Governor Julian Morton Carroll

JULIAN MORTON CARROLL was born April 16, 1931, in West Paducah, Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1954 as a political science major and received a law degree from the university in 1956. After his discharge from the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Paducah to open a law firm. In 1962, Carroll was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he served five terms. In 1968 and 1970, he was elected speaker. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1971 and was appointed as governor on December 28, 1974, to fill the last year of Governor Wendell Ford’s term when Ford resigned after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. On November 4, 1975, Carroll was elected to a full four-year term. During his tenure, he increased funding for primary and secondary schools, created the Kentucky Department of Energy, and advocated the use of coal to offset energy crisis. Governor Carroll chaired the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors, the Legislative Research Commission, and the National Governors’ Association (1978).