Jane Beshear
As a life-long equine enthusiast and advocate, she has served on the board of directors of Equestrian Events Inc., which organizes the Kentucky Rolex 3-Day Event and the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation Board. Recently, she was a member of the World Equestrian Games Foundation Board, which successfully hosted in 2010 the first ever FEI World Games outside of Europe, an event that attracted more than half-a-million attendees from around the globe.
As First Lady, Mrs. Beshear is dedicated to addressing the rampant spread of breast cancer, which is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among women in Kentucky. Her Horses and Hope initiative is increasing breast cancer awareness, education, screening and treatment referral among Kentucky’s horse industry workers and their families. To date, Horses and Hope has educated over 283,000 horse show and race track fans, and has screened more than 350 equine workers. Mrs. Beshear also hosts breast cancer survivors from across the Commonwealth at the Annual Celebration of Hope Luncheon each May.
As a former teacher, Mrs. Beshear is passionate about education. To tackle the school dropout problem in the Commonwealth, she organized Graduate Kentucky: A Community Approach. Focusing on drop-out prevention and increasing graduation rates in Kentucky public schools, this program has held summits across the state to gather ideas toward ensuring that students of all ages are given every opportunity to succeed. She has also pushed for legislation to raise the drop-out age for high school students in Kentucky from 16 to 18 years of age. To get kids excited about the world of reading, four times per year she releases a top 10 reading list for students with recommended books that fit a variety of age ranges.
In 2009, Mrs. Beshear launched the Governor’s Garden effort to increase awareness about the benefits of locally grown produce and reducing our carbon footprint. Currently, there are seven Governor’s Gardens throughout the Commonwealth. She also strives to make Kentucky more energy efficient through www.GreenTeam.ky.gov, a program that promotes sustainability, energy efficiency and environmental preservation, and looks forward to helping to create a more sustainable future for all Kentuckians. She has succeeded at reducing energy consumption at the Mansion by 15 percent and plans on achieving a reduction of 30 percent by the end of 2014.
During the special session in the summer of 2009, Mrs. Beshear testified in support of House Bill 3, which approved tax incentives for films. The legislation passed and led Disney to shoot part of the film Secretariat in Kentucky.
Mrs. Beshear is a longtime volunteer board member of many local and state civic organizations. At present, she is an ex-officio officer of the Kentucky Commission on Women and she serves on the board of the Recovery Kentucky program, which assists those suffering from alcohol and drug addiction with leading normal, healthy lives.
Every year, she hosts the Shop and Share program, which collects donated goods from Kroger stores across the state to benefit Kentucky Domestic Violence Association shelters. The drive has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in goods and funding.
Mrs. Beshear actively promotes Kentucky’s Adventure Tourism initiative, which highlights and seeks to expand outdoor adventure activities throughout the Commonwealth. Her support of Senate Bill 196, which passed in the 2008 legislative session, has helped bolster the program.
Mrs. Beshear’s motto is “Personal Responsibility.” She has received numerous awards reflecting her active pursuit to lead by example and her commitment to serving Kentuckians.
The First Lady and the Governor have been married more than forty years and have two sons and three grandchildren.
"Horizons Academy is so excited that Kentucky's First Lady has chosen to attend and speak at our graduation celebration," said principal Scottie Collier. "This is an exciting event, and we are so happy that she can be a part of this ceremony."
The graduating class this year will be the third since Horizons opened in January 2008 with the mission to serve the special needs of at-risk students while keeping them in school and helping them to stay on track toward achieving the goal of high school graduation.
Starting with just one graduate in the spring of 2008, Horizons graduated a class of 20 in 2009 and 54 last year. It will surpass the 100 mark this year when it graduates approximately 32 students.
Mrs. Beshear has long had a focus on dropout prevention and increasing graduation rates among all ages in Kentucky.
"I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak at Horizons Academy's graduation and to recognize the hard work and persistence of these students," said Mrs. Beshear. "Earning a high school diploma is an important achievement that will create many opportunities for these young people. The Governor and I congratulate them on their success and look forward to seeing what they accomplish in the future."
A reception for the graduates and Mrs. Beshear will immediately follow the ceremony. Old Kentucky Home Middle School, 301 Wildcat Lane, Bardstown, is adjacent to the Nelson County High School campus and across the street from the Nelson County School District central office and Horizons Academy.
The 24 students currently participating in the program were seated among community stakeholders, giving their personal experiences and answering questions.
In answer to the ever-increasing gap between high-school education and real-world application, the STEM Academy was designed to prepare students to be competent, capable citizens in a technologically dependent society. The focus is on giving students, and their teachers, the same tools used by industry professionals in engineering design, civil engineering, architecture, robotics, electronics, science and bio-technology. "Many of you will recognize the software programs we�re using," said Science and Engineering instructor, Gary Coffman, speaking to the business people in attendance, "because it's the same software that you are probably using every day in the real world." Fielding questions from the First Lady about what the students thought about their experiences in the program so far, many of the students responded that they now looked forward to coming to school, that it was 'exciting', 'fun', and 'challenging'. Sophomore, Cordell Murray, responded that school used to be easy for him. Now that he's in the STEM Academy, "I have to work for an 'A', " he said.
Kentucky House Majority Leader, Rocky Adkins, and State Senator, Dr. Walter Blevins, were also in attendance. Both men expressed their support for the program and said it would provide a vital link between Boyd County students and employers in the area.Community partnership is critical to the ultimate success of the program. Businesses provide experiences outside the classroom in the form of mentoring, shadowing, and intern opportunities. The First Lady took notice of Boyd County's vision statement, "The Leader in Learning," and commented that the STEM Academy was capturing and putting action to those words. In order to realize the vision fully, she added that community involvement was a key component. "For a program like this to be a success," Beshear said, "we all have to be involved. This (STEM Academy) program is good for our community, good for the Commonwealth, and good for our country."
House Bill 301 would mandate that beginning in 2013, students must attend school until they turn 17. In 2014, students could not drop out until they are 18.
Rep. Derrick Graham, a social studies teacher at Frankfort High School, said educators need an implementation strategy that “goes top to bottom.”
“I wholeheartedly support this bill, but we need to get our teachers and administrators to buy into it,” he said Tuesday, as he voted in favor of it at a meeting of the House Education Committee.
It could cost $15 million a year to educate the would-be dropouts who stay in school, said Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, the bill’s sponsor.
“This bill has been prepared with the idea that the current funding is not available to implement it right away,” said first lady Jane Beshear, who spoke in favor of the bill, alongside Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and House Speaker Greg Stumbo.
“By delaying the implementation, it gives the Department of Education, the schools themselves, communities and families the opportunity and the time to plan.”
The bill also sets a goal of improving Kentucky’s graduation rate to 90 percent by 2015. The graduation rate was 84.5 percent in 2007-2008, the last year reported by the Kentucky Department of Education.
Legislators have tried unsuccessfully for more than a decade to raise the dropout age, KDE spokeswoman Lisa Gross told The State Journal last year.
The most recent legislation was filed during the 2009 session. A House bill would have increased the age to 18 over a period of two years, but it died in committee.
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