Remembering Judge Robert L. Myre
Written by Justin D. Lamb
“I was rocked in the cradle of Democratic politics, raised by a Republican father and brought up in a home in which dad was a Yankee and mother was a Rebel,” r Judge Robert L. Myre humorously recollected in a 1968 interview regarding his upbringing in Marshall County.
The grandson of a German refugee who came to the United States to escape service in the German army, Judge Myre was the son of a Republican father and a Democratic mother who had ancestors on both sides of the War Between the States.
Born on April 30, 1889 in the Flatwoods section of Marshall County between Brewers and Benton, Robert Louis Myre was one of three boys born to Louis N. Myre and Lula Stice Myre. His father was tenant farmer who later became owner of a 21-acre tobacco farm just outside of Benton on the Old Symsonia Road.
Following completion of school at Harvey, Myre began teaching at Breezeel one-room school in order to finance his tuition at the University of Kentucky and later Washington and Lee University where he received his law degree.
After graduation, Myre returned to Kentucky where he gained admittance to the bar in Murray in 1906. Due to a fire that destroyed the Calloway County Courthouse, Myre had to take his bar exam in the Murray Livery Stable.
Following a brief partnership with Dr. Rainey T. Wells (founder of Murray State University) in Murray, Myre soon returned to Marshall County where he practiced law and sold insurance. Like his father, Myre became involved in Republican politics in Marshall County and after the resignation of County Judge Walter Prince in 1921, Myre was selected by Republican Governor Edwin P. Morrow to fill out the remainder of the term. Myre contemplated running for a full term in Fall election despite the uphill battle of a Republican victory in the Democratic bastion. Ultimately Myre opted out of the race once the highly popular attorney H.H. Lovett, who has support from both Democrats and Republicans, was elected the Democratic nominee for County Judge in August 1921.
The following year, Myre and his wife, Verda Draffen, moved to Paducah where Myre went to work for the Department of Revenue. He mounted an unsuccessful (and in hindsight, a disastrous) campaign as the Republican nominee for Congress in 1924 against the wildly popular incumbent Democratic Congressman Alben W. Barkley.
Three years later, Myre ran for the Republican nomination for Paducah Mayor, but was defeated in the primary. “Democratic party voting rosters were too much for a Republican,” reported the Paducah Sun on the political career of Judge Myre, “but Myre always drew more votes than most Republicans had a right to expect.”
Going into the 1930s and 1940s, Myre focused on his private law practice as a defense attorney and gained a reputation as a colorful courtroom lawyer. “I defended over 20 murder cases,” recalled Myre in a 1968 interview. “I won most of the cases with only one getting the electric chair.”
Following an act by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1968 which created a second judgeship for McCracken County, Myre was appointed at the age 80 as Circuit Judge by his friend and Republican Governor Louie B. Nunn. Myre ran for election for a full term in the November General election at the urging of Governor Nunn, but was defeated.
Judge Robert L. Myre passed away in February 1980 and was buried in Mt. Kenton Cemetery in Lone Oak.
