1780. It was one of Kentucky’s three original counties. Among the earliest colonists in the area were Col. William Whitley, his wife Esther, their children, and the enslaved people whom they owned. The Whitley’s enslaved people built the first brick house in Kentucky. It included a secret passage for escape and survival during raids by Native Americans. The home is now preserved as the William Whitley House State Historic Site.

The first circular horserace track in the state was also built on the Whitley plantation. Races at the track, known as Sportsman’s Hill, began in 1788. It had the first clay track in the United States. Prior to this, all racetracks featured a turf track. Also at the track, horses raced counterclockwise in opposition to the British tradition of racing clockwise. The American tradition of racing counterclockwise, which began in Lincoln County, continues throughout the United States today.

On this Date: Two Lexington Natives Survive Sinking of RMS Titanic, 1912

Late in the evening of April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic famously struck an iceberg in the cold Atlantic. The resulting hole in the steel sides would be too much, and in the early hours of April 15, the ship would slip beneath the surface, out of reach for most of the following century.

First and Third Class passengers and their accommodations seem to get all the attention when talking about RMS Titanic. Of the 706 survivors, two Second Class passengers were Kentuckians. Lucinda “Lutie” Davis Parrish and her adult daughter Imanita Shelley, both from Lexington, loved to travel together. As frequent adventurers, they had expectations when it came to accommodations on a passenger liner. Luxury over speed was the White Star Line’s guiding principle, so it was said that First, Second, and Third Class accommodations were better than any other ship on the water. Lutie and Imanita would disagree.

Their Second Class berth was disappointing to them. Their room had no heat, they couldn’t both be in the room and open their suitcases, and the furniture had not finished being assembled, according to them. On top of that, food lines were long, and only a few of the women’s toilet pots had been unpacked from their crates. The pair complained nearly a dozen different times before being moved to a different, but similarly disappointing, room.

Their concerns were cut short by a more concerning iceberg. Mother and daughter escaped on Lifeboat 12 and were subsequently rescued by Carpathia later on April 15. Undaunted by poor rooms and shipwrecks, the mother and daughter continued to travel the world together over the following years. Lutie Parrish died in 1930 and is buried in Oahu, Hawaii. Her daughter Imanita lived until 1954, ultimately settling in California. They, like 704 others, would always be remembered as survivors of one of history’s most notorious and tragic moments.

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience

Jock-for-Life Brian West Eases Back into the Sport of Running

Since the age of thirteen, I have been a jock. I played high school football in the 1990s, and I have even participated in a couple Kentucky Derby Marathons (one in 2005; another in 2017).

But I had not trained seriously for races since 2018. Life intervened. I had some setbacks that made running as a hobby less appealing. Then in 2020 the pandemic happened, I bought a house, and I slowly became a caregiver. Holding down a full-time job, along with the responsibility caregiving entails, wore my willingness to run down to zero.

Then, this February, a couple of employees at the museum bandied the idea of participating in the Kentucky Derby Marathon relay with rank-and-file workers and management. I got an email about it. I thought, “Sure, with some training runs, and a little training of my own, I should be able to run six miles. Why not?” So, I said yes—and the rest, hopefully, will be history by the time we race on April 27, 2024.

I must say that the training has not been easy. Most of my teammates are much faster, and are in better physical condition than I am. During one training run, Simon Meiners lapped me while wearing blue jeans and a polo!) Also, at forty-six years old, I think my prime years of physical fitness may be behind me.

Nevertheless, the relay presents me with a prime opportunity to end my time at the museum with a bang.

More on that ending next week.

Thanks to Kent Klarer and Jason Berkowitz for organizing this relay for the Frazier and to Andy Treinen for giving the go ahead.

