Lucas
CHARLESTON -- Lincoln County native Conrad Lucas has been elected serve as chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party.
"I am honored and humbled to be selected by my fellow Republicans to serve as the new West Virginia Republican Party Chairman," Lucas said. "I recognize the gravity of this election season regarding the future of our state, and I know I have the weight of my Party, my state and my generation on my shoulders.
"Our victory efforts are well underway, and now that the West Virginia Democratic Party, Joe Manchin and Nick Rahall have all endorsed Barack Obama and his anti-coal, pro-gay marriage, budget exploding agenda, the Democrats across this state have much to fear."
Lucas said he's eager to dig into the job.
"I cannot wait to begin to travel our great state as the new chairman of our party and fight for our candidates, our members and all of my fellow West Virginians to turn around 80 years of failed Democratic policies that have placed us 50th in overall education, 50th in new business start-ups and 48th in per-capita income," he said. "West Virginia is also the only state in the Union to have lost population since 1980.
The Democrats have been driving jobs and people out of our state for far too long; it's time we drive them out."
Lucas, 30, was born in Huntington and raised in Lincoln and Morgan counties. His family history in West Virginia goes back to the coalfields of the 1790s. He is a product of West Virginia public schools but also holds a bachelor's and doctorate degrees from Vanderbilt, a master's from Harvard, a law degree from Tulane and a certificate in international law from the Sorbonne in Paris.
Professionally, he has served as an aide to Rep. Shelley Capito, as a policy analyst for an education think tank in New Orleans, and currently is an independent attorney and management consultant based in Huntington as well as an occasional adjunct professor at Mountain State University in Beckley.
He also has served as the general counsel to the West Virginia Republican Party and as chairman of the West Virginia Young Republicans. He represented West Virginia at the 2000 Republican National Convention and was just elected as a delegate to the 2012 Convention. In 2010, after narrowly missing the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District, he was appointed the RNC Victory Director for West Virginia.
He is a past recipient of the West Virginia Governor's Community Service Award, and he was a Golden Horseshoe winner. He currently serves as the vice-president of the Lincoln County Economic Development Authority and on the boards of several non-profit organizations.
Outside of the professional sphere, he is the co-author of a travel guide to Paris called "Europe Beyond Your Means: The Paris Edition," an avid follower of all SEC and Marshall sports and served as a volunteer tour guide for school programs at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.
His family remains dedicated to education in West Virginia with his mother serving as the Superintendent of Lincoln County Schools, his father as treasurer for the Cabell County School Board and his sister as a school psychologist.
