Louie Nunn

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Louie Nunn
Nunn in 1969
52nd Governor of Kentucky
In office
December 12, 1967 – December 7, 1971
LieutenantWendell Ford
Preceded byNed Breathitt
Succeeded byWendell Ford
Personal details
Born
Louie Broady Nunn

(1924-03-08)March 8, 1924
Park, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedJanuary 29, 2004(2004-01-29) (aged 79)
Versailles, Kentucky, U.S.
Resting placeCosby Cemetery
LeGrande, Kentucky, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
Beula Cornelius Aspley
(m. 1950; div. 1994)
Children2, including
Army Medical Corps
Battles/warsWorld War II

Louie Broady Nunn (March 8, 1924 – January 29, 2004) was an American politician who served as the 52nd governor of Kentucky. Elected in 1967, he was the only Republican to hold the office between the end of Simeon Willis's term in 1947 and the election of Ernie Fletcher in 2003.

After rendering non-combat service in

Bert T. Combs
that desegregated Kentucky's public services became a major issue in the campaign. Nunn vowed to repeal the order if elected, while Breathitt promised to continue it.

In 1967, Nunn ran for governor again. After defeating

industrial hemp
in Kentucky. He died of a heart attack on January 29, 2004.

Early life

Louie Broady Nunn was born in Park, Kentucky – a small community on the border of Barren and Metcalfe counties – on March 8, 1924.[1] His first name, Louie, honored a deceased friend of his father's; his middle name, Broady, was a surname in his mother's family.[2] Louie was the youngest of the four sons born to Waller Harrison and Mary (Roberts) Nunn; their youngest child, Virginia, was their only daughter.[3] The Nunns were farmers and operated a general store, though Waller suffered from a congenital heart condition and severe arthritis and was limited to light chores.[4][5] The eldest brother, Lee Roy, became an influential campaigner and fundraiser for the Republican Party.[6]

Nunn obtained the first eight years of his education in a one-room, one-teacher schoolhouse in Park.[7][8] During his teenage years, he gave himself a hernia while lifting a heavy piece of farm equipment.[8] This, combined with his father's health history, may have contributed to back pain issues that plagued him for most of his life.[9] In 1938, he matriculated to Hiseville High School.[10] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Bowling Green Business University, now Western Kentucky University.[11]

After the

Army Medical Corps, but his back injury flared up, and he received a medical discharge on September 13, 1945.[13] He held the rank of corporal at the time of his discharge.[14]

Following his military duty, Nunn pursued a pre-law degree at the University of Cincinnati.[13] Three years later, he matriculated to the University of Louisville School of Law where he was a classmate of future congressman Marlow Cook.[15] Nunn earned his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1950.[16][17] He opened his legal practice in Glasgow, Kentucky, in September 1950.[18]

On October 12, 1950, Nunn married Beula Cornelius Aspley, a divorcee from Bond, Kentucky.[7][17] The couple had two children – Jennie Lou, born in 1951, and Steve, born in 1952.[19] Aspley also had three children from her first marriage.[20] Nunn left the Methodist denomination in which he had been raised after marrying Aspley, joining her as a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).[21]

Political career

On June 17, 1953, Nunn declared as a Republican candidate for county judge and was ultimately the only Republican to declare.[22] In the Democratic primary, one of the challengers charged that the incumbent had misused his office for personal gain.[23] In the wake of the investigation, a group of disgruntled Democrats formed an organization to elect Nunn, who defeated his Democratic challenger by a vote of 5,171 to 4,378, becoming the first Republican elected county judge in the history of the heavily Democratic county.[7][23]

In 1956, Nunn served as statewide campaign manager for

Thruston Morton.[11] The Kentucky Junior Chamber of Commerce named him "Young Man of the Year" in 1956.[24] He was not a candidate for re-election as county judge in 1957 but was appointed as city attorney for the city of Glasgow in 1958.[7] He considered running for governor in 1959 but became convinced it would be a bad year for Republicans and did not make the race.[25] He managed successful re-election campaigns for Senator Cooper in 1960 and Senator Morton in 1962.[11] He also managed the state campaign of presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1960.[26] Although John F. Kennedy won the election, Nixon carried Kentucky 54% to 46%.[27]

Nunn was the Republican nominee for

Ned Breathitt by a margin of just over 13,000 votes.[28]

