Eastern Ky. county gets new judge-executive. He’ll need an election win to keep the job

A little more than a week before Election Day, Martin County will swear in its fourth judge-executive of the past two years. To keep the job longer than two months, he’ll have to win in November.

Lon Lafferty — a local doctor in Inez and write-in candidate for the coming election for the county’s judge-executive post — was appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear to be the interim judge-executive through the end of this year, Lafferty said in a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday. Lafferty will be sworn in on Friday and the winner of the coming election will take the reins in January.

“While I appreciate the appointment, I want to be elected by your write-in votes in the upcoming election,” Lafferty said. “I’m prepared to get to work on Friday to begin the process of moving Martin County forward because the job is big and there is much to do.”

According to the Mountain Citizen, Lafferty has practiced family medicine in Inez for over 38 years and served as the judge executive from 1999-2003.

Lafferty will replace Colby Kirk, who announced his resignation from the position earlier this month to become the President/CEO of One East Kentucky, an organization promoting economic development in the region. Kirk, who was also an interim judge, was running unopposed after winning the Republican nomination in May and his resignation means that the election will be completely contested by write-in candidates.

The deadline to register as a write-in candidate is Friday and as of Thursday, the county has had five people register for the race, said Juanita Porter, a deputy clerk in the Martin County Clerk’s office. The write-in candidates include Lafferty, Jimmy Don Kerr, Marlena Slone, Benjamin York and Mitchell Crum.

The Martin County judgeship has been a revolving door after William Davis — the county’s last-elected judge-executive — abruptly announced his resignation from the position in March 2021, just two years into his four-year term.

Longtime magistrate Victor Slone took over after Davis but died in January. A month before his death, Slone announced that he would not seek re-election as his health was deteriorating after years of battling cancer. Kirk, who was deputy judge at the time, took over for Slone.