Good to see Ky. Agriculture Commissioner in our neck of the woods

Typically the first thing that most of us do when we get to the office in the morning is check our e-mail. I don’t know about you, but mine is usually pretty full, especially if I was out of the office the prior afternoon. (Hey, not much news actually happens inside my office…LOL.)

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

Back when I first started at the News Journal in November 1994, we didn’t have e-mail. Faxes were the big thing then.

I’d come into the office and there would usually be a stack of press releases and notifications for me to look through.

Sometimes you got things, like a press release from the local police department regarding a bootleg bust or something. Other times, you would get faxes routinely sent to you each week regarding a particular topic or thing, such as the schedule for the Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner. I probably received that weekly for the first decade I worked here.

While the Agriculture Commissioner’s office sent me his schedule each week, the funny thing about that was that the agriculture commissioner never came here to visit. Not once during that period did he ever make an appearance in Whitley County. It didn’t matter who it was.

On numerous occasions I gave serious thought to calling up the agriculture commissioner’s office and asking if he was ever going to come to Whitley County, and extend an invitation for him to visit. As tempted as I was, I never did, though.

The first time I recall Whitley County even getting a visit from someone running for agriculture commissioner in the last 25 years was Richie Farmer when he was a candidate in 2007. Farmer only visited Whitley County once as agriculture commissioner and that was when he was running for Lt. Governor in November 2011.

I am happy to say that the last two Kentucky agriculture commissioners have rectified this visiting Whitley County multiple times during their tenures.

Former Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who served from 2012-2016, visited Whitley County several times before unsuccessfully running for governor. He is now a congressman. Personally, I think he would have made a great governor.

Comer’s replacement, current Agriculture Commissioner Dr. Ryan Quarles has visited Whitley County multiple times himself, most recently on Saturday when he attended a farmers’ appreciation dinner in Goldbug and was the keynote speaker at the event.

While Quarles is running for governor next year, I think he probably would have visited Whitley County Saturday anyway. It’s the kind of event I have seen him at in the past, and Whitley County has a significant amount of agricultural activity. We have 548 farms with local farmers tilling about 59,000 acres bringing in over $6 million in revenue annually.

Quarles has a legitimate shot at winning the Republican nomination for governor. It’s a crowded field that will probably come down to Quarles and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

This won’t happen, but if Quarles, who grew up on his family’s farm in Scott County, and Cameron, who lives in Louisville, were to join forces with one of them running as the gubernatorial candidate and the other as the lieutenant governor candidate, then I think they might be an unbeatable political force. They could call it the “country meets city ticket.”

As I said, I can’t picture either one of them being willing to play second fiddle to the other, but it would be an interesting pairing.