The Alabama that Kay Ivey and I grew up in was even more like a front porch. Ivey grew up in Wilcox County where her family had been for generations. Therefore, she knew most everybody in the county and Camden. There were and still are less than 12,000 people in Wilcox County. There have always been more pine trees than people in the county.
She grew up with and has always been best friends with a trio of very accomplished individuals. As I sometimes say when I see someone who I’ve known all my life, I’ve never not known them. Ivey has never not known Jeff Sessions, Jo Bonner, and Judy Bonner. She was like a big sister to them growing up in Camden.
It’s truly amazing that a small South Alabama county just north of Mobile would spawn our U.S. Senator for 20 years, Jeff Sessions; Mobile Congressman Jo Bonner who served Mobile, Baldwin County and southwest Alabama for more than a decade; and former University of Alabama President Judy Bonner; and now a governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey. Even more amazing is that they grew up together and are contemporaries.
They all have impeccable southern manners and are all quick to say, yes ma’am, no ma’am, and thank you, religiously. Some of you might think that Ivey’s Black Belt accent is accentuated. It is real and unique and indicative of someone who has roots in that area of the state. You might notice that Jeff Sessions' diction and accent are similar.
The most important thing that can be said about Governor Kay Ivey, Senator Jeff Sessions, Congressman Jo Bonner, and President Judy Bonner is that you have never ever heard one comment or even one inkling of anything unethical or improper or taint of scandal about their public or personal lives. Folks, they were brought up right in Wilcox County.
Kay Ivey was born to be a leader. She was president of everything in her high school. She went to Girl’s State and was a leader there. By the way, she continues to go back to Girl’s State every year to counsel and help lead the organization. She spent a short stint as a teacher, then a banker in Mobile. Then politics beckoned and another Black Belt native, Speaker of the House Joe McCorquodale, made Ivey the Reading Clerk in the Alabama House of Representatives. She parlayed that job into a job as Legislative Liaison for the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. I really got to know Ivey at that point. I was a legislator with a major university in my district. She was plain-spoken, straight-forward, and very honest. Ivey has always been known for her integrity and upfront frankness. To use an old saying, her word is her bond.
Ivey then got into the arena. She was elected Alabama State Treasurer twice, where she served for eight years. Then she was elected lieutenant governor twice. She ascended to the governorship 20 months ago and has done an excellent job of steadying the ship of state. She seems keenly interested and driven by economic and industrial development. That will be her legacy. The state is poised to grow economically and industrially over the next four years.
In the closing days of her very successful race to be Alabama’s 55th governor, she revealed in an ad a letter from her days as a young girl visiting Governor Lurleen Wallace in the governor’s office, a letter she had written about the governor’s desk. “This is the closest I’ll get.” However, deep down, I believe she dreamed that one day she would sit in that chair, and now she does.
Kay Ivey is the second female elected governor of Alabama. However, she is the first elected Republican female and the only female elected in her own right.
She will be a good governor. Probably the best we have had in a while.
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