Governor of Kentucky

In 1967, Nunn faced his old classmate, Jefferson County Judge Marlow Cook, in Kentucky's first Republican gubernatorial primary in many years.[7][17] Nunn attacked Cook as a "liberal, former New Yorker", and some of his supporters referred to Cook's "Jewish backers".[30] The injection of antisemitism into the campaign drew criticism from Senator John Sherman Cooper, who threw his support to Cook.[30] Nunn also attacked Cook for his Catholic faith, a tactic that proved particularly effective with the state's Protestant voters.[30] In a close vote, Nunn defeated Cook to secure the nomination.[30]

Nunn then faced Democrat

Henry Ward in the general election.[7] During the campaign, Nunn charged that Democrats wanted to raise taxes to pay for administrative inefficiencies.[17] He also played up divisions within the Democratic party, and was endorsed by two-time former Democratic Governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler.[17][30] Nunn allied himself closely with the national Republican campaign against Lyndon B. Johnson, bringing several prominent Republicans to the state to speak for him.[26] He won the election by a vote of 454,123 to 425,674, even though half of the other state offices went to Democrats, including the lieutenant governorship, won by Wendell Ford.[31]

The General Assembly was controlled by Democrats, but Nunn was able to pass most of his agenda.[17] Despite a campaign promise not to raise taxes when the outgoing Breathitt administration projected a shortfall of $24 million in the state budget, Nunn convinced the General Assembly to pass an increase in the motor vehicle license fee from $5.00 to $12.50 and raise the state sales tax from three percent to five percent.[17][26] Nunn's budget focused on increased funding for education, mental health, and economic development.[17] In the 1970 legislative session, the General Assembly enacted Nunn's proposals to eliminate taxes on prescription drugs and the use fee charged on vehicles transferred within families, but rejected his plans to reduce the income tax for low-income families and increase tax credits for the blind and the elderly.[17]

Nunn oversaw the entry of the University of Louisville into the state's public university system.[11] Fulfilling a campaign promise, he helped transform Northern Kentucky Community College into Northern Kentucky State College (which later became Northern Kentucky University), a four-year institution and member of the state university system.[32] Historian Lowell H. Harrison argued that these actions diluted state support to existing higher education institutions.[17] Nunn also supported the newly created Kentucky Educational Television.[17]

Nunn doubled the accommodations in the

federal constitution
.)

A supporter of President Nixon's

ROTC buildings.[17]

From 1968 to 1969, Nunn served on the Executive Committee of the

The Courier-Journal said of Nunn's administration "On the whole, his management of the state's finances has been sound. ... [H]e took a general fund facing a deficit, restored it to solvency, and kept it healthy. No scandals have marred the Nunn record. He chose able men to direct his revenue and finance departments, and their efficiency saved the state millions of dollars."[35] Historian Thomas D. Clark called Nunn the strongest of Kentucky's eight Republican governors.[36]
At the time, Kentucky governors could not serve consecutive terms; in the 1971 race, Nunn backed Tom Emberton, who lost to Ford.

Later career

Following his term as governor, Nunn opened a law practice in Lexington.[17] He campaigned for the retiring Cooper's seat in 1972, losing to Democrat Walter Dee Huddleston, a state senator who had managed Ford's campaign.[7] His loss came despite a landslide victory for Richard Nixon in the state and was generally blamed on his advocacy of raising the sales tax to 5 percent from 3 percent in 1968.[37] He continued working on behalf of Republican candidates and backed Ronald Reagan's primary challenge to incumbent Gerald Ford in 1975.[37] His last run for office came in 1979 when he was again the Republican nominee for governor against Democrat John Y. Brown Jr.[37] He decried the excessive spending, expanding government, and increased state employment that had occurred under Democratic administrations.[37] He also attacked Brown for his playboy image (he was married to former Miss America Phyllis George) and his refusal to release his tax returns, as well as his inexperience in government.[37] Despite these attacks, Nunn lost by a vote of 558,008 to 381,278 and returned to his legal practice.[37]

In the 1980s, Nunn served on the boards of regents of Morehead State University and Kentucky State University.[17] He served as a lecturer at Western Kentucky University, and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Louisville in 1999.[4] During the late 1980s, he criticized Senator Mitch McConnell, one of the emerging leaders of the state's Republican party, for not doing more to support other Republicans in their bids for office; McConnell maintained that he had to focus on his own reelection campaign in 1990.[37] In 1988, Nunn unsuccessfully challenged Congressman Jim Bunning in his bid to retain his position as Kentucky's Republican national committeeman.[37]

