Three suspects who allegedly stole approximately $2,000 worth of merchandise from Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers were apprehended on Jan. 8 and 9 in Louisville, Ky.

It takes a little more to be an all-star on the 2012 Home Channel News Hardware Store All-Star list. For the second year in a row, HCN has compiled a state-by-state list of high performers, innovative retailers and classic stores.

The alphabetical listing of Hardware Store All-Stars, one from each of the 50 U.S. states, continues below with Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana:

One year ago it was just a set of blueprints, but Menards first location in Kentucky -- a megastore measuring more than 200,000 sq. ft. -- opened on May 1 in Owensboro, Ky., according to an article in the Messenger Inquirer.

Menards will be the first store to operate in the 67-acre Heartland Crossing shopping center. Designs for that $45 million development feature building pads for restaurants, banks, offices and a hotel.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky,), speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate on tornado relief efforts last month, singled out several lumberyards and home-improvement retailers for their assistance in the aftermath of last month’s tornados. 

H&S Ace Hardware, an 80-year-old hardware store in Louisville, Ky., closed last month under pressure from its creditors, according to an article in the Courier-Journal.

Store manager Dave Phelps told the newspaper that the company's secured creditors ordered that the 135,000-sq.-ft. store be shuttered.

Menards, the third largest chain of home improvement stores in the U.S., will open a 200,000-sq.-ft.-plus store in Owensboro, Ky., this spring, according to an article in the Messenger Inquirer. It will be the Eau Claire, Wis.-based retailer’s first store in the state of Kentucky.

Just shy of its 100th anniversary, Harrodsburg, Ky.-based Coleman's Lumber and Home Center has closed its doors.

VP Cala Coleman confirmed to Home Channel News that the single-unit home center near Lexington, Ky. is going out of business.

According to the company's website, the business started as a flour mill in 1912. Owner Jack Coleman Jr. is the great grandson of company founder Clell Coleman, according to the website.

Brownsboro Hardware & Paint of Louisville, Ky. opened its second location, according to a report in the Louisville Biz Journal. 

The new store is located in the former site of a Vance's True Value Hardware in the Prospect Pointe shopping center in Prospect, Ky. 

A Menards store planned near The Heartlands subdivision of Owensboro,  Ky., would be the first Menards store to open in Kentucky.

Representatives from Eau Claire, Wis.-based Menards met with home owners this week, according to the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. Tom O'Neil, from Menards real estate division, told the newspaper: "As the overall plan evolves, we'll be able to submit the development plan, and at that point we can show the site plan to the homeowners."