By Jack Brammer/Kentucky Lantern
Martha Layne Collins, who as the only woman to serve as governor of Kentucky revolutionized the state’s economy by landing Toyota Motor Manufacturing, died at 3 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, in Lexington. She was 88.
Her husband, Dr. Bill Collins, said his wife died in her sleep at Richmond Place, a retirement community in Lexington where they have been living.
“I was with her. We had a lady for hospice, and caregivers came in and out. She died peacefully. She lived a remarkable life,” he said.
Her remarkable life began with her birth in Shelby County on Dec. 7, 1936. She served as governor from 1983 to 1987, when Kentucky governors were limited to one term.
Collins was considered in 1984 for U.S. vice president as a running mate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, who instead chose Geraldine Ferraro.
Collins was elected lieutenant governor in 1979 and served simultaneously with Democratic Gov. John Y. Brown Jr.
Collins got off to a rocky start as governor but after the first two years excelled, using economic incentives to bring Japanese automaker Toyota’s largest manufacturing plant to Georgetown in 1986, a development that remains an economic mainstay in Kentucky.
Collins also successfully pushed for improvements in education. In June 1985 she unveiled a package that raised teachers’ salaries by 5%, reduced class sizes, funded construction projects, provided aides in kindergarten classrooms and helped find more money for poorer school districts.
After leaving office, she was president of St. Catharine College in Springfield from 1990 to 1996 and later taught leadership classes at the Harvard Institute of Politics’ John F. Kenedy School of Government.
Dr. Collins said their children, Steve and Marla, will decide arrangements. Steve is director of Hall-Taylor Funeral Home in downtown Shelbyville, which his grandfather, Martha Layne’s father, Everett Hall, operated.
This article was originally published by Kentucky Lantern. Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Jack Brammer, a native of Maysville, has been a news reporter in Kentucky since 1976. He worked two years for The Sentinel-News in Shelbyville and then from 1978 to 2021 in the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Frankfort bureau. After retiring in December 2021 from the Herald-Leader, he became a freelance writer for various publications. Brammer has a Master’s degree in communications from the University of Kentucky and is a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.
