Eccentric observers

For decades, LEO Weekly has been a central piece of Louisville’s cultural and political identity. Now, physical archives of the always-free newspaper that documented the highs, lows and woahs of the city’s history have found a permanent new home with University of Louisville Libraries. And just as LEO tells Louisville’s story in its own words, UofL Magazine presents our story through those who lived it, in their own words.

Before he added “Congressman” to his resume, John Yarmuth was a local guy working in politics and publishing in Louisville. In July 1990, Yarmuth – along with a few prominent Louisville journalists and one University of Louisville legend, Coach Denny Crum – founded the Louisville Eccentric Observer, or LEO, as it’s known to most. Yarmuth knew the city was ready for an alternative weekly newspaper, and if LEO’s 36-years-and-still-going run proves anything, he was right.

During those 36 years, LEO has produced millions of words, well over a thousand issues and supported hundreds of Louisville writers, artists, thought leaders, professionals and freelancers – many of whom are UofL alumni, like writer Erica Rucker ’03, ’10.

In 2025, old issues of the paper that was founded by and for Louisville made its way home to the city’s premier institution of learning and local history when Aaron Yarmuth (the congressman’s son) and his family donated the collection to UofL Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections (ASC) to preserve its legacy – thanks in no small part to Rucker and ASC’s manuscript archivist and Oral History Center director Heather Fox ’01.

But first, let’s go back in time a little bit ...

ERICA RUCKER: Alt-weeklies tend to grow organically from the soil of the places where they exist. But I think what makes Louisville so special is also what made LEO special. It always felt a little DIY, which is very Louisville. When I was a young kid in the arts and music scene, I was a little punk kid. The LEO was always where you would find the shows. 

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HEATHER FOX: I remember looking forward to every week going and getting a copy. They would drop them off at coffee shops and record stores and you could just pick one up. It was always exciting because you could figure out what movies were showing, what shows were happening … it was a little bit before the World Wide Web. 

RUCKER: It was such an important part of that world, letting us know what was going on. And then I started to meet the writers, and they became friends and we were all a part of this sort of awakening of the city … it was a whole vibe. 

AARON YARMUTH: I have memories of riding around in my dad’s car with these bound copies for delivery where he would have them all over his car. I can remember being a kid and just jumping on stacks of them. 

FOX: I feel like it came out on Wednesday? So, you’d be like, “Okay, today we’re getting a new LEO, so we’ll see what’s going to be happening.”

Rucker graduated from UofL’s College of Arts and Sciences with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English. Today, she runs her own news and culture website, Louisville Independent News. A natural creative, her journey toward working at LEO seemed predestined but, as with any journey, had some interesting stops along the way as she progressed through the paper’s ranks.

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RUCKER: My husband and I put on a music festival in 2008 (Terrastock) and after the festival, one of the editors reached out to me and said, “Would you be interested in writing something for LEO? A music column?” I’d always wanted to write for the LEO, so I wasn’t going to be like, “No.” So, I said, cool, but I don’t want to do interviews. I don’t want to interview musicians because I had just done this music festival and I was sick of musicians. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to write about music in the way that we live with music. So, I would pick some music and tell a story from my life and how it fit in. Some of those stories were funny. Some of them were more serious. That’s how I got into LEO’s pages.

I did that from 2011 until about 2018. They moved me from the back of the book where music was to the front where I could write about anything that I wanted … so it kind of morphed over time from music to this sort of social voice. After 2018, I was exhausted writing … so I took a break and then in 2020, the end of 2020 when the pandemic was in full swing and marketing budgets were drying up … I was getting a little nervous about my bottom line. Then (an opportunity) literally fell from the sky because (former LEO Weekly arts editor) Jo Anne Triplett was retiring. She reached out to me and said, “I want you to apply. I know you would be the best steward for this section of the paper because I know I trust you.” So, I got the job as arts editor.

In 2014, Yarmuth purchased the alt weekly his father had launched 24 years prior, becoming an editor-in-chief with a bold new vision. As the paper entered a new era, reactions from former and current staff of the publication were mixed.

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YARMUTH: It was kind of a rush. And there was an excitement that almost kind of blinded me to the chaos that a lot of others might have sensed with the LEO alums and employees at that time. You come in and start something new and have all the ideas and dreams, and you imagine what you can and want to do. But then you get into it and there’s a lot of the day-to-day blocking and tackling of operations … I was trying to be sensitive to the people who were most directly affected but also trying to install enthusiasm. 

RUCKER: Aaron was always open to your idea. He was a good person to work with. Still, if I need to reach out to him or his dad, that line of communication is always open. Aaron is a good guy, and he has good intentions and a good heart, much like his parents.

