Born: September 21, 1944
Birth State: Kentucky
Party: Democrat
Spouse: Jane Beshear
Family: Married Jane Beshear; two children
Religion: Baptist
School(s): University of Kentucky Address: The Capitol Building 700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 100 Frankfort, KY 40601 Phone: 502/564-2611 Fax: 502/564-0437
Governor's Web Site
State Web Site
STEVEN L. BESHEAR is a native of Dawson Springs in Hopkins County, Kentucky, where he was one of five children of a Baptist minister and a mother dedicated to her community. Beshear has a bachelor's degree and law degree from the University of Kentucky, where he was president of the student body. He also served as an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he carried out certain judge advocate general duties.
An attorney by profession, Beshear has a long background in public service. During three terms as state representative, Beshear helped modernize the Kentucky Judicial System and proposed legislation that resulted in the modernization and more than doubling of neo-natal capacities at the University of Kentucky Hospital. As attorney general, Beshear saved countless taxpayer dollars by successfully cracking down on statewide food stamp fraud and pursued several controversial investigations involving state government employees. As lieutenant governor, Beshear helped push for reform of the child welfare system. He also created and spearheaded the Kentucky Tomorrow Commission, a strategic planning initiative that identified daunting challenges facing the state then and far into the future. Beshear took nearly two decades off to practice law before entering a crowded field in the governor's race.
Beshear was elected governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in November 2007. As governor, Beshear has helped restore public trust by creating a culture of integrity in state government that has including rooting out cronyism and implementing stronger ethics standards. He has also streamlined spending with a trimming of the state workforce, implemented a more efficient way of designing and building roads and won bipartisan support for a complex reform of the beleaguered public pension system.
Beshear has focused on initiatives to help Kentucky families including expanding efforts to bring health coverage to 35,000 uninsured children, designing a plan to bring prescription drugs to those who can't afford them, securing "bridge" funding to save Kentucky's student loan agency and calling for a new analysis on higher education affordability and access.
He and his wife, Jane, have been married since 1969. They co-own a horse farm in Clark County. They have two sonsJeff, a veterinarian; and Andy, an attorneyand one grandson. Beshear has long been deeply involved in the community, and his various civic activities include such organizations as CommerceLexington Inc., the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation, God's Pantry Food Bank, Bluegrass Tomorrow, the Kentucky World Trade Center, and the UK College of Law Visiting Committee.
|