"Are you guys excited about this?"
"Yes!" came the enthusiastic reply.
Just before the eclipse reached its peak in Lexington – more than 90% – Becky Brown, principal at Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary School, was making sure kids were ready to witness the brief celestial event, and how the life around them would react.
"Now, what you need to start doing is start listening, right? Because it's going to happen here in a couple minutes and we should hear an increase in insect noise. So be listening to how the animals react," she said to the students.
They were far from alone, of course, as viewing parties sprang up in various spots. More than 150 people gathered in the Alumni Commons at UK, crowds took to the lawn at the city’s Living Arts and Science Center, along with watch parties in Lexington’s distillery district.
The event was expected to draw more than a million people to prime viewing spots in far west parts Kentucky and nearby areas in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Monday was the last chance to see a near-total solar eclipse here in Lexington for a couple of decades — with the next on scheduled for 2044.