Brian West
Teaching Artist

Fodor’s Travel Explores the Enduring Life of Disco in Louisville

You may want to break out your leisure suit or platform heels for this next story. Because that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, we like it in Louisville! Our city has a serious connection to the disco ball. A disco ball is part of our Cool Kentucky exhibition because Omega National Products, based in Louisville, is one of the largest producers of them. Click here to read a recent story in Fodor’s Travel about the city’s connection to the disco ball!

Rachel Platt
VP of Mission

History All Around Us

Men’s Basketball Head Coach John Calipari Parts Ways with UK

The North American Eclipse of 2024 arrived fifteen hours early to Kentucky. On April 7—on the eve of the NCAA Men’s National Championship Game—news broke that UK men’s basketball coach John Calipari was in talks to become the next men’s basketball coach at the University of Arkansas. This caused such an upheaval in the college basketball world that the topic dominated discussion for the next thirty-six hours, even eclipsing the National Championship game itself.

Jay Wright had to comment on it during the Championship pre-game show. Alabama head coach Nate Oats felt compelled to release a Tweet about it, affirming his intention to remain in Tuscaloosa. Even after winning the National Championship, UConn head coach Dan Hurley referred the media to his wife, when it came to giving comment to questions about the potential Kentucky coaching vacancy.

Finally, after a day and a half of speculation (and drama, if Dick Gabriel’s reporting is accurate), John Calipari finally announced on X (Twitter) that there needed to be “another voice” at Kentucky.

Calipari’s departure represents a changing of the guard in college basketball, a “cataclysmic shift” in the words of X sports personality Trilly Donovan. Yet, the shift happened way before the relationship between Calipari and UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart curdled past its sell-by date.

The Supreme Court decision of NCAA v. Alston in 2021, which ruled that the NCAA could no longer bar payments to players, ushered in a brave new world of Name, Image, and Likeness and the Transfer Portal.

This new world seems to reward coaches who are intrepid and willing to literally do the footwork to scour the college basketball landscape—not only for one-and-done prodigies, but also transfers and graduate players. Look at the early success of new U of L men’s basketball coach Pat Kelsey in the portal, for example.

This game now favors the young, particularly young coaches, like Dan Hurley, Nate Oats, and Scott Drew, who can fashion new rosters by hitting the pavement to search for new players year after year and want a shot at a title.

In comparison, if what Kentucky Sports Radio has reported is accurate, Cal was behind the curve in NIL. In addition, Cal’s reticence to tinker with his staff and work more closely with old school UK donors and the school, even after losing to Oakland in the first round of the Tournament, signaled that the end was near.

In retrospect, it’s difficult to encapsulate Calipari’s fifteen years as Kentucky’s head coach into a few words. So many memories, and moments: “They want to be us, not beat us.” “The Tweak,” DeMarcus Cousins manhandling Jared Swopshire in Cal’s first game against Louisville, the Harrison Bros. raining threes on my beloved Cards back in 2014 . . . I could go on and on.

As a fan of the in-state rival, I had fun watching Calipari work askance. So, it should be even more interesting to see what he intends to do in Fayetteville.

Brian West
Teaching Artist

Bridging the Divide

Hundreds Attend Frazier’s Norton West Louisville Hospital Program

What a great crowd we had at the Frazier last Tuesday night as we count down to the opening of Norton West Louisville Hospital in November. Folks who attended learned about job opportunities, met the leadership team, and got to hear why this hospital could be a national model. Watch our conversation about the first hospital to be built in West Louisville in 150 years below.

Rachel Platt
VP of Mission

KICC to Host Louisville Metro Council District 4 Candidates’ Forum Wednesday Morning

Thirteen seats on Louisville Metro Council are up for grabs, including District 4 where the Frazier History Museum resides. District 4 covers a lot of territory, including downtown. Louisville Downtown Partnership and Main Street Association are sponsoring a candidates’ forum to discuss business needs. It will take place Wednesday, April 17, from 8:30 to 10 a.m., at the Kentucky International Convention Center. Click here to register. Primary Election Day is May 21.

Rachel Platt
VP of Mission