Bertram Thomas Combs was an American jurist and politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Combs rose from poverty in his native Clay County to earn a law degree from the University of Kentucky and open a law practice in Prestonsburg. He was decorated for prosecuting Japanese war criminals before military tribunals following World War II. In 1959 he was elected governor, defeating Lieutenant Governor Harry Lee Waterfield in the primary. He served for three years before resigning and running for governor again in 1971.
About Bert Combs in brief
Bertram Thomas Combs was an American jurist and politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Combs rose from poverty in his native Clay County to earn a law degree from the University of Kentucky and open a law practice in Prestonsburg. He was decorated for prosecuting Japanese war criminals before military tribunals following World War II. In 1951, Governor Lawrence Wetherby appointed him to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. In 1959 he was elected governor, defeating Lieutenant Governor Harry Lee Waterfield in the primary. He served for three years before resigning and running for governor again in 1971. He lost in the Democratic primary to Wendell Ford, his former executive secretary. In 1984, Combs agreed to represent sixty-six of the state’s poor school districts in a lawsuit challenging the state’s system of financing public education. In response, the Kentucky General Assembly drafted a sweeping education measure known as the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1991. On December 3, 1991, he was caught in a flash flood while driving and was killed. The Combs family is one of the oldest European families in the United States. Bert descends from John, one of his eight Combs brother’s son John “Jack” Combs. The family patriarch, arrived in Stafford County, British Colonial America circa 1662, and by circa 1778 Archdale’s great-grandson John Combs began his trek westward from Frederick County, Virginia into Wilkes County, North Carolina then into Hawkins County, Tennessee before making his way into Clay County, Kentucky via the Cumberland Gap.
He came with his 8 sons Mason, Willian, Nicholas, John, Henry Harrison, Biram & George. He was born in the Town Branch section of Manchester, Kentucky on August 13, 1911; he was one of seven children of Stephen Gibson and Martha Combs, a part-time logger and farmer. His father Stephen was active in local politics, despite being a Democrat in a county where a large majority of residents were Republicans. In 1929, his mother arranged for him to work at a coal company in Williamsburg and attend Cumberland College. Later, he began 6-month terms at Beech Creek High School. He skipped some grades, but was valedictorian of his class at age 15. In mid-1930 he began working as a sweeping floors by sweeping floors and firing furnaces in Cumberland. He died in a car accident on December 4, 1989. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son. He leaves behind a wife, a daughter-in-law, a son, a stepson, a grandson, a great-great-granddaughter, and two great- grandchildren. He also leaves behind two step-grandchildren, all of whom are still living in the same state as he died in 2009. He had a son and a step-son who is now a physician in Louisville, Kentucky. He has a daughter and a granddaughter.
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