Attendance at this year's Kentucky State Fair was down by about three thousand from last year.Spokeperson Vicki Glass says just over 586,000 people visited the fair during its eleven-day run."People that were looking ahead and planning ahead probably got discouraged by gas prices and the economy. Those people being concert-goers, exhibitors at the fair and school field trips," Glass said.Glass says while there was a attendance decline among those groups--many of them from out of town--the fair did see an increase in-full price gate admissions over 2007.She adds that this year's relatively mild weather likely helped attract more senior citizens to the fair. Their numbers increased by more than two-thousand.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.