John Y. Brown Jr.

John Y. Brown Jr.

John Young Brown Jr. (born December 28, 1933 in Lexington , Kentucky ) is an American politician and businessman and former governor of the state of Kentucky.

Early years and entrepreneurship

John Y. Brown is the son of John Young Brown , who was a well-known politician in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC and Kentucky for several decades . He studied at the University of Kentucky and served in a reserve unit in the US Army between 1959 and 1965. He then worked in the restaurant business. Until 1971 he was a co-owner of the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain , which in those years was the global market leader even before McDonald’s . He also owned two professional basketball clubs, the Kentucky Colonels and the Buffalo Braves , which later became the Los Angeles Clippers .

Kentucky governor

In 1979, Brown ran for the Democratic Party for governor of Kentucky. His rival candidate was Republican Louie B. Nunn , who had been governor between 1967 and 1971. Brown won the election clearly with 59.4% of the vote against Nunn's 40.6%. His tenure began on December 11, 1979 and ended on December 13, 1983. During this period, he imposed austerity measures in the country by cutting spending by 22%. Nevertheless, the expansion of the roads continued. He successfully promoted tourism and trade. In his private life he got into talk about high gambling debts.

Another résumé

After the end of his tenure, he was briefly a candidate for a seat in the US Senate in 1984 ; Six weeks after the announcement of his application, however, he withdrew it for health reasons. Another attempt to become governor of Kentucky failed in 1987 when he finished second in the primary after Wallace G. Wilkinson . Then he got back into the catering business. In December 2007, he was the only one of the surviving former Kentucky governors to decline the invitation of the new Governor Steve Beshear to his inauguration. As a reason he gave political and personal differences with Beshear. John Y. Brown was married three times and has a total of four children.

Web links

• John Brown Jr. in the National Governors Association (English)