The Hopkinsville-Christian County Human Rights Commission will have a new executive director in January, and she is already very knowledge of the organization.
Idalia Luna currently serves on the commission’s board and is Mayor Carter Hendricks’ executive secretary. She’ll leave that job to lead the commission beginning Jan. 27.
“HRC is a great place to help people … especially when they are discriminated against,” Luna said after the board voted unanimously Thursday night to name her executive director.
Luna will follow Bernard Standard, who announced last summer that he intended to retire in January. He has been the commission’s director since 1990.
“I think this is historic thing, and we stand on the shoulders of those who did this before us,” said the Rev. Ron Hicks, who chairs the commission.
Luna’s salary will be $53,000. Standard’s salary after 29 years was approximately $58,500.
Luna has worked for the city since 2013. She moved to Hopkinsville in 2003 to make a new start following a divorce, she said.
Originally from South Florida, she had relatives who became familiar with Hopkinsville when local mission workers went to Florida to help repair her church following Hurricane Andrew. Her uncle, a minister, eventually moved to Hopkinsville, as did her mother.
Luna earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from Murray State University. She is a candidate for the Master of Public Administration from Murray.
The commission voted to hire Luna after meeting in closed session for approximately 30 minutes. Luna did not attend the meeting. She waited in her office, down the hall from the commission’s meeting room, until Hicks went to tell her the board was ready to announce their decision.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
