WALTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Governor Andy Beshear seems to be in much better spirits these days, and that feeling was amplified on Tuesday morning in Walton, where the governor came to help cut the ribbon on a new $65 million distribution center for Dollar General.
“This suggests we’re entering an era of prosperity, the likes of which we’ve never seen, and many of us thought might not be possible in Kentucky,” the governor said after addressing hundreds of Dollar General employees inside this new warehouse.
Governor Beshear, thanks in large part to the COVID-19 vaccine, is free to govern the state as he intended when he ran for this office in 2019. He told the crowd that the state’s post-pandemic economy is “on fire” and thanked them for their role in making it that way.
“We’re no longer a flyover state,” he explained of Kentucky becoming a hub for large business headquarters.
Mr. Beshear cited several analysts, such as Moody’s, which study economic trends, and he said most feel as if the state is trending upwards.
“And not just per capita,” Governor Beshear stated, “but when you compare us to every state,” he continued.
This distribution center will serve up to 300 stores in three states while adding roughly 300 jobs to Kentucky’s workforce. For a man who stood in the crosshairs of the state’s pandemic unemployment crisis, this is naturally a good outcome from his vantage point.
“That’s 300 families that will have food on the table. 300 Kentuckians that will know how they’re going to provide for their kids day in and day out,” said Mr. Beshear.
Still, the governor has one eye on the COVID-19 delta variant, which could delay some of our growth, but he says we’re too far along for the progress to be stunted altogether.
“No, we’re not going back!” he exclaimed. “Where we are (right now) is a very different place, but it is serious,” he said of the variant.
