<p> Public Relations http://w2.uky.edu/UKPR/</p><p>CONTACT: Allison Elliott, (859) 257-1754 ext. 249, [email protected]</p><p>FOR RELEASE</p><p>Bus Crash Survivor and Filmmaker on Montel</p><p>LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 29, 2008) − With the 20th anniversary of the tragic 1988 Carrolton bus crash approaching, crash survivor and former UK football player Harold Dennis appears on the Montel Williams Show this Wednesday, April 30. Dennis is joined on the show by UK history professor and filmmaker Daniel Blake Smith and former UK football coach Bill Curry. Smith, with support from show host Williams and others, is working to produce a dramatic film called “The Phoenix” around the story of Harold Dennis and his rise from the flames of the Carrolton bus disaster. Central Kentucky filmmaker Jason Epperson (who was runner up in last summer’s Fox filmmaker reality series, ‘On the Lot’) is attached to direct. On the show, Dennis recounts to Williams the terrifying accident caused when a drunk driver hit a church bus returning from Kings Island. Twenty-seven people, most of them children, were killed in the crash. Dennis, 14 years old at the time of the accident, was severely burned and his face disfigured. Dennis went on to attend the University of Kentucky, where the star high school soccer player decided to go out for a new sport – football. Despite having no experience playing high school or college football, Dennis convinced then-UK football coach Bill Curry to let him play as a walk-on. He did so well that the next season he became a scholarship player and went on to be featured for his courage by EPSN, Sports Illustrated, and People magazine. Today Dennis is a successful businessman, husband and father. He says he would not change what happened that terrible night in northern Kentucky. </p><p>An Equal Opportunity University The Carrolton bus crash remains the worst drunk-driving accident in U.S. history. Along with the Floyd County, Ky., bus crash of 1958, which also claimed 27 victims, it is also the worst bus crash in national history. For more information about the film project, including the entire Montel Williams Show appearance, visit www.phoenixfilms.net. The Montel Williams Show airs locally on ABC affiliate WTVQ-36 at 10 a.m. Visit www.montelshow.com for a preview of Wednesday's show. </p><p>### In striving to become a Top 20 public research institution, the University of Kentucky is a catalyst for a new Commonwealth – a Kentucky that is healthier, better educated, and positioned to compete in a global and changing economy. For more information about UK’s efforts to become a Top 20 university, please go to http://www.uky.edu/OPBPA/Top20.html</p>