Louie B. Nunn

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Louie B. Nunn
A color portrait of a man in his early forties wearing a suit and standing beside a fireplace mantle
In office
December 12, 1967 – December 7, 1971
Lieutenant Wendell H. Ford
Preceded by Edward T. Breathitt
Succeeded by Wendell H. Ford
Born March 8, 1924(1924-03-08)
Park, Barren County, Kentucky, USA
Died January 29, 2004 (aged 79)
Versailles, Kentucky
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Beulah Cornelius
Children Stephen Nunn
Jenni Lou Nunn
Alma mater Bowling Green Business University
University of Louisville
Profession Lawyer
Religion United Methodist
Military service
Service/branch U.S. Army
Years of service 1943–1945
Rank Corporal
Battles/wars World War II

Louie Broady Nunn (March 8, 1924 – January 29, 2004) was the 52nd Governor of Kentucky. Elected in 1967, he was the first Republican elected to that office since Simeon Willis in 1943 and the last to hold it until the election of Ernie Fletcher in 2003.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Louie Nunn was born in Park, Kentucky in Barren County on March 8, 1924.[1] He was the youngest of four sons born to Waller Harrison and Mary Roberts Nunn.[2] His parents were farmers and operated a general store.[3] He obtained his early education in a one-room, one-teacher schoolhouse in Park before graduating from Hiseville High School.[2] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Bowling Green Business University.[1]

In 1943, Nunn enlisted in the Infantry and Medical Corps of the Army Air Force for service in World War II.[2][4] He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of corporal.[5] Following his military duty, Nunn attended the University of Cincinnati, then earned his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Louisville in 1950.[4] He opened his legal practice in Glasgow and on October 12, 1950, married Beula Cornelius Aspley, a divorcee from Bond, Kentucky.[2][4] The couple had two children, Steve and Jennie Lou.[3]

[edit] Political career

In 1953, Nunn was elected county judge of Barren County.[1] He the first Republican ever elected to that office in the history of the heavily-Democratic county.[2] He was not a candidate for re-election, but was appointed as city attorney for the city of Glasgow in 1958.[2] In 1956, he served as statewide campaign manager for Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential bid, as well as the senatorial campaigns of John Sherman Cooper and Thruston Morton.[1] He managed Cooper's re-election campaign in 1960 and Morton's in 1962.[1] He also managed the state campaign of presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1960.[6]

Nunn was the Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky in 1963.[2] During the campaign, he attacked an executive order issued by sitting Democratic governor Bert T. Combs that desegregated public accommodations in the state.[7] Calling the order "a dictatorial edict of questionable constitutionality", Nunn charged that it had been dictated by U. S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.[8] In a television appearance, Nunn displayed a copy of the order and declared "My first act will be to abolish this."[7] The New Republic accused him of conducting "the first outright segregationist campaign in Kentucky".[7] He lost the election to Democrat Edward T. Breathitt by a margin of just over 13,000 votes.[7]

[edit] Governor of Kentucky

In 1967, Nunn faced Jefferson County judge Marlow W. Cook in the first Republican gubernatorial primary in many years.[2][4] Nunn attacked Cook as a "liberal, former New Yorker", and some of his supporters made reference to Cook's "Jewish backers".[9] The injection of Antisemitism into the campaign drew criticism from Senator John Sherman Cooper, who threw his support to Cook.[9] Nunn also attacked Cook for his Catholic faith, a tactic that proved particularly effective with the state's rural and Protestant voters.[9] Nunn won the primary by a close vote.[9]

Nunn then faced Democrat Henry Ward in the general election.[2] During the campaign, Nunn charged that Democrats wanted to raise taxes to pay for administrative inefficiencies.[4] He also played up divisions within the Democratic party, and was endorsed by two-time former Democratic Governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler.[4][9] Nunn also allied himself closely with the national Republican campaign against Lyndon B. Johnson, bringing several prominent Republicans to the state to speak for him.[6] He won the election by a vote of 454,123 to 425,674 despite the fact that half of the other state offices went to Democrats, including the lieutenant governorship, won by Wendell H. Ford.[10]

The General Assembly was controlled by Democrats, but Nunn was able to pass most of his agenda.[4] 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.[4][6] Nunn's budget focused on increased funding for education, mental health, and economic development.[4] In the 1970 legislative session, Nunn convinced the General Assembly to eliminate taxes on prescription drugs and the use fee charged on vehicles transferred within families, but the Assembly rejected his proposals to reduce the income tax for low-income families and increase tax credits for the blind and the elderly.[4]

