By Brad Hughes

After a marathon closed-door session stretching into Wednesday afternoon, the Kentucky Board of Education has made its first cut of candidates to succeed Terry Holliday as the state’s education chief. And the panel named an interim commissioner to bridge the gap between Holliday’s retirement and the start date of the new chief executive.

The state board met in executive session for nearly five hours, beginning shortly after 8 a.m. and coming back into open session just before 1 p.m. Also in the meeting were representatives of the Florida search firm, Greenwood/Asher and Associates, which has the contract to recruit and screen applicants.

KBE Chairman Roger Marcum immediately acknowledged the lengthy wait for meeting attendees and others monitoring the session online.

“We’re sorry we took so long, but it was a strong applicant pool. We had some difficult decisions to make, so we took adequate time,” he said.

Marcum said Greenwood/Asher had 334 contacts in the search process to date, with 44 active candidates considered by the state board during the closed session. As a result, 15 individuals are being considered as semifinalists for “possible” interviews Aug. 14 and 15 at a hotel near the Louisville International Airport.

The final group of candidates to be interviewed will be determined after additional information is collected by Greenwood/Asher from each of the 15.

Marcum said Greenwood/Asher had reached out to chief education leaders in other states as well as superintendents in Kentucky and in some large urban districts elsewhere.

The state board also unanimously named Associate Commissioner Kevin Brown to become interim commissioner on Sept. 1, one day after Holliday’s retirement date. According to the board’s action, Brown will be paid at a salary equivalent to $150,000 a year. Marcum previously has said he hopes the interim commissioner will serve no more than two months until the new hire can begin work.

Brown is general counsel for the Kentucky Department of Education, having been with the agency since 2003. According to one of his social media Web pages, the Transylvania University and University of Kentucky College of Law graduate was an assistant attorney general for nearly three years. He also spent time as a domestic policy intern in the White House and as a staff assistant to the late U.S. Senator Wendell Ford of Owensboro.

The state board of education's annual retreat is going on Wednesday afternoon. It will hold its August meeting starting Thursday morning. All public sessions may be viewed online via the KDE website.