2026 Regular Session - Sine Die - Citation Honoring Rep. William Lawrence | Rep. Josh Bray

Thank you Mr. Speaker. This one's going to be really tough for me because I've probably got a hundred stories I can share but there's only a couple of them that wouldn't violate the house rules. RIP to Chris Cooper. The gentleman from Basin and myself were both elected during the pandemic and when we came to Frankfort you know things were really really tense and here we were just two rural legislators didn't have a clue where the bathrooms were didn't have a clue what was going on but we knew we wanted to fight government overreach and I can promise you this there weren't two freshman legislators that probably ever had more fun on the house floor than what we did and we lasted two years sitting right up there in between the gentleman from Webster and the gentleman from Jefferson 33 before the speaker had to split us up because two people shouldn't have that much fun on the house floor. The gentleman from Mason is the embodiment of a citizen legislator. I can't tell you how many times he's come to Frankfort but he's had to stop somewhere to fix a sewer leak to fix a water leak or how many times he's come to Frankfort wearing his work shirt underneath his sport coat with his name embroidered right here on it because he takes his responsibility within his community seriously because people back home depend on him not only in his Frankfort life but his life back home and the truth of the matter is you never know when duty's gonna call. The gentleman from Mason is a good friend of mine he's somebody I've got to know quite well and there's a lot of things to appreciate about him. One of the most things I appreciate is he doesn't care about credit. For a couple years he had filed a bill dealing with keys scholarship money for trade schools and he would get it through the house no problem but it took him a couple years to convince the senate that it was their idea to start with and it took them sending over a bill for him to over from the senate to get it through the house to get it signed by the governor but he didn't really care about that he only cared that it was good policy and it helped people back in his district. I don't know that anybody ever keeps records or keeps books or anything that goes on things that have taken place on the house floor but I would bet some money and I think some others maybe have too that he holds the shortest presentation for a bill on the floor walked up and simply moved its passage no questions no explanations it was done in under five seconds. In the time that he spent up in Frankfort his family's gone through a lot of change and he has met and married one of the most beautiful best personality women he has truly outkicked his coverage there when he met Jen and his district has been lucky to have him Kentucky has been lucky to have him and Mason County will be lucky to have him full time when he serves on their fiscal court next year. Mr. Speaker I appreciate the gentleman from for everything he's done in Frankfort and I move adoption.