Portal:Kentucky/Selected biography

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Selected biography

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Daniel Boone (October 22, 1734 – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

Boone was born on October 22, 1734. Because the Gregorian calendar was adopted during Boone's lifetime, his birth date is sometimes given as November 2, 1734 (the "New Style" date), although Boone always used the October date. He was the sixth of eleven children in a family of Quakers.

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Ernest Lee (Ernie) Fletcher (born November 12, 1952) served as governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 2003 to 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party.

In 1994, Fletcher was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives for the 78th District. He served one term, until legislative redistricting forced him and another Republican, State Representative Stan Cave, into the same district. He then ran for Kentucky's 6th District seat in the United States House of Representatives. He was badly defeated in November 1996 by incumbent Democrat Scotty Baesler, but ran again in 1998, beating Democratic State Senator Ernesto Scorsone. In 2000, he faced Baesler again, and this time Fletcher won by an 18-point margin. He was reelected in 2002 without major-party opposition.

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Jillian Hall (born September 6, 1980), the ring name of Jillian Faith Fletcher, is an American professional wrestler who currently performs for World Wrestling Entertainment on the SmackDown brand.

Jillian Hall made her World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) debut on the July 28, 2005 episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown with a gimmick of a "fixer" for the heel stable MNM. She also had a "growth" on the left side of her face, which she referred to as a "blemish", that announcers constantly speculated on the nature of. Her current gimmick is that she is a bad singer and doesn't realize it, as a spoof on Brooke Hogan.

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Tara Elizabeth Conner (born on 18 December 1985 in Dallas, Texas) is a beauty queen who is Miss USA 2006 and has also competed in the Miss Teen USA and Miss Universe pageants. Apart from her role as Miss USA, Conner has been employed as a model and waitress. She was a featured model on the HDNet series Bikini Destinations in 2004, posing for the cameras in Lake Tahoe. She has held the titles Miss Kentucky Teen USA 2002, Miss Kentucky USA 2006 and Miss USA 2006.

In late 2006, Conner became the center of a public scandal when news reports claim she had been drinking underage, tested positive for the use of cocaine, and kissed Miss Teen USA Katie Blair in public, among other things. She was allowed to retain her title and entered a drug rehabilitation program.

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Richard Hawes (February 6, 1797 – May 25, 1877) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and the second Confederate Governor of Kentucky. He was part of an influential political family, with a brother, uncle, and cousin who also served as U.S. Representatives. He began his political career as an ardent Whig and was a close friend of the party's founder, Henry Clay. When the party declined and dissolved in the 1850s, Hawes became a Democrat, and his relationship with Clay cooled.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hawes was a supporter of Kentucky's doctrine of armed neutrality. When the Commonwealth's neutrality was breached in September 1861, Hawes fled to Virginia and enlisted as a brigade commissary under Confederate general Humphrey Marshall. When Kentucky's Confederate government was formed in Russellville, Hawes was offered the position of state auditor, but declined. Months later, he was elected Confederate governor of the Commonwealth following the late George W. Johnson's death at the Battle of Shiloh.

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William Goebel (January 4, 1856 – February 3, 1900) was an American politician who served as Governor of Kentucky for a few days in 1900 after having been mortally wounded by an assassin the day before he was sworn in. Goebel remains the only state governor in the United States to be assassinated while in office.

A skilled politician, Goebel was well able to broker deals with fellow lawmakers, and equally able and willing to break the deals if a better deal came along. His tendency to use the state's political machinery to advance his personal agenda earned him the nicknames "Boss Bill", "the Kenton King", "Kenton Czar", "King William I", and "William the Conqueror".

Goebel's abrasive personality made him many political enemies, but his championing of populist causes, like railroad regulation, also won him many friends. This conflict of opinions came to a head in the Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1900. Goebel, a Democrat, divided his party with self-serving political tactics at a time when Kentucky Republicans were finally gaining strength, having elected the party's first governor four years previously. These dynamics led to a close contest between Goebel and William S. Taylor. In the politically chaotic climate that resulted, Goebel was assassinated.

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Alben W. Barkley (November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) was a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate from Paducah, Kentucky, and the thirty-fifth Vice President of the United States. Barkley was born Willie Alben Barkley in a log cabin near Lowes, Graves County, Kentucky

Barkley was elected Vice President on the Democratic ticket with President Harry S. Truman in 1948 and was inaugurated January 20, 1949. His "prop-stops" by airplane initiated a new phase in presidential campaigning. He was 71 years old at the time of his election and inauguration, the oldest vice president to date. In his first year Vice President, Barkley became the only vice president to marry while in office. At the age of 71, he married Jane Hadley, a widow from St. Louis, capturing national attention.

