Leaders in education, business and civic causes were among the seven new members named recently to the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

Joining the statewide education advocacy group are:

  • Andrew Brennen of Lexington is a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Fayette County). Brennen is the committee’s first youth member. He is captain of his school’s speech and debate teams and has been a state champion in public forum debate. He has been an active member of the Prichard Committee’s Student Voice Team.
  • Dale Brown is a former superintendent of Warren County school district and director of college and school relations at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.
  • Ronald Bunch is president and CEO of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce.
  • Kerry Holleran, of Covington, is a staff attorney for Campbell County Circuit Judge Julie Reinhardt Ward. Holleran is a former college English professor and a fellow of the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership.
  • David Holton, of Louisville, is a Jefferson County District Court judge. He is a co-founder of the Jefferson County Veterans Treatment Court, the first of its kind in Kentucky, where he serves as judge. He is a former prosecutor for the Jefferson County attorney and member of the Kentucky Council on Higher Education.
  • Amelia R. Kiser is a Glasgow physician. Kiser is assistant professor in the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at the University of Louisville and works with the Glasgow Family Medicine Residency Program.
  • Al Rider, of Upton, is president and CEO of the Central Kentucky Community Foundation in Elizabethtown and former president and CEO of the North Central Education Foundation. Rider was the recipient of the 2008 Joseph W. Kelly Award given by the Kentucky Department of Education for exemplary leadership in education.

The new members joined the committee during its recent fall meeting in Lexington.