Patti Minter, history professor and former WKU faculty regent, and Ben Lawson, an employee at Van Meter Insurance, announced their intentions to run for the House District 20 seat.

Both announcements came the same day Rep. Jody Richards (D) said he would not seek re-election. 

According to her WKU bio, Minter serves on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Legal History and on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

She served as the inaugural chair of the WKU University Senate from 2000-2001 and from 2007 to 2014 served as the elected Faculty Regent on the WKU Board of Regents.

Minter is also a a founding member of Bowling Green Fairness, a group which has been lobbying the Bowling Green City Commission to adopt a fairness ordinance making sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories to existing civil rights laws. 

“Thank you to Representative Jody Richards for his long and distinguished service to the people of our district. I will work hard to serve and to fight for the people of Warren County,” Minter said on Facebook. “I’ll share more ideas and listen to yours in the coming days, and I ask for your support as we fight for a better Kentucky.”

Lawson is a Bowling Green native, graduate of Bowling Green High School and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2011, according to a press release. 

Additionally, he co-vice chaired the 2016 Republican Presidential Caucus in Warren County, served as the Youth Chair for the Republican Party of Warren County since 2012 and is the Chair of the Southern Kentucky Young Republicans. 

“After much prayer, thought, and discussion I am both humbled and encouraged to announce my candidacy to represent the great people of Bowling Green. I realize we live in extremely challenging times, but I also realize that this challenge gives us the opportunity to excel,” Lawson said in the press release.