Celebrating 10 years of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange
Over the weekend, I got to celebrate another big anniversary for an organization very close to me: 10 years of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange.
For the past decade, the Rural-Urban Exchange has been bringing folks from every region of Kentucky together across divides to learn from each other and build a more collaborative and connected commonwealth. RUX has been incredibly important and influential in my life. I joined RUX’s first-ever steering committee at a time in my life when I was in a very challenging place. I was in a hard job that was really weighing on me personally, and I had just had a series of deaths in my family. RUX gave me a new type of family across the Commonwealth that are some of the people I’m closest with in my life to this day, including Savannah Barrett, RUX’s co-founder. It also deeply influenced me professionally and helped jumpstart the creation of CivicLex. More than almost anything, RUX has kept me in Kentucky.
The celebration was a wonderful reminder of just how special a place Kentucky is. The centerpiece of the evening was a long conversation with several of Kentucky’s brightest, including Secretary of State Michael Adams, former State Rep Charles Booker, former Miss Kentucky Hannah Edelen, Kentucky music icon SG Goodman, and many more. Through this chain of interviews, one after another shared their hope for how Kentucky can lead the nation in reducing polarization, finding interdependence, and building a new of civic culture of mutual commitment.
Throughout the night, I heard from so many attendees the courage to find a new way of being in society together. In my brief remarks at the event, I shared that it is important for all of us to remember that we have the option to a new civic life to seek out connection, find commonality across difference, and to recognize the humanity that bonds all of us together. It’s a choice.
I’m so proud of how RUX has grown and the model that it is setting for our nation.
Also, look at these adorable folks below! From left to right, Savannah Barrett, RUX Co-Founder, and Founding Steering Committee members Nick Covault, Ivy Brashear, and yours truly.
