Beshear appoints rumored gubernatorial hopeful Rocky Adkins to State Fair Board
Gov. Andy Beshear appointed former senior adviser Rocky Adkins to the State Fair Board on Friday, installing a rumored gubernatorial hopeful on the panel just weeks after winning back control of it in the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Adkins, a Catlettsburg native who served as Beshear’s senior adviser until last week, will serve out the remaining term of former board member Michael Berry, who was named interim president and CEO of the board after it ousted David Beck earlier this month. His term will expire in 2029.
Other new appointees include Brent Tolle of Taylorsville, a cattle farmer and senior sales representative at Boehringer Ingelheim; and Jimmy England of Hardyville, who is president of the Hart County Fair Board.
The new appointments complete Beshear’s total remaking of the body responsible for overseeing the annual celebration of Kentucky’s agriculture, industry and culture.
In a 4-3 ruling late last month, state supreme court justices struck down laws advanced by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2021 and 2022 that stripped the governor of appointment power over the fair board and Executive Branch Ethics Commission. A new set of Beshear fair board appointees who were ushered in just four days later removed Beck, the former CEO of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation, who had overseen the fair since 2018.
The shakeup has rattled Republicans in Frankfort who say Kentucky’s constitution clearly divides control of the executive branch between the governor and other elected statewide officers.
“We don’t work for Gov. Beshear, and the State Fair Board and the Ethics Commission will operate more effectively out from under his thumb,” Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a statement.
Coleman, Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell, Auditor Allison Ball, Treasurer Mark Metcalf and Secretary of State Michael Adams, all Republicans, filed a supreme court petition this week seeking a rehearing on the matter and insisting that the justices "overlooked” state history, constitutional provisions and legal precedent.
The fair board is the governing organization of Kentucky Venues, which manages state event facilities like the Kentucky Exposition Center and the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville.
Plans for this year’s fair, which is scheduled to kick off Aug. 20, are almost complete, and officials say the political controversy won’t affect this year’s events.
Adkins, a Democrat who lost to Beshear in the gubernatorial primary in 2019, is presumed to be mounting a bid for the governor’s mansion again. The Eastern Kentuckian served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1987 to 2019 and held the post as majority leader under Democratic control.
Since 2019, he’s helped guide Beshear’s political messaging through the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple natural disasters. By throwing his hat in the ring, he would face off against Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, who launched her own bid for governor in April.
Adkins said in April that he is “thinking carefully about what comes next and what’s best for Kentucky and will have more to say when the time is right.”
Adkins will make an announcement during which, he says, he will be sharing “my vision of our future and what’s next” on July 21 in Lexington.
