08/26/2026
Today we celebrated a pretty incredible milestone: Kathy’s 30th anniversary with the City of Louisville!
Kathy started with the City in 1996 as a Fitness Supervisor. It was a different time. Pagers and fax machines were all the rage, email wasn’t part of the workday, websites weren’t a thing we had to update, and the recreation catalog was produced by hand with physical proofs, red pens, and plenty of back-and-forth with the printer. There was also a lot more time spent on the phone.
A lot has changed since then, and Kathy has had a front-row seat to much of it. New buildings, new parks, new technology, new challenges, and probably more than a few things no one could have imagined back in 1996.
Kathy became Superintendent in 2008. Over her 30 years with the City, she’s watched the Sports Complex, Community Park, inline rink, and new library become part of the community. Not to mention led the Recreation & Senior Center through a $32 million renovation to make the facility what it is today.
She’s also been here for some of Louisville’s hardest days. During the 2013 flood and the Marshall Fire, the Recreation & Senior Center became much more than a place to work out or take a class. Kathy and her team did whatever the community needed, from handing out water and serving meals to providing a place where people could take a hot shower, charge their phones, sit somewhere safe, and connect with their neighbors.
Those are the things that don’t necessarily show up in a job description, but they are a big part of what 30 years of public service looks like.
Of course, 30 years also comes with a lot of memories, including meeting Jill and Joe Biden, building floats for the parade of lights, and more special events than we can count. Her favorite? The Louisville Sprint Triathlon.
Kathy has welcomed countless people through these doors, supported generations of staff, and helped create the kind of place where people feel like they belong. Buildings, programs, and technology change, but the way you make people feel is what lasts. Kathy’s impact on this community is hard to measure, but you can see it in the people, programs, and relationships she has helped build along the way.
Congratulations, Kathy, on an incredible 30 years with the City of Louisville. Thank you for your leadership, for caring so deeply about this community, and for showing up again and again when people needed you. Louisville is a better community because you’ve been part of it.
We’re pretty lucky to have you.
