Beshear makes two new appointments to University of Kentucky Board of Trustees

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Andy Beshear this week appointed Lexington businessman Joseph Palumbo and retired Circuit Judge Phillip Patton to fill vacancies on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees.

The appointments come at a critical time for Kentucky’s flagship state university in the wake of Beshear’ social media post last spring saying he was losing confidence in the leadership of UK President Eli Capilouto.

In an executive order filed with the Kentucky Secretary of State on Monday, Beshear appointed Palumbo to a six-year term on the board, replacing long-time trustee Ron Geoghegan, whose term expired on June 30.

In the same order, Beshear appointed Patton to fill the remainder of the term of another longtime trustee, Claude ‘Skip’ Berry, who passed away in July. Patton’s term on the board will expire June 30, 2027.

The spring surprise

Last April Beshear revealed his displeasure with the Capilouto administration in a social media post criticizing two particular actions – the creation of an ill-defined job for retiring Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart that paid $1 million a year, and the appointment of U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove as dean of the law school without full approval of the school’s faculty.

Beshear said he was worried that these decisions “are related to certain donors pushing partisan and undue influence on the university.”

Since then, Barnhart has stepped away from the new job, but Capilouto has stood firmly behind Van Tatenhove’s appointment, saying that under governance changes made in 2024 the board of trustees no longer must approve the appointment of the law school dean. The board voted to start a process to reverse that rule. But that move did not apply to Van Tatenhove, who has since assumed office as dean.

The new trustees

Palumbo comes from a family with deep roots in Lexington and Democratic politics. His mother is Ruth Ann Palumbo, who served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1991 through 2024. His brief biography on the University of Kentucky website says he is president of several businesses including Palumbo Lumber Company, Palumbo Properties and Palumbo Development.

The UK website says Palumbo holds a degree in business management from UK. It also says that he and his wife, television news broadcaster Jennifer Palumbo, have been active in serving local charities and recently co-chaired the 2026 American Heart Association Central Kentucky Heart Ball.

Kentucky Lantern reported earlier this year that Beshear has appointed many of his largest campaign donors to the UK board. Lantern reported that the 18 persons Beshear has appointed to the board since becoming governor in 2019 have – with members of their immediate families – given more than $1.94 million to his campaigns and other political causes.

Compared to that, Palumbo has been a much more modest donor. The online website of donors at the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance shows he contributed $4,100 to Beshear’s 2023 campaign for governor and $2,000 to his 2019 campaign for governor.

Patton is a graduate of UK and its law school. According to his biography posted on the UK website, he was born in 1946 in Johnson County and his family moved while he was in elementary school to Lexington. “He attended the University of Kentucky where he received BS, MA, and JD degrees, graduating from Law School in 1973,” the website biography says.

After working two years as an attorney for the Legislative Research Commission in Frankfort, he moved to Glasgow where he was twice elected commonwealth attorney without opposition, and later elected circuit judge three times, again without opposition. He retired in 2015.

The UK website says Patton previously served on the UK Board of Trustees from 2003 to 2009. The website lists several awards Patton has won for his work as a prosecutor and judge including the Chief Justice’s Special Service Award and induction earlier this year into the UK Law School Hall of Fame.

The Kentucky Registry of Election Finance database includes no contributions from Patton to Andy Beshear political committees. (The database shows no contributions from Patton at all since he became a circuit judge in 2001. The database does list contributions totaling $2,000 to Beshear’s 2023 campaign for governor from Patton’s wife Margaret.