In 1994, Nunn's wife Beula filed for divorce from a hospital bed where she lay dying of cancer.[38][39] She claimed she was trying to preserve some of her estate for her children.[38] A Metcalfe County judge granted the divorce, but Nunn challenged the ruling, and it was later set aside.[39] Some property issues were still pending at the time of Beula's death in 1995.[39] During the divorce proceedings, Nunn's son Steve sided with his mother, causing a rift between him and his father.[39] A 1994 letter from the elder Nunn alleged that Steve Nunn physically and verbally abused Louie Nunn and other members of his family.[39] The letter was discovered in 2009 when Steve Nunn was charged with the murder of his former fiancée, Amanda Ross.[39] The letter also quoted Louie Nunn of saying "you have no family" to Steve, indicating that their relationship had deteriorated long before Louie's death, allegedly because of the younger Nunn's abusiveness.[40]

In 1999, Nunn again considered a bid for governor, precluding a potential bid by his son, Steve, a state representative from Glasgow.[36] He cited personal and health issues for not making the race. In 2000, he backed the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.[36] Nunn reconciled with his son, and when Steve ran for governor in 2003, Louie supported him.[36] After Steve Nunn ran third in a four-way primary, the elder Nunn supported the Republican nominee, Ernie Fletcher, hosting a fundraiser for him.[36]

Nunn also became an advocate of legalizing

Oglala Lakota leader with bales of hemp after the tribe's crop was confiscated by officers from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.[38]

Louie B. Nunn died of a heart attack at his home just outside

Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway in 2000, and the main lodge at the Barren River Lake State Resort Park is also named in Nunn's honor.[43][44]

See also

References

  1. ^ Byrd, p. 13
  2. ^ Byrd, p. 17
  3. ^ Byrd, p. 16
  4. ^ a b c d "WKU Hall of Distinguished Alumni". Western Kentucky University
  5. ^ Byrd, pp. 17–18
  6. ^ Byrd, p. 11
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Powell, p. 108
  8. ^ a b Byrd, p. 37
  9. ^ Byrd, pp. 17, 37
  10. ^ Byrd, p. 40
  11. ^ a b c d e "Kentucky Governor Louie Broady Nunn". National Governors Association
  12. ^ a b c d Byrd, p. 42
  13. ^ a b c Byrd, p. 44
  14. ^ Sexton, p. 206
  15. ^ Byrd, p. 46
  16. ^ Byrd, p. 45
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harrison in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, p. 686
  18. ^ Byrd, p. 54
  19. ^ Byrd, p. 57
  20. ^ Byrd, p. 50
  21. ^ Byrd, p. 23
  22. ^ Byrd, p. 68
  23. ^ a b Byrd, p. 69
  24. ^ Byrd, p. 77
  25. ^ Byrd, p. 78
  26. ^ a b c Sexton, p. 207
  27. ^ "1960 Presidential Election". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
  28. ^ a b c d Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 411
  29. ^ Pearce, p. 221
  30. ^ a b c d e Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 413
  31. ^ a b c d Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 414
  32. ^ Crowley, "Nunn was promoter of NKU, friends recall"
  33. ^ a b Wolfe 2004
  34. ^ a b Sexton, p. 208
  35. ^ Sexton, pp. 208–209
  36. ^ a b c d e f Sexton, p. 210
  37. ^ a b c d e f g h Sexton, p. 209
  38. ^ a b c d e Samples-Gutierrez, "Bluegrass hemp fight has an ally"
  39. ^ a b c d e f Estep, "Louie Nunn accused son Steve of abusing him"
  40. ^ Kegley, Josh (April 5, 2012). "'You have no family,' Louie B. Nunn wrote to his son Steve". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  41. ^ "Former Governor Louie B. Nunn Dies At 79"
  42. ^ York, "Nunn's N.Ky. legacy remembered"
  43. ^ "Man Held in Shooting of 2 in Ginseng Patch". Lexington Herald-Leader
  44. ^ Bailey, p. D1

Bibliography

Party political offices
Preceded by Succeeded by
Preceded by Chair of the Republican Governors Association
1970–1971
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Class 2)
1972
Succeeded by
Preceded by Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Governor of Kentucky
1967–1971
Succeeded by