Category:Famous Kentucky Alumni
Steve Beshear graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1968, practised briefly in New York, came home, and worked his way through the state House, the attorney generalship and the lieutenant governorship to two terms as governor. His successor as attorney general two generations later, Russell Coleman, took his bachelor's degree and his law degree at the same institution in Lexington. This category collects biographical entries on people who studied at the University of Kentucky, and the roster is concentrated almost entirely in the Commonwealth's own offices, with a small group who took the degree and left the state.
The Commonwealth's officeholders
The law school in Lexington accounts for most of the political membership. Steve Beshear and Russell Coleman both took an undergraduate degree and a law degree there, one becoming governor and the other the state's sitting attorney general. Hal Rogers transferred from Western Kentucky University, took a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws in Lexington, entered private practice in the southeastern coalfields, and has represented the fifth district since 1981; he became Dean of the House in March 2022 as its longest continuously serving member.
Two others came through different departments. Jacqueline Coleman took her bachelor's degree at Centre College and a master's at the University of Louisville before further graduate study at Kentucky, taught and coached basketball in rural schools, and has served as lieutenant governor since December 2019. Kelly Craft took a bachelor's degree at the university in her home town of Lexington and served as United States Ambassador to Canada and then to the United Nations; she and her husband remain visible supporters of the university's athletic programme.
Out of state, and out of politics
Bev Perdue took her bachelor's degree at Kentucky and then a master's and a doctorate at the University of Florida, moved to North Carolina, and became that state's first female lieutenant governor and first female governor. Her doctorate in education shaped a governorship spent largely on education policy during the aftermath of the Great Recession.
Rodney McMullen grew up in Pineville, in the Appalachian part of the state, took both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in accounting at Kentucky, joined Kroger's financial operations shortly afterward, and spent his whole career there, serving as chairman and chief executive from 2014 until his resignation in March 2025.
Breonna Taylor studied at the university while working in health care, intending a career in nursing. She was an emergency medical technician in Louisville when police officers executing a no-knock warrant shot and killed her in March 2020. The university publicly acknowledged her as a member of its community after her death.
See also
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