Chris Gilkey, an author from Hopkinsville, left his book table late Saturday morning to go stand in line to get four Rick Pitino books signed by the University of Louisville basketball coach.
"One's for my buddy, a diehard UK fan," Gilkey said. "I couldn't have gone back to western Kentucky if I hadn't gotten him a copy of Coach Pitino's book."
The other three copies were for Gilkey's father, his co-author's wife and himself.
Gilkey, a high school history teacher, and William T. Turner, a retired college history professor, came to the Book Fair with their book, Hopkinsville: Then and Now.
Gilkey said the crowd inside Frankfort Convention Center "is beyond my imagination. This is great. I thought the rainy weather might hurt but it doesn't seem to be a detractor."
Pitino, the only coach in college history to take three different schools to the NCAA Final Four " Providence College, the University of Kentucky and U of L " was a hit at his first Kentucky Book Fair.
He signed from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Franklin County Magistrate Huston Wells " a U of L and UK fan " waited in line 45 minutes to get three books signed.
Harrodsburg's L.D. Knight, standing in front of Wells, said it was his first visit to the Book Fair and Pitino was the reason he came.
"I really enjoy his style of basketball," Knight said. "He took advantage of the three-point shot years ago and changed basketball all over the country."
Around 12:30 Pitino said his writing hand was beginning to get tired after signing "over 300, I think." He was wearing a large 1993 Final Four ring.
He said his new title, Rebound Rules: The Art of Success 2.0, is his fifth book and it took about eight months to write.
"This one was a little tougher than the others, which took four to five months," Pitino said. "This one is really about rebounding from professional failure, personal tragedies, and rebounding also from the arrogance of success."
He said he had been to several other book signings and the Book Fair is the biggest.
UK won the NCAA championship under Pitino in 1996.
Kim Ellis, with an armload of various books, and her daughter, Kristen, a sixth grader at Elkhorn Middle School wearing a Louisville Cardinals shirt, were happy to get to see Pitino and get a book autographed.
"He made basketball so exciting in Kentucky," said Kim Ellis.
She said she loves shopping at the Book Fair because "you can never go wrong buying books."
Missy Jenkins, a teenager shot and paralyzed in the 1997 Heath High School shooting in Paducah, was signing her book, I Choose To Be Happy: A School Shooting Survivor's Triumph over Tragedy.
Jenkins, 26 now, lives in Murray with her husband and young son and is a counselor at a day treatment center there.
"I hope a lot of people are interested in my book," she said. "I've learned many, many lessons from whenever the shooting happened until now " the abilities I have in a wheelchair.
"I've learned how important it is to cherish what you have. At 15, I learned I was not invincible. I've learned how bullying affects people."
Jenkins said she forgave Michael Carneal, the boy who shot her, "the day of the shooting. I had always been a happy person. I knew him. We had a class together and I liked him a lot. But I think he was bottling a lot of things inside and never asked for help."
She said she frequently talks about her experience now to a lot of kids who have made bad decisions.
"I let them know how decisions affect your entire life, like the guy that shot me. He made a decision to bring a gun to school and now he is in jail for 25 years to life."
Jenkins said she expects to write another book someday.
Roger Mudd, a CBS icon, sold all 144 copies of his book, The Place To Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News, by early afternoon.
His memoir tells of how the bureau worked: the rivalries, the egos, the pride, the competition, the ambitions, and the gathering frustrations of conveying the world to a national television audience in 30 minutes minus commercials.
Mudd joined CBS in 1961 and as the congressional correspondent, became a star covering the historic Senate debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Appearing at the steps of Congress every morning, noon and night for the 12 weeks of filibuster, he established a reputation as a leading political reporter.
Mudd was one of half a dozen major figures in the stable of CBS News broadcasters at a time when the network's standing as a provider of news was at its peak.
In 1946 Mudd was a soldier at Fort Knox and went to a night school at the University of Louisville called "the School of Hard Knocks," Mudd said. "I took political science."
He said Kentucky was good to him again on Saturday.
"You can take the weather and stick it, but other than that" it was a good day, he said.
Mudd lives in Virginia near Washington and his main job now is to "sign books."
He said it's different than being on TV, but he doesn't miss TV at all.
"TV has really changed," he said. "I think if they called me and said you have to come back to work, I wouldn't know what to do. With all the technology I wouldn't know which button to push."
His last year on TV was 2004 when he was the primary anchor for The History Channel.
Prior to that he was weekend anchor of "CBS Evening News," co-anchor of the weekday "NBC Nightly News," and hosted NBC's "Meet the Press" and "American Almanac."
He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting and five Emmy Awards.
At 1:30, Mudd spoke to a large audience about his career at CBS and answered questions.