Sal's Chophouse, Lansdowne Shopping Center
11:30 Registration & Networking
12:00 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch & speaker

Sara Combs
Sara W. Combs became the first woman and the first judge from the Eastern Kentucky counties of the 7th Appellate District to serve as chief judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. She assumed the role in 2004 after her colleagues on the court voted unanimously to elect her as chief judge, which provides administrative oversight to the Court of Appeals.

Chief Judge Combs also made history by being the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Kentucky when then Gov. Brereton Jones appointed her to serve on the state’s highest court in l993. After she narrowly lost her election to retain that seat on the Supreme Court, Gov. Jones appointed her to fill a vacancy on the Court of Appeals in 1994. She was elected to the court in November 1994 and re-elected in 2000 and again in 2006.

Patricia Cooksey
Jockey Patricia "P.J." Cooksey, the second leading female rider in Thoroughbred racing, ended a trailblazing 26-year career in the saddle in 2004 when she finished third in a race at Churchill Downs.

The all-time leading female rider at Churchill Downs and the first woman to ride a stakes winner at the Kentucky Derby, scored her first victory in 1979, completed her riding career with 2,137 victories from 18,266 mounts. She is one of only two female riders to compile more than 2,000 career wins, a milestone she shares with all-time leader and Thoroughbred racing Hall of Fame member Julie Krone.

The Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame enshrined Cooksey as a member in 2002. She was honored for her successful battle against cancer that same year when she received the Lombardi Symbol of Courage Award, which is presented by the Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, D.C. to a prominent athlete who is forced to battle cancer.

Erika Strecker
Erika Strecker is a Kentucky native, born in Quicksand. After graduating from high school in Harrodsburg, she went to Kenyon College in Gambier, OH, on a scholarship, earning a B.A. in painting and installation art. She then moved to Seattle to work as a scenic artist in the many theaters in the area.

She returned to the East Coast to go to Penland School of Arts and Crafts in the mountains of North Carolina, where she spent two years. There she discovered a passion for forging metal and sculpture. “I feel the strongest connection to, and choose to use, materials that are the most elemental,” she says. “My primary material is iron, and in its refined state, steel.” Ms. Strecker collaborated with her husband, Tony Higdon, to create the 40’ sculpture, entitled nexus, that fronts the KY Department of Transportation in Frankfort and created the new sculpture, Taking Flight, for McConnell Springs.

James Clark
James Clark accepted the position of President & CEO of LexArts Inc. in October of 2002. LexArts is a nonprofit community organization that works for the development of a strong and vibrant arts community as a means of enhancing the quality of life in central Kentucky.

Clark is the former President & CEO of Culture Works, a united arts fund and cultural development agency in Dayton, Ohio. Prior to this, he developed Pratt Institute’s Arts and Cultural Management Program in Brooklyn, New York. From 1989 to 1996, Clark was the Executive Director of the Public Art Fund in New York where he expanded the Funds’ programming to include internationally recognized and foreign artists.

Jim is a graduate of the University of Southern California and received his Masters Degree in Public Policy from New York University. While a Visiting Scholar at NYU, Clark authored several articles and essays on how public art shapes public memory.