Nelda Barton-Collings was the Republican National Committee Woman from Kentucky for 28 years.  This means that she met every U.S. president during those years.  She has chronicled all her years of service to the Republican Party with pictures hanging on the walls of her Corbin house, and with awards too numerous to mention.  Barton-Collins was also the first woman to chair the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

  Where did this interest in public service come from?  Her father served 20 years as a county commissioner.  According to Barton-Collings her mother worked with her father at their grocery store and together her parents shaped her character.

  She is a born leader, as the first female chair of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and as one of Kentucky’s earliest business women.  After her husband died, she joined his business partner and today they own nursing homes, newspapers, banks, and a pharmacy.  Not bad for a woman who knew nothing about business.  But she learned a lot while her husband was sick and later took college courses to learn more about money, banking and health care. When life threw Nelda Barton-Collings a curve ball, she hit a home run.