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State Capitol

First Woman Named To Head Kentucky Lottery

Stu Johnson

For the first time in the 31 year history of Kentucky’s lottery, a woman is heading the organization.  Governor Beshear Thursday announced his appointment of longtime lottery employee Mary Harville to serve as CEO.  She says the coronavirus pandemic has not adversely affected lottery sales.

Harville said record sales were posted for the fiscal year ending June 30th. “We saw a shutdown of many of the forms of competition for lotteries, such as the casinos that we have across the river and then we also saw out staff really step up their efforts at the retailers that we have,” said Harville.

Harville noted lottery retailers were able to stay open as part of essential businesses.  The Kentucky Lottery reported more than $1.1 billion in total sales, which was 6.5% higher than the record mark the previous year.  Of that amount $271 million went to the state’s general fund to pay for college scholarships, grants, and education programs.

Governor Beshear reports Kentucky remains in good shape when it comes to personal protective equipment for hospitals and other front line workers.  A NPR report this week included comments from a representative of the Alliance for American Manufacturing who said nationally there’s a major shortage of N95 masks.  Governor Beshear said it’s important to have manufacturers of all the most important parts of PPE in the U.S.  “And we’ve learned what happens when they are overseas in something like this and it’s our time as a country and as a state.  We’ll be working to recruit as many of those manufacturers as possible,” explained Beshear.

The governor said Thursday hospitals across Kentucky have 14 day supplies of PPE and the state is building up storage for a 120 day supply.  Beshear announced 628 new cases of coronavirus and 11 deaths.  His office says the positivity rate is 3.82%?.

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