It’s springtime in Kentucky and while local residents have plenty of activities on their minds related to the current season, there’s yet another season lurking just ahead for residents of this Commonwealth.

Election season is just around the corner as well for current office holders and office hopefuls seeking most of the statewide positions that will be on the ballot for the nearing May 21, 2019 primary election.

One candidate who is hoping to upset the apple cart so to speak, Robert Goforth, brought his campaign for the Kentucky Republican nomination for Governor to Albany last week to meet with local business and party leaders, and spend some time meeting Clinton County voters.

Goforth, a pharmacist from East Bernstadt, Kentucky in Laurel County, is running for the Republican nomination against Kentucky’s current sitting Governor, Matt Bevin.

Goforth currently is a Kentucky State Representative for the 89th District in eastern Kentucky and his running mate is Mike Hogan, an attorney from Lawrence County.

During his visit last Thursday to Clinton County, the Republican hopeful made a brief visit to the Clinton County News office to talk about his campaign, his stance on several issues as well as his background and why he decided to challenge Bevin in the upcoming primary election.

“I was raised in coal country poverty by a single mother who raised me and my three brothers and we never knew if we were going to have a roof over our heads or not, but she did the best that she could,” he said, noting that he dropped out of high school at age 16, and later joined the Army, earned his GED and became a combat engineer.

Suffering a back injury while working for Tecumseh in Pulaski County, he was told he would need to change the direction in his life as his injury would prevent him from working in a manufacturing environment in the future.

“The doctor asked me what I wanted to do with my life and I told him I had always dreamed of being a pharmacist,” he said. “My little brother, whom I’m the guardian of, had cerebral palsy and every time he had seizures we would take him to the hospital and we would come back and our pharmacist would give him medicine and make him better so I wanted to do that – I wanted to make people better.”

Goforth said he took the advice of that physician to enroll at UK and begin working toward achieving that goal and when he had earned his Doctorate of Pharmacy degree, he returned back to his home area and opened his first pharmacy in Pulaski County, eventually opening three more, one in Clay, McCreary and Jackson counties.

“We built a business that generated tens of millions of dollars in sales and we put millions of dollars back into the economy of those communities in the form of payroll dollars,” he said. “I’ve given back over half of everything I ever made to the communities that we worked in, from scholarship funds to sponsoring ball teams.”

The candidate noted that he would be able to lean on that experience as a business owner to help lure firms to Kentucky.

“I know how to build a business, I know how to talk to people, I know how to negotiate with CEOs and help lure businesses to Kentucky,” he said.

Goforth also said he sees the need to focus on the growing drug abuse problems in Kentucky and also talked about his background in substance abuse teaching programs that in the past he said had included classes in Clinton County schools.

“The scourge of drugs and the things that these children have seen, that’s what led me to run for the legislature to begin with, because I felt like they needed more,” he said. “They need an ongoing, continuous education opportunity from grades K-12 and I believe if we build that foundation and we help those children with that foundation they see that scourge of drugs 365 days a year then they at least need to see the alternative to that and how it’s going to affect them the 180 days that we have them in our school system.”

He elaborated that he had plans for programs that would do more than just make people feel good for a while, something he said that Bevin’s earlier “painted rock” program only did.

“It’s more than just painting a rock and hiding it in each town like this current governor’s project did – that makes people feel good for a short amount of time, but we have to build a foundation with these kids and we have to do it now,” he said. “I believe we can change lives – right now one in four school children are abusing drugs before they ever leave high school and we have to fix that and the only way to fix that is through prevention.”

He also touched on Kentucky’s secondary education process currently, noting that he would promote method changes in that area as well.

“We have to teach some of the life skills that will help them succeed in life and not just teach them a test and how to score well to get through some numbers to make people feel good. We have to make sure that we take every child into consideration and teach that child,” he said.

In addition, he noted on the subject of abortion, he is pro-life and he would fight for the rights of the unborn child – “those who can’t fight for themselves.”

On the issue of gun control, his stance is one of guaranteeing that Kentuckians have their second amendment rights defended and protected, and have the right to protect themselves at all times while in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The Goforth-Hogan ticket appearing on the upcoming Republican primary ballot, will be one of four pairs of hopeful pairings voters will have a choice of.

Incumbent Governor Matt Bevin is running for his second term hoping to win the party’s nomination with his new running mate, Kentucky State Senator Ralph Alvarado.

Two other pairs of candidates are also seeking the Republican nomination, including Ike Lawrence, of Lexington, with running mate James Anthony Rose, and William Woods, of Boone County, with running mate Justin Miller.

Republican Kentucky Governor candidate Dr. Robert Goforth took advantage of a chance last week to introduce himself to potential voter Darlene Cummings of Albany in the lobby area of the Clinton County News office.