Richie Farmer (born August 25, 1969) is a former collegiate basketball
player and Republican Party politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky.
He led Clay County High School to the 1987 state high school boys'
basketball championship, scoring a championship game record 51 points
and being named 1988's Kentucky Mr. Basketball. He played collegiately
for the Kentucky Wildcats. In his senior year, the team reached the
Elite Eight of the 1992 NCAA Tournament, losing to Duke in one of the
most memorable college basketball games ever. He served as Kentucky
Agriculture Commissioner from 2004 to 2012, winning two terms by large
margins. Kentucky Senate President David L. Williams made Farmer his
running mate in the 2011 gubernatorial election, but their ticket was
defeated. After leaving office as commissioner, Farmer was investigated
for corruption and was eventually sentenced to 27 months in federal
prison. He was released from a halfway house in 2016.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Farmer>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1875:
Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English
Channel, completing the journey in approximately 21 hours and 40
minutes.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Webb>
1920:
Polish forces under Józef Piłsudski successfully forced the
Russians to withdraw from Warsaw at the Battle of Warsaw, the decisive
battle of the Polish–Soviet War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_%281920%29>
1950:
In tennis, Althea Gibson became the first African-American
woman to compete at the United States National Championships (now known
as the US Open).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althea_Gibson>
1989:
The Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Neptune
and provided definitive proof of the existence of the planet's rings
(pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Neptune>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
or bust:
(chiefly US, informal) Used to indicate one's intention to do everything
possible to achieve a goal, with failure being the only alternative.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/or_bust>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Should there not be manifest progress and development but in a
higher sense than people have imagined it? ... No one is in his age
alone, he builds on the preceding one, this becomes nothing but the
foundation of the future, wants to be nothing but that — this is what
we are told by the analogy in nature, God’s speaking exemplary model
in all works! Manifestly so in the human species!
--Johann Gottfried Herder
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Gottfried_Herder>