$10.5 million for a ham? Crafts break charity record at Kentucky breakfast.
$10.5 million.
That’s the record-breaking amount at which Joe and Kelly Craft purchased a prized country ham at the 60th annual Kentucky Country Ham Breakfast at the Kentucky State Fair.
The money will go toward charity, split between the Boys and Girls Club of Kentucky and home rebuilding efforts in Eastern Kentucky, as much of the region is still recovering from historic and devastating floods in 2022.
“Anything we can do to promote Kentucky, promote our agribusiness, and also promote the charity,” Kelly Craft said.
Craft said that the money for rebuilding will help their efforts to build 36 homes in Eastern Kentucky. Per a spokesperson, the program being funded is the Hope Building Project run by the Housing Development Alliance.
Around 10,000 homes were either damaged or destroyed in the historic 2022 flood, which also took the lives of 45 people.
The project, based in Hazard where much of the damage occurred, offers paid on-the-job training to people in recovery from addiction. Joe Craft, a billionaire coal magnate who is one of the nation’s leading philanthropists and conservative political donors, is from Hazard.
Unlike the two previous years, when the Crafts purchased the ham alongside Central Bank for $5 million then $10 million, the Crafts purchased it all themselves this time.
Politics is unavoidable at the event.
Close to half of the entire General Assembly attended, prominent Republicans in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Shell spoke, and every Republican statewide elected official except Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, was there.
Democrats Gov. Andy Beshear and Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, both in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, were not at the Louisville event.
Kelly Craft herself notably ran for governor in 2023, falling short of the GOP nomination to former attorney general Daniel Cameron, who was at the event.
Will she run again? She wouldn’t say.
“You know what, I’m not going to mix politics with charity,” she said. “This is a really important day, and I think this is all about the Kentucky Farm Bureau and all about the people that work so hard in our state to make today happen.”
Craft, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President Donald Trump, is leading the charge to fundraise for Trump’s push to regain the White House. The Crafts chair the national GOP’s effort to raise money for Trump.
Purchasing the expensive charity ham is old hat for the Crafts. This is their fourth consecutive year winning the auction, starting in 2021 at the price of $4.8 million.
The Crafts are notable in Kentucky not just for charity and politics, but also for their ties University of Kentucky Athletics.
The pair are the most prominent boosters to both football and basketball programs — their presence, and that of their private jet, loomed large during the most recent coaching search that saw the university hire former player Mark Pope as its new head basketball coach.
It was fitting, then, that Pope, former basketball standout Oscar Tshiebwe and assistant football coach Vince Marrow were in attendance alongside the Crafts.
So, what happens to the ham?
Craft has a routine after all these years.
It starts with the dog “going crazy,” when they bring the ham home. Then, they take the ham to Critchfield Meats, the legendary Lexington butcher shop, to cook the ham and slice it very thinly. Then it’s preserved for a special day.
“We actually have it for Christmas with beaten biscuits. If you’ve never had beaten biscuits, you need to have a beaten biscuit — they’re amazing. But most important is in every bite, we know we’re helping the state of Kentucky.”
This story was originally published August 22, 2024 at 12:21 PM.
