The Kentucky Colonel is an honorary commission issued in the name of the Commonwealth of Kentucky by its governor. Mine was issued by Governor Andy Beshear on 25 March 2024. The title had already been part of my family history: my father was also a Kentucky Colonel.
The Commission
Kentucky’s governor appoints Kentucky Colonels, and the Secretary of State attests the commission and affixes the Commonwealth’s seal. It is an honorary civic title. It is not a military rank, a public office, or a grant of governmental authority.
The distinction between the commission and the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels is also useful. The governor issues the commission. The Honorable Order is a separate charitable organization through which recipients may participate in philanthropic work.
A Tradition That Changed
The familiar account dates the title to about 1813, when Governor Isaac Shelby is said to have appointed Charles S. Todd as an aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel after the War of 1812. That account comes from the modern Honorable Order’s institutional history and should not be mistaken for a neat founding instrument for today’s civilian honor.
What can be said safely is that the tradition grew out of military and gubernatorial staff appointments, became increasingly ceremonial during the late nineteenth century, and acquired an organized social and charitable life in the early 1930s. The current commission is the product of that evolution, not a military appointment preserved unchanged from 1813.
My Appointment
My commission names James Patrick Howard II, records Governor Andy Beshear as the appointing governor, and is dated 25 March 2024 at Frankfort. It commissions me a Kentucky Colonel and uses the traditional language of the honor’s “rights, privileges and responsibilities.”
The family connection matters more to me than the ceremonial vocabulary. My father also held the title. I do not have the date or instrument for his appointment, so I will not pretend to reconstruct it here; I know only that receiving the same commission connected this recognition to a part of his life that I remembered.
Documents and Sources
- Kentucky Colonel commission (PDF).
- Kentucky Governor: Nominate a Kentucky Colonel.
- Kentucky Secretary of State: Kentucky Colonels.
- Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels: History, used for the organization’s account of the tradition and its own development.
- Original appointment announcement.
- Return to the Honors record.