Senator Mitch McConnell to Speak at Somerset Community College as Part of 11th Annual John Sherman Cooper Lecture Series
Event to be Held on June 30, 2015 at 2 p.m.
Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Majority Leader and Kentucky’s longest-serving senator, will be the guest speaker for the 11th Annual John Sherman Cooper Lecture at Somerset Community College (SCC). The event will be held on June 30, 2015 at 2 p.m. in the Meece Hall auditorium, located on the SCC Somerset North Campus at 808 Monticello Street in Somerset. Admission is free and the public is invited.
Senator McConnell’s speech topic will be “John Sherman Cooper: Kentucky Statesman.”
Download event flier here (pdf)
About Senator McConnell
Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. Elected to that position unanimously by his Republican colleagues in 2014, he is only the second Kentuckian to ever serve as Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate. The first, Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.
Senator McConnell previously served, again by the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader in the 110th, 111th, 112th and 113th Congresses and as the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses. McConnell also served in leadership as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.
First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell is Kentucky’s longest-serving senator. He made history that year as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat a Democrat incumbent and as the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. On November 4, 2014, he was elected to another six-year term by receiving broad support across Kentucky, winning 110 of the Commonwealth’s 120 counties.
Senator McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and as deputy assistant attorney general to President Gerald Ford.
Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.
McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees. He is the proud father of three daughters.
Senator McConnell is married to Elaine L. Chao, who served for eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor. Secretary Chao is a former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps.
About John Sherman Cooper
Cooper was born in Somerset on August 23, 1901. He graduated from public schools and attended Centre College in Danville, but graduated from Yale College in 1923. Cooper attended Harvard Law School from 1923-1925, was admitted to the Kentucky Bar in 1928 and then set up his law practice in Somerset.Cooper was elected to the Kentucky Legislature in 1927 and began his service in 1928. He served as judge of Pulaski County from 1930 to 1938. He was a veteran and served in World War II and rose to the rank of captain in the Army. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946 and served until 1949. He was elected to the Senate a second time from 1952 to 1955. On Nov. 6, 1956 Cooper was elected a third time to the Senate and was reelected in 1960 and 1966. His Senate service ended on January 3, 1973 when he declined to run for reelection.
Cooper was also a member of the board of trustees of the University of Kentucky from 1935-1946, served as a delegate to the United Nations, and was appointed Ambassador to India, Nepal and the German Democratic Republic. He died on February 21, 1991 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
The inaugural Cooper Lecture was also given by Senator McConnell in August 2005. At that time McConnell said, “One of the greatest senators in Kentucky history, and certainly the greatest of my adult lifetime, is John Sherman Cooper. He stood fast for what he believed was right, no matter how large the opposition or great the cost. He taught me how to be a senator. And he taught everyone who knew him the value of integrity, forthrightness and moral character.”