Late Kentucky Gov. Julian Carroll remembered for zeal, education focus at Capitol service

Family, friends, fellow elected officials and the Frankfort community gathered Friday to celebrate the life of former Gov. Julian Carroll at a Capitol memorial service.

Carroll led the state as a Democrat in the mid-late 1970s. Before that, he served in the state legislature and as lieutenant governor for a term. He later held office as a state senator representing a Central Kentucky district from 2005 to 2020.

He was eulogized by family members, former and current lawmakers, and by current Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

Beshear emphasized Carroll’s faith as well as a similarity between his own tenure and Carroll’s: managing disasters.

Beshear’s first-term administration responded to the COVID-19 crisis along with historic natural disasters in the state’s west and east.

Midway through Carroll’s tenure, one of the deadliest nightclub fires in history occurred, killing 165 people at the Beverly Hills Supper Club.

“I know a little bit about what it’s like being the governor in times of tragedy,” Beshear said, lauding Carroll’s faith and warmth during that time as well as his determination to improve things.

During Carroll’s administration, stronger fire safety protections were enacted.

Beshear, in his eulogy remarks, also emphasized Carroll’s work to increase school funding in Kentucky.

In some cases, teacher salaries doubled under Carroll. He and the legislature also created a statewide kindergarten system, started a building program for poor school districts and made textbooks free.

The current governor has long pushed for direct teacher pay raises, though those requests have fallen on deaf ears among GOP legislators, who insist on increasing the overall school district funding formula instead.

Bill Johnson, a longtime Frankfort attorney, first met Carroll when he was a year ahead of him at the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1953. Johnson told the Herald-Leader before the service that he agreed education funding was a major piece of Carroll’s legacy.

Just as important, Johnson added, is the way he accomplished his education goals: control of the legislature.

“In doing so, he was able to do so many things for government and particularly education,” Johnson said. “Later governors sort of lost control of the legislature, and once they were turned loose, they stayed loose.”

Carroll’s successor, John Y. Brown, Jr., was markedly less involved with the comings and goings of the state legislature, kicking off a new era in the relationship between the two branches.

Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, called Carroll the last “all-powerful governor” in a eulogy speech. The late Kentucky journalist Al Smith also wrote once that Carroll was the last of another kind: a “New Deal”-era Kentucky governor.

“When he shaped those budgets, he never forgot the meek and the poor,” Smith wrote in 2011.

As a senator in the early 21st Century, Carroll was known for his booming voice and broad smile on the Senate floor. It was a talent that spanned his entire political career, Stivers, who sat next to Carroll in the chamber, said.

“He was — and I think he would take pride in this — an orator. He was a stump speaker. He was one of the best speakers on the stump, off the stump. There were few and far between like Julian Carroll,” Stivers said.

But it wasn’t just his voice that made him a capable senator. An open ear to the Frankfort community, particularly state employees, was much appreciated.

“He really had the people of Frankfort and particularly, I think, the employees of state government at heart,” Johnson said. “He was such an easy man to get to and to talk to. Having been governor didn’t go to his head.”

His ability to maintain an air of openness and warmth while also using that commanding stage presence was key to his political success, other eulogizers like former state auditor and Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen and former state Sen. Ed Worley agreed.

Worley said that Carroll had spades of the two qualities that all great politicians need: liking people and liking one’s self.

“Julian Carroll loved being Julian Carroll, and he was good at it,” Worley joked. “He was one of the great politicians in Kentucky.”

Family members, including brother Neel and son Ken Carroll, also spoke at the service.

Ken Carroll focused his remarks on connecting Carroll’s penchant for projects (a well-traveled connector road in Frankfort is named after Carroll and in Western Kentucky a popular Paducah convention center as well as a Purchase region parkway bear his name) to how others should lead their lives.

“That was his vocation, to build,” Ken Carroll said. “In remembrance of him, I want you all to think about where we are this year in the time of the holidays. Find a way to do projects with your family, your friends and this Commonwealth.”