In 2021, Yarmuth decided it was time for a new chapter and sold the paper. In 2023, that company dissolved and LEO transferred hands once again to an out-of-town holding company that managed several regional alt-weeklies. During that time, Rucker became the new editor-in-chief, a role she said came less as an offer from new management and more as an ultimatum for continued employment. As a true believer in LEO’s purpose and mission for Louisville, she took the job and was able to creatively lead a redesign in content and visual strategy. However, aggressive cuts to most of her staff – and eventually Rucker herself – finally ended her time at LEO in 2025.

RUCKER: I felt like (by taking the editor-in-chief role) I could fulfill a duty to my city and be a good daughter of the city. We did the best we could with the three of us who were there. 

But Rucker wasn’t done with LEO. During her time working at the paper with Yarmuth, she became aware of several leather-bound volumes of past issues that the Yarmuths had created. Later, a light bulb turned on in her mind, and she presented an idea to her former boss and now friend – with a little help from Fox. 

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RUCKER: I didn’t know (the bound volumes) existed until maybe a year in working at LEO. I heard people talking about them, but I hadn’t seen one. Then we had some in the office and I said, “Hey, this is really super cool that we have these.” Once I left LEO, once it was sold, I was nervous that history would be lost because the guy who bought it didn’t want them. Aaron was tired of holding on to all of them, but he wouldn’t have gotten rid of them.

YARMUTH: I was never going to get rid of them. But the idea that they could be utilized or enjoyed at some point in the future by anybody extends that fondness that I have for them.

RUCKER: I’ve got two or three tubs of books in my house – Aaron’s got the rest. Heather Fox reached out to me because we knew each other from the punk and art scene and said, “Would you be interested in archiving the old LEOs?” And I was like, “Well, it just so happens we have all of these bound copies ..."

FOX: I taught a class (at UofL) in 2018 called “Women Music Archives” and we did oral history interviews with women in the punk scene. I reached out to (Erica) and my students interviewed her. We already had a great relationship.

YARMUTH: It was really nice that Erica shared the passion for the history of LEO and really made sure that something came of it. We had conversations over the years (about donating them) to the public library … it just never came to pass. Erica brought up the first real conversation with Heather. And then Heather and I sat for an hour and a half talking … it was a really nice fit.

RUCKER: So, Aaron said, “Absolutely, come and get them.” He had way more volumes than I even knew about. Heather made all the logistics happen. It was super easy. “You just need to sign this paper and we’ll pick it up.” I was like, “Dope.” 

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FOX: I checked out the library van … it was a rainy day, and we went over and picked this stuff up and it was very exciting to have the materials here. I just thought they would be a wonderful addition to our collection. At UofL, all archives have collecting policies or collecting scopes. Ours is focused on the history of the city of Louisville and the history of the University of Louisville. It made a lot of sense for it to be here. They contain so much information. It’s such a great snapshot of Louisville in a particular time that isn’t web based. It’s print media, local arts and culture. The importance is multilayered … it’s preserving that history.

YARMUTH: The university’s always been an important subject in the paper. From LEO’s perspective, to have that relationship with the university and for them to end up at the university is … a sweet final relationship for the two. Like LEO’s relationship with any institution or politician or organization, the idea was that LEO could be a platform to say or express whatever perspective or opinion. It could be very combative, but at the end of the day … it was always from a place of wanting a better community.

FOX: Like I said, it’s got so many layers of what it is that there are all kinds of ways people could engage with this collection. 

Today, the 58 leather-bound volumes (that’s about 12 linear feet of shelf real estate) are living comfortably within UofL’s archives, taking their rightful spot among the invaluable artifacts of Louisville’s rich history. Like many other ASC collections, the materials are available for public viewing to both university researchers and the Louisville community at large.

YARMUTH: I always liked looking at the archives mostly as a museum piece … appreciating the city through (the writers’ and artists’) lens at the time … it’s very much a museum piece in that way and a fun path down memory lane. There are some really brilliant people (who) have come through the LEO.

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RUCKER: I hope people go to it for information. I hope they go to it for nostalgia. I hope they go to it for inspiration. You know, all of the things. If you love Louisville, go there and visit it. If you want to learn more about Louisville, go there and visit it … that is a great collection to sort of get that essence of who we’ve been in the past 30-plus years. 

FOX: It could be a high schooler coming in to find their parents in there – or their grandparents at this point, which I hate to say. But just looking for articles about relatives and friends … I think there are a lot of possibilities, which is the cool thing about it. 

RUCKER: I hope people understand that moment LEO was and is, and that it’s always there for them to come back to and learn from … I want it to belong to Louisville again, whatever that means.

*These conversations have been edited for clarity.

Visit UofL Archives & Special Collections to register as a researcher and view LEO Weekly archives and other collections