Frank Ashley, former press secretary for two Kentucky governors, dies at 75

Frank Ashley, a former newspaper reporter who was press secretary for two Kentucky governors and then an official in the multinational Occidental Petroleum Corp., has died. He was 75.

Ashley’s friend, former Lexington Herald editor Don Mills, said Ashley died Friday at his Lexington home of an apparent heart attack.

Ashley was press secretary for former Gov. John Y. Brown and former Gov. Brereton Jones. He also worked for the Frankfort State Journal and the Courier Journal, later serving as the Louisville newspaper’s political writer. At one time, he headed the Courier Journal’s East Kentucky News Bureau in Hazard.

“I always enjoyed Frank,” said Brown, who was governor from 1979 to 1983, in a telephone interview Monday.

“As my press secretary, he was a Nervous Nellie about the media,” Brown said. “I didn’t give a darn about the press but Frank was excellent in advising me about getting along with the media, which I think I did.”

In 1982, the late Armand Hammer, who owned and operated Occidental Petroleum in Los Angeles, met Ashley while attending the Kentucky Derby as a guest of Brown. Hammer hired Ashley as an aide and press secretary.

For Occidental, Ashley directed the $20 billion company’s corporate communications in the U.S, as well as South America, Europe, Russia, China, Japan and Middle East.

His crises communications experience included two troublesome global news stories: the Love Canal environmental disaster and the oil rig explosion in the British North Sea that killed 176 men.

“Frank did well with Armand,” Brown said. “He got a $1 million golden parachute when he left the company.”

Ashley later became press secretary for Jones, who was governor from 1991 to 1995.

After leaving Frankfort, Ashley ran a restaurant in Louisville.

He was named a community columnist in July for the Herald-Leader.

A native of Sweeden in Edmonson County, Ashley graduated from Western Kentucky University before coming to Frankfort to work in the administration of former Gov. Edward T. “Ned” Breathitt as an assistant to the parks commissioner.

Survivors include a sister, Penny Elmore of Paris, Ky., and a brother, Kenneth Ashley of Lake Well, Fla. He was one of 10 children. His only son, Jonathan, age 35, died of a heart attack in September.

A memorial service for Ashley is to be announced later.

This story was originally published November 27, 2017 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Frank Ashley, former press secretary for two Kentucky governors, dies at 75."