A teacher who decided to step up.

Roots in Bardstown

JT Roby was born and raised in Bardstown, and there was never much question about whether he'd stay connected to the place that made him. Public service was literally the family business. His father, Jim Roby, served on the Bardstown City School Board for more than thirty years — a tenure that meant JT grew up watching what it looks like when someone commits to their community for the long haul. His mother, Jane Roby, worked as a school secretary and later as a traffic controller for CW Louisville, the kind of steady, get-it-done work that holds communities together without ever making the news.

That upbringing shaped how JT sees the world. He graduated from Bardstown High School in 1999, part of a generation that came of age at the turn of the millennium and learned early that the future doesn't just happen to you — you have to help build it. The values he absorbed in Bardstown, from his parents and his teachers and his coaches, are the same values he's bringing to this campaign: show up, do the work, listen more than you talk, and don't pretend you know everything when you don't.

From the Classroom to the Cross-Country Course

After high school, JT went to Transylvania University in Lexington on a cross-country scholarship, running NAIA track and soaking up everything college had to offer. But when Transylvania made the decision to move its athletics program to Division III, JT lost his athletic scholarship — a real setback, and the kind of moment that forces a choice. He transferred to Eastern Kentucky University, kept going, and earned his degree in speech communication, with coursework focused on sales, marketing, and public speaking.

That communication background matters more than you might think for a Judge/Executive. The job isn't about having all the answers on day one — it's about being able to listen to a room full of people with competing interests, synthesize what they're telling you, and help them find a path forward. JT learned that skill selling, and he learned it teaching, and he's betting it's exactly what Nelson County needs in its chief executive right now.

A Career That Kept Leading Back Home

JT's professional path hasn't been a straight line, and he's honest about that. He built a career in sales, working as a ladder representative covering the entire northeast United States — a job that meant a lot of time on the road and a lot of learning how to connect with people who had no reason to trust him yet. Then he came home to Bardstown and opened Rapid Recovery Cryotherapy, a small business focused on recovery and performance, working with student athletes.

That cryotherapy business is the pivot point in his story. Working with young people day after day, watching them push through challenges and grow, is what pulled him toward teaching. He realized that the part of his job he loved most wasn't the business side — it was the people side, and specifically the young-people side. So he made the leap into education, and for the last four years he's been a special education teacher at Nelson County High School, working with some of the students who need the most support and the most patience.

It's worth pausing on that: special education is not the easy track in teaching. It's the track that demands the most individualization, the most paperwork, the most emotional energy, and the most creative problem-solving. The fact that JT chose it — and has stuck with it for four years — tells you something about who he is and what he's willing to take on.

Family

JT and his wife Allison are raising their daughter in the same community that raised both of them. Allison (née Claywell) is a pharmacist at Claywell Medical Pharmacy and hosts a radio show on WBRT — so between the two of them, the Roby household has one foot in healthcare, one foot in local media, and a whole lot of connection to the people of Nelson County. They've made the choice to build their life here, not somewhere bigger or trendier, because this is home and they want it to stay that way.

Why He's Running

So why does a special education teacher decide to run for Judge/Executive? Because he looked at county government and saw a system that could work a lot better for the people it's supposed to serve. He saw budgets that are hard for regular citizens to understand. He saw infrastructure decisions being made without enough input from the communities affected. He saw a bourbon industry that's vital to the local economy but that comes with real costs — lost tax revenue as the barrel tax phases out, whiskey fungus on people's homes, water and utility strain from industrial development — and he didn't see enough honest conversation about those trade-offs.

JT told the Kentucky Standard that he's approaching the office of Judge/Executive the same way he approaches his classroom: keep it informative, start with a clear goal, and work the problem. He's not running because he thinks he has all the answers. He's running because he thinks the county deserves someone who's willing to ask the questions, bring the right people to the table, and be honest about what's working and what isn't.

What He Believes

At the core of JT's campaign is a pretty simple idea: county government should be transparent, proactive, and civically engaged. Transparent means you should be able to see where your money goes — hence the "open gradebook," a digital system that lets any citizen track county spending in real time. Proactive means not waiting until a crisis hits to deal with it — whether that's the bourbon barrel tax revenue decline, or infrastructure, or housing affordability, the county should be planning ahead and communicating with residents about what's coming. And civically engaged means actually meeting people where they are, which is why JT wants to take fiscal court meetings out into the communities of Cox's Creek, Bloomfield, New Haven, and Boston on a quarterly basis, at times that work for working people.

He's also clear about what he's against. He's not in favor of data center development that strains local water and utilities for the benefit of outside corporations. He's not in favor of giving up farmland for industrial sprawl when industrial parks could be concentrated and companies could pay for their own infrastructure. And he's not in favor of a county where young people can't afford to buy their first home because property assessments keep escalating and starter homes aren't being built.

What he is in favor of is a Nelson County that's still recognizable in forty years — still has its farms, still has its charm, still has the quality of life that makes people want to stay and raise their families here. That's the "next 40 years" he talks about. It's not about winning one election. It's about making decisions now that set the county up to thrive for a generation.

The Race

JT won the Democratic primary on May 19, 2026 with approximately 64% of the vote in a three-way race against Benjamin Corder and Shameca Ashby. He now faces incumbent Republican Tim Hutchins — who won the GOP primary with about 66% — in the general election on November 3, 2026. It's a competitive race, and in a county of roughly 46,000 people, a relatively small number of votes will decide the outcome. That's part of why JT is working so hard to reach voters who don't usually show up — especially younger voters who have the most at stake in the county's long-term future and the least habit of voting in local elections.

Hear From JT Directly

JT sat down with the Bradford & Brooks show on WBRT 1320 AM for a 42-minute conversation about his background, his platform, and his vision for Nelson County. Listen to the full interview: