Author: Chad Hembree
The Arts Beat: Final Weekend for Two Spotlight Playhouse Productions
BEREA, Ky. — It is a busy week at The Spotlight Playhouse, with two wildly different productions closing out their runs and another major musical just around the corner. For families looking for something positive to do together, this is one of those weekends where local theater is offering more than just a night out.…
Berea Arts Council Plant Sale Helps Grow Gardens and Community Support
BEREA, Ky. — The Berea Arts Council will host its annual Plant Sale on Saturday, May 9, giving residents a chance to refresh their gardens while supporting local arts programming. The sale is scheduled from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Berea Arts Council, located at 444 Chestnut Street. This year’s theme, “Grow Your…
Studio Space Spring Soiree Brings Evening Pop-Up Market to Berea
BEREA, Ky. — Studio Space Berea will host its Spring Soiree on Friday, May 8, offering an evening pop-up market for shoppers looking to support local creativity and small businesses. The event is scheduled from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Studio Space Berea, located at 105 Jackson Street. The Spring Soiree is free to…
CG Bank Sponsorship Helps Bring Pay-What-You-Can Fridays to ‘Annie’ at The Spotlight Playhouse
BEREA, Ky. — When Annie: The Musical opens May 15 at The Spotlight Playhouse, the familiar story of hope and perseverance will come with a local boost from a community partner helping make the show more accessible to families. CG Bank is officially sponsoring the upcoming production, supporting The Bluegrass Players, Spotlight Acting School, and…
A Month of Milestones: Navigating College and High School Graduation Traffic Across Madison County
MADISON COUNTY, Ky. — Madison County is about to get very busy, and the traffic will arrive in two massive waves. From the early-May college ceremonies to the late-May high school send-offs, local roads, restaurants, and shops are gearing up for a full month of graduation crowds. For local residents, a little planning is going…
Spotlight’s Film Acting Camp Offers Families a Summer Option Beyond the Stage
BEREA, Ky. — For Berea-area families trying to map out the final stretch of June, Spotlight Acting School is offering a summer camp that shifts the focus from stage lights to camera lenses. The school’s Film Acting Camp is scheduled for June 29 through July 3, 2026, at The Spotlight Playhouse. Open to rising sixth…
Spotlight’s “Oh, Those Summer Nights” Invites Berea Families to Take the Stage Together
BEREA, Ky. — For families in Berea, summer activities often come with a familiar balancing act: finding something meaningful for the children, manageable for the parents, and flexible enough to fit a packed seasonal calendar. Spotlight Acting School’s new Summer Workshop Intensive, “Oh, Those Summer Nights,” appears built with exactly that challenge in mind. Offering…
🎭 Spotlight Acting School Opens Registration for “New York, New York” Summer Creative Arts Camp
BEREA, Ky. — Families in Berea looking for a summer option that blends creativity, structure, and performance have a new date to circle on the calendar. Registration is officially open for Spotlight Acting School’s Creative Arts Camp, a weeklong program for rising first through ninth graders hosted at The Spotlight Playhouse on Richmond Road. The…
Frankenstein Is Fun Fiction. This Mouse Study Is a Reminder We Are Still Not Ready to Play God
Science has a way of humbling people just when they start feeling clever. A new study out of Japan followed an extraordinary experiment in which scientists repeatedly cloned mice from clones of clones for roughly 20 years, producing 58 generations and making 30,947 cloning attempts before the process finally collapsed. The result was not an…
Why I Use Both ChatGPT and Gemini—and Why Google’s New Import Tool Makes Sense
The AI world absolutely loves a rivalry story. Every new feature gets framed as a cage match, every product update becomes a “winner” or “loser,” and every user is apparently supposed to pick a side. But the truth is a lot less dramatic. I use both ChatGPT and Gemini, and I do not see much…
OpenAI’s Ad Business Takes Off—and Proves the Early Panic Was Overblown
When OpenAI first started talking about putting ads in ChatGPT, the reaction in some corners of the internet was immediate panic. For some users, the very idea sounded like a betrayal of the platform’s original ethos. For others, it felt like a grim inevitability. My own reaction was a lot less dramatic. If ads were…
🎤 Major Concert Event Headed to Richmond as Jason Derulo Comes to EKU
RICHMOND, Ky. — This is not just another stop on the calendar. It is the kind of booking that gets people talking across the entire county. Pop star Jason Derulo is set to perform at the EKU Center for the Arts in Richmond on Friday, April 10 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Kentucky University is calling…
🌍 Global Flavors, Local Impact: Richmond Rotary’s International Dinner Returns April 11
RICHMOND, Ky. — If you enjoy trying new foods and supporting a good cause at the same time, the Richmond Rotary Club may have exactly the evening you are looking for. The Rotary Club of Richmond is set to host its annual “Sharing a Taste of the World” International Dinner on Saturday, April 11 at…
🍔🎶 Tasty Tuesdays Returns to Irvine-McDowell Park with Music, Food Trucks, and Community Fun
RICHMOND, Ky. — Richmond’s popular Tasty Tuesdays series is returning to Irvine-McDowell Park this spring, bringing together live music, food trucks, local vendors, and family-friendly activities on Tuesday evenings throughout April. Hosted by Richmond Parks and Recreation, the free event series runs from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Irvine-McDowell Park, 345 Lancaster Ave. The…
🐠 Disney’s Finding Nemo KIDS Swims Into Spotlight Acting School — and Shrek KIDS Is on the Horizon
BEREA, Ky. — There is a lot of excitement building at Spotlight Acting School right now, and for good reason. Coming up first is Disney’s Finding Nemo KIDS, which arrives April 24 through April 26 and brings one of Pixar’s most beloved stories to the stage. It follows Marlin, the anxious and overprotective clownfish, as…
Just When the Market Thinks It Knows Everything, It Learns It Doesn’t
For the last several months, one of the dominant assumptions in the AI boom has felt almost unquestionable: as models get bigger, chats get longer, and demand keeps rising, the world is going to need more and more high-end memory to keep up. Then along comes a paper like TurboQuant, and all of a sudden…
🐣 Easter Eggstravaganza Brings a Full Day of Family Fun Back to Lake Reba
RICHMOND, Ky. — If your kids are the kind who start talking about Easter eggs the minute spring shows up, Richmond’s 47th Annual Easter Eggstravaganza is absolutely worth the short drive from Berea. The event is set for Saturday, April 4, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Lake Reba Park softball fields, and…
AI’s Hunger for Power Is Reaching Kentucky
By Chad Hembree | Published March 25, 2026 BEREA, Ky. — For a long time, artificial intelligence sounded like a software story. Faster models. Smarter chatbots. Better image generators. But the deeper this boom gets, the clearer it becomes that AI is also a power story, an infrastructure story, and increasingly, a Kentucky story. The…
Landmark Social Media Verdict May Send the Wrong Message
A California jury has handed down a verdict that is already being called a landmark in the growing wave of lawsuits against social media companies. In Los Angeles, jurors found Meta and YouTube liable for negligence and for failing to warn about harms tied to their platforms. The jury awarded $6 million to a now-20-year-old…
🌸 Churchill’s Spring Market Brings a Charming Afternoon to One of Berea’s Most Historic Spaces
BEREA, Ky. — Berea’s spring calendar is blossoming beautifully, and one particularly delightful event is the Churchill’s Spring Market, set for Saturday, April 4, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at 100 Churchill Court. The market is being promoted as a lovely indoor gathering featuring local vendors, boutique shopping, and sweet treats, all nestled within…