For the 131st annual Fancy Farm picnic, organizers have plucked longtime Democratic Marshall County Judge Executive Mike Miller to host the event, which marks the unofficial start of the Kentucky general election this fall.The Graves County sideshow is scheduled for August 6 and is expected to be heavily attended due to the 2011 gubernatorial race between Democratic incumbent Steve Beshear and Republican challenger David Williams, but candidates in other statewide races have also been invited.From Bluegrass Politics:Mark Wilson, who organizes the political speaking at the free picnic on the campus of St. Jerome Catholic Church in Graves County with his wife, Lori Wilson, said the picnic’s committee tries to alternate between Democrats and Republicans in finding an emcee.
“They’d run me out of town if we picked someone from the same party every year,” he said, noting that, in some years, persons not affiliated with any party are selected to emcee.
House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, was emcee last year. Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky and a former political reporter for The Courier-Journal, did the duties in 2009.