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Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell, Jr. (born February 20, 1942), is the senior United States Senator from Kentucky. A Republican, he was chosen by his peers as the Minority Leader in November 2006, making him the top-ranking Republican in the 110th Congress, which convened in January 2007.

McConnell is a member of the Baptist Church. He married Elaine Chao, the current Secretary of Labor, in 1993, and has three grown daughters from his first marriage. McConnell's first wife worked as a librarian for a small college in the Northeast.

In 1992, McConnell teamed with the University of Louisville to create the McConnell Center.

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Rick Pitino (born September 18, 1952) is the head basketball coach at the University of Louisville. He has also served as head coach at Providence College and the University of Kentucky, leading that program to the NCAA championship in 1996. Pitino holds the distinction of being the only men's coach in NCAA history to lead three different schools (Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville) to the Final Four. He has coached on the professional level for the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics with mixed success. He has earned respect as both a coach and motivator.

Pitino is considered by many to be one of the first coaches to promote fully taking advantage of the 3-point shot, first adopted by the NCAA in 1987. By exploiting the 3-point shot, his teams at Kentucky in the early 1990s were known as Pitino's Bombinos, as a significant portion of the offensive points came from the 3-point shot. Even now, Pitino's teams are known for the 3-point threat and all of his teams rank towards the top in 3-point attempts per season.

Pitino is the author of a motivational self-help book (and audio recording) named Success is a Choice. He published an autobiography in 1988 entitled Born to Coach describing his life up until his time with the Knicks.

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Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 – November 19, 1850) was the ninth Vice President of the United States, serving in the administration of Martin Van Buren. He was the only vice-president ever elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and began and ended his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

During his tenure in Congress, Johnson became affiliated with the War Hawks, a group of legislators who clamored for action against the British for the impressment of American sailors. Congress approved war with the British in June 1812, and immediately following the adjournment of the session, Johnson returned to Kentucky where he raised a force of three hundred volunteers. The volunteers divided themselves into three companies and chose Johnson as their leader, granting him the rank of major. When Johnson's men consolidated with another battalion, Johnson was chosen to lead the entire group and was given the rank of colonel. The combined force began a march to Upper Canada, but on learning of the surrender of General William Hull at the Battle of Detroit, the battalion turned and patrolled Indian lines, preventing their advance into American frontier settlements.

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Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980), whose full name was Harland David Sanders, was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). His image is omnipresent in the chain's advertising and packaging.

At the age of 40, Sanders cooked chicken dishes for people who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. Since he did not have a restaurant, he served customers in his living quarters in the service station. Eventually, his local popularity grew, and Sanders moved to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people and worked as the chef. Over the next nine years, he perfected his method of cooking chicken. Furthermore, he made use of a pressure fryer that allowed the chicken to be cooked much faster than by pan-frying. He was given the honorary title "Kentucky Colonel" in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon. Sanders chose to call himself "Colonel" and to dress in a stereotypical "southern gentleman" costume as a way of self-promotion. Sanders sold his franchise in 1964, although he remained their corporate spokesman until his death.

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John Hunt Morgan (June 1, 1825 – September 4, 1864) was a Confederate general and cavalry officer in the American Civil War. He led 2,460 troops in a daring raid, called Morgan's Raid, racing past Union lines into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio in July 1863. This was the farthest north any uniformed Confederate troops penetrated during the war.

Morgan and his cavalrymen fought at the Battle of Shiloh and he soon became a symbol to secessionists in their hopes for obtaining Kentucky for the Confederacy. A Louisiana writer, Robert D. Patrick, compared Morgan to Francis Marion and wrote that "a few thousands of such men as his would regain us Kentucky and Tennessee."

He unnerved Kentucky's Union military government and President Lincoln received so many frantic appeals for help that he complained that "they are having a stampede in Kentucky."

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Jim Bunning (born October 23, 1931) is an American politician who was a Hall of Fame pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1955 to 1971. He subsequently entered electoral politics and was eventually elected to the United States Senate from Kentucky; he has served there since 1999 as the Republican junior U.S. Senator. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Kentucky's 4th Congressional District from 1987 to 1999.

Jim Bunning's first game as a major league pitcher was on July 20, 1955. He pitched for the Detroit Tigers from 1955 to 1963, moving to the Philadelphia Phillies from 1964 through 1967, to the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1968 through the middle of the 1969 season, finished the 1969 season on the Los Angeles Dodgers, and returned to the Phillies in 1970, retiring in 1971.

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