Nunn oversaw the entry of the University of Louisville into the state's public university system.[1] Fulfilling a campaign promise, he helped transform Northern Kentucky Community College into Northern Kentucky State College (now Northern Kentucky University), a four-year institution and member of the state university system.[11] Historian Lowell H. Harrison opined that these actions diluted state support to existing higher education institutions.[4] Nunn also supported the newly-created Kentucky Educational Television.[4]

Nunn doubled the accommodations in the state park system.[3] Barren River Lake State Resort Park was completed during his tenure, and three other parks were planned and funded during his administration.[3] He also greatly improved the state mental health system.[12] Under his leadership, a state-wide network of 22 mental health centers was completed, and all four state psychiatric hospitals were accredited for the first time.[12] Nunn called the revamping of the state mental health system his proudest accomplishment at governor.[12]

There was not total agreement between Nunn and the legislature however. The governor vetoed one-quarter of the bills passed in the 1968 legislative session and 14 percent of those passed in the 1970 session.[10] An open housing bill became law without Nunn's signature, and he also refused to sign the 1970 state budget as a form of protest.[2][10] (Unsigned bills become law after ten days under the Kentucky Constitution, in contrast to the pocket veto provision in the federal constitution.)

A supporter of President Nixon's law-and-order philosophies, Nunn called out the National Guard to break up violent protests in the state.[4] In May 1968, he sent the Guard to Louisville to break up race-related protests that followed peaceful civil rights marches.[13] This action was criticized by civil rights leaders across the state.[13] In May 1970, Nunn again dispatched the Guard to quell protests against the Vietnam War at the University of Kentucky including the imposition of a curfew that interfered with final examinations.[10] The latter protest culminated in the burning of one of the university's ROTC buildings.[4] A popular recurring joke on Kentucky's liberal college campuses at the time was to ask, 'If there are fifty states, why are there only forty-nine governors?", to which the refrain would always be, 'Because Kentucky has Nunn.' Nunn's popularity continued in rural areas but took a nosedive in the Louisville and Lexington areas.

From 1968 to 1969, Nunn served on the Executive Committee of the National Governors' Conference, and in 1971, he chaired the Republican Governors Association.[1]

The Louisville 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 ment ot direct his revenue and finance departments, and their efficiency saved the state millions of dollars."[14] Historian Thomas D. Clark called Nunn the strongest of Kentucky's eight Republican governors.[15]

[edit] Later career

Following his term as governor, Nunn opened a law practice in Lexington.[4] He campaigned for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1972, losing to Democrat Walter "Dee" Huddleston.[2] His loss came despite a landslide victory for Richard Nixon in the state and was generally blamed on his support for an increased sales tax during his gubernatorial administration.[16] He continued backing Republican candidates, including his support of Ronald Reagan in 1975.[16]

Nunn's last run for office came in 1979 when he was again the Republican nominee for governor against Democrat John Y. Brown, Jr..[16] He decried the excessive spending, expanding government, and increased state employment that had occurred under Democratic administrations.[16] 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.[16] Despite these attacks, Nunn lost by a vote of 558,008 to 381,278 and returned to his legal practice.[16]

In the 1980s, Nunn served on the boards of regents of Morehead State University and Kentucky State University.[4] He served as a distinguished lecturer at Western Kentucky University and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Louisville in 1999.[3] He disapproved of the emerging Republican leadership in Kentucky, criticizing Senator Mitch McConnell for not doing more to support other Republicans in their bids for office.[15] He unsuccessfully challenged Congressman Jim Bunning in his bid to retain his position as Kentucky's Republican national committeeman in 1988.[16]

In 1994, Nunn's wife Beulah filed for divorce from a hospital bed where she lay dying of cancer.[17][18] She claimed she was trying to preserve some of her estate for her children.[17] A Metcalfe County judge granted the divorce, but Nunn challenged the ruling, and it was later set aside.[18] Some property issues were still pending at the time of Beulah's death in 1995.[18] During the divorce proceedings, Nunn's son Steve sided with his mother, causing a rift between Steve Nunn and his father.[18] A 1994 letter from the elder Nunn alleged that Steve Nunn physically and verbally abused Louie Nunn and other members of his family.[18] The letter was discovered in 2009 when Steve Nunn was charged with the murder of his mistress, Amanda Ross.[18]

In 1999, Nunn again considered a bid for governor, precluding a potential bid by his son, Steve.[15] He cited personal and health issues for not making the race. In 2000, he backed the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.[15] Having been reconciled to his son, Nunn he supported Steve Nunn's gubernatorial campaign in 2003, but the younger Nunn ultimately ran third in a four-way primary.[15] The elder Nunn then supported Republican nominee Ernie Fletcher, hosting a fundraiser for him.[15]

Interstate 65's Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway highway sign near Rocky Hill, Kentucky.

