FROM
TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH JASON BOOHER ’96 ED
WAS NOT GOING TO LET TRAGEDY DEFINE WHO HE WAS OR WHAT HE BECAME. By Hal Morris
Photo courtesy of Bill Luster, Courier-Journal
The 1988 Carrollton, Kentucky, bus crash, is the deadliest drunk driving accident in U.S. history claiming 27 lives.
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K E N TUCKY A LU MN I MAG A ZIN E Fall 2021
Photo courtesy of Ryan C. Hermens, Lexington Herlad Leader
B
ooher, the recently-named superintendent of the Mercer County Public Schools in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, is a survivor of the 1988 Carrollton, Kentucky, bus crash, still the deadliest drunk driving accident in U.S. history. He is one of 40 survivors of the crash that claimed 27 lives. Booher, who earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the UK College of Education in 1996, has been a teacher, coach and administrator over the past 25 years. None of it would not have been possible without the support he received back in his hometown of Radcliff and at UK after the fateful night of May 14, 1988. “I was about to go to high school, and we had the best day of our lives up to that point. We went to Kings Island, and it was a beautiful day with all my friends. We had an unbelievable day,” Booher says. “Then, little did I know that it was going to turn into the most tragic thing anyone could ever go through at 13 years old.” The school bus with Booher and 66 others was heading back to Hardin County on I-71 that night when a drunk driver was heading the wrong way on I-71 and hit the bus headon causing an explosion.
