Louie B. Nunn
| Louie Broady Nunn | |
| Louie B. Nunn | |
| In office December 12, 1967 – December 7, 1971 | |
| [[Lieutenant 52nd Governor of Kentucky|Lieutenant]] | Wendell Hampton Ford |
|---|---|
| Preceded by | Edward Thompson "Ned" Breathit, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Wendell Ford |
| Born | March 8, 1924 Park City, Barren County, Kentucky |
| Died | Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky |
| Resting place | Cosby United Methodist Cemetery in LeGrand in Hart County, Kentucky |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Beula Cornelius Aspley Nunn (1914-1995; married 1950-1994, divorced) |
| Children | Jeanie "Jennie" Lou Nunn Penn
Stephen Roberts "Steve" Nunn |
| Alma mater | Western Kentucky University (Bachelor of Arts) University of Cincinnati |
Military Service
| |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1943–1945 |
| Rank | Corporal |
| Unit | Medical Corps division |
Louie Broady Nunn (March 8, 1924 – January 29, 2004) was the 52nd governor of Kentucky, the first Republican elected to his state's highest office since the term of Simeon Slavens Willis (1879-1965) ended in 1947. Only two other Republicans have since been the Kentucky governor, and neither Ernie Fletcher, elected in 2003, or Matt Bevan, elected in 2015, were reelected.
Nunn was the first Republican judge/executive of his native Barren County in south Kentucky, located next to the Tennessee state line. Though he was considered somewhat conservative, Nunn also worked to elect Moderate Republican United States Senators John Sherman Cooper, Thruston B. Morton, Marlow Cook and U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.
Nunn first ran for governor in 1963, a few days before the John F. Kennedy assassination, when he was narrowly defeated by the Democrat Edward Thompson Breathitt, Jr. At issue in the race was a public accommodations desegregation law pushed by Breathitt's predecessor, Governor Bertram Thomas "Bert" Combs.
In 1967, Nunn narrowly defeated the Democrat Henry Ward (1909-2002), a former state representative, state senator, state parks director, and highway commissioner. Nunn polled 454,123 votes (51.2 percent) to Ward's 425,674 (48 percent). Elected with Nunn was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, Wendell Hampton Ford (1924-2015), who would succeed Nunn as governor in 1971 and later was elected in 1974 to the United States Senate.
Despite a Democratic majority in the legislature, Nunn managed to enact many of his priorities, including tax increases that funded state parks and the construction of a statewide network of mental health centers. He oversaw the transition of Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights to a senior institution and brought his alma mater, the University of Louisville into the state university system.
Nunn ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1972, having lost to the Democrat Walter Darlington "Dee" Huddleston (1926-2018) and again for governor in 1979, when he was handily defeated by Democrat John Young Brown, Jr. (born 1933). Huddleston was toppled in his bid for a third term in 1984 by still another Republican, Mitch McConnell, a former judge/executive for Jefferson County.
Nunn's son, Stephen Roberts "Steve" Nunn (born 1952), served for fifteen years in the Kentucky House of Representatives and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2003, having been defeated by Ernie Fletcher in the Republican primary. In 2011, Nunn received a life sentence without parole after he pleaded guilty to the murder in Lexington of Amanda Ross, his 29-year old former fiancée.