Nunn also became an advocate of legalizing industrial hemp in Kentucky.[17] Of the issue, Nunn wrote "Frankly, I was opposed to the legalization of hemp for years because I had been of the opinion hemp was marijuana. I was short-sighted in my thinking, and I was wrong."[17] In 2000, Nunn defended actor Woody Harrelson, who came to Lee County, Kentucky and planted hemp seeds in open defiance of Kentucky's law forbidding cultivation of hemp.[17] Harrelson was acquitted.[17] Later, he traveled to South Dakota where, at the base of Mount Rushmore, he publicly presented a Oglala Lakota leader with bales of hemp after the tribe's crop was confiscated by officers from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.[17]

Louie B. Nunn died of a heart attack at his home in Versailles, Kentucky on January 29, 2004, hours after hosting a luncheon with labor leaders seeking help in dealing with the newly-elected Fletcher administration.[15][12] He was buried at the Cosby Methodist Church cemetery east of Horse Cave, near the Governor's beloved homeplace of Park. The Cumberland Parkway, a toll road running through Barren County, was renamed the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway in 2000; Nunn was instrumental in getting the parkway built in the 1970s. The main lodge at the Barren River Reservoir State Park near Lucas is also named for Nunn.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Kentucky Governor Louie Broady Nunn". National Governors Association
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Powell, p. 108
  3. ^ a b c d e "WKU Hall of Distinguished Alumni". Western Kentucky University
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harrison in The Kentucky Encyclopedia, p. 686
  5. ^ Sexton, p. 206
  6. ^ a b c Sexton, p. 207
  7. ^ a b c d Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 411
  8. ^ Pearce, p. 221
  9. ^ a b c d e Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 413
  10. ^ a b c d Harrison in A New History of Kentucky, p. 413
  11. ^ Crowley, "Nunn was promoter of NKU, friends recall"
  12. ^ a b c d "Louie Nunn, Former Governor Of Kentucky, Is Dead at 79". The New York Times
  13. ^ a b Sexton, p. 208
  14. ^ Sexton, pp. 208–209
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Sexton, p. 210
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Sexton, p. 209
  17. ^ a b c d e f g Samples, "Bluegrass hemp fight has an ally"
  18. ^ a b c d e f Estep, "Louie Nunn accused son Steve of abusing him"

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Edward T. Breathitt		 Governor of Kentucky
1967–1971		 Succeeded by
Wendell H. Ford
Party political offices
Preceded by
John Sherman Cooper		 Republican nominee for United States Senator from Kentucky (Class 2)
1972		 Succeeded by
Louie R. Guenthner, Jr.
Preceded by
John M. Robsion, Jr.		 Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky
1963		 Succeeded by
renominated four years later
Preceded by
self		 Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky
1967		 Succeeded by
Tom Emberton
Preceded by
Bob Gable		 Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky
1979		 Succeeded by
Jim Bunning
v • d • e
Governors of Kentucky
Shelby · Garrard · Greenup · Scott · Shelby · Madison · Slaughter · Adair · Desha · Metcalfe · J. Breathitt · J. Morehead · Clark · Wickliffe · Letcher · Owsley · Crittenden · Helm · Powell · C. Morehead · Magoffin · G.W. Johnson · Robinson · Hawes · Bramlette · Helm · Stevenson · Leslie · McCreary · Blackburn · Knott · Buckner · Brown · Bradley · Taylor · Goebel · Beckham · Willson · McCreary · Stanley · Black · Morrow · Fields · Sampson · Laffoon · Chandler · K. Johnson · Willis · Clements · Wetherby · Chandler · Combs · E. Breathitt · Nunn · Ford · Carroll · Brown Jr. · Collins · Wilkinson · Jones · Patton · Fletcher · Beshear
Italics indicate Confederate governors
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_B._Nunn"
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