Brown had owned three skilled basketball groups, together with the Boston Celtics.
John Y. Brown Jr., who grew to become Kentucky’s governor after constructing empires in enterprise and sports activities, has died. He was 88.
Brown’s household mentioned in a launch Tuesday that “day by day was an thrilling journey” for the previous Democratic governor, who served from 1979 to 1983.
“He was a real Kentucky authentic who beamed with pleasure for his house state and its folks,” the household mentioned. “He had many outstanding accomplishments, however most of all he liked his household with all of his coronary heart, and we in flip liked him with all of our hearts.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear mentioned Brown was a “outstanding chief who was dedicated to serving the folks of Kentucky.”
Brown had been a number one Democratic fundraiser within the Seventies by the point he made his personal run for public workplace. He additionally acquired a global repute as a grasp salesman. Kentucky Fried Rooster was a string of small-town eating places earlier than Brown turned it into a worldwide enterprise and a family identify. He additionally had owned three skilled basketball groups, together with the Boston Celtics.
Within the spring of 1979, newly married to TV superstar and former Miss America Phyllis George, Brown swooped again into his house state and entered the Democratic main for governor. Together with his private fortune, Brown unleashed a six-week marketing campaign that made heavy use of tv. He squeaked by a relatively colorless area of candidates to win the nomination, then defeated Republican Louie B. Nunn, a former governor, within the common election.
Brown had the dangerous luck to take workplace as a recession was tightening its grip and tax revenues have been dropping. He bought excessive marks for holding the state solvent, however 1000's of state staff misplaced their jobs, and so they took it out on Brown in his two future races.
In 1964, Brown bought Kentucky Fried Rooster from Harland Sanders for $2 million. He grew to become president of KFC in January 1965 and offered it to Heublein Corp. in a $275 million inventory swap in 1971. Brown acquired practically $21 million in Heublein inventory for his KFC shares.
In 1969, Brown bought controlling curiosity within the Kentucky Colonels, a Louisville franchise within the American Basketball Affiliation. After the ABA folded, Brown paid a reported $1 million for half curiosity within the Buffalo Braves of the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation. He needed to maneuver the Braves to Louisville however was blocked in court docket. Brown and a accomplice then swapped the Braves for the Boston Celtics, within the first commerce of professional sports activities groups.
The Braves later moved to San Diego, and Brown later offered his share of the Celtics.
In 1983, Brown had the primary of his coronary heart bypass surgical procedures. He was closely sedated for every week and breathed with assistance from a respirator. Two months later, having sworn to surrender cigarettes and shed pounds, Brown advised reporters his brush with loss of life had made him a brand new man. “It’s kind of being born once more to me,” Brown mentioned. “I believe it'll change my life, and it wanted to be modified. … I hadn’t eaten the correct issues, I hadn’t exercised, and I used to be a freak of nature.”
One among Brown’s sons, John Y. Brown III, added to the household’s political lineage by profitable election as Kentucky secretary of state in 1995. He was re-elected with out opposition in 1999.
Whereas governor, Brown supplied his credo at some point in a information convention at his workplace within the Capitol at Frankfort: “Let me be free; let me be myself. I'm totally different.”