Former Owensboro Mayor David Adkisson spent more than 30 years in leadership of chambers of commerce in two states before he retired in October 2019.
This week, he published a book — “Horseshoes vs Chess: A Practical Guide for Chamber of Commerce Leaders.”
On Wednesday, it was the No. 1 best-seller in the “public finance” category of books on Amazon.
“The book project has been my transition into retirement,” Adkisson said. “I started working on it in January 2014. But I really got back on it last year.”
The 336-page book includes several stories about Owensboro — the creation of the International Bar-B-Q Festival and the start of the city’s push to become the “Bluegrass Music Capital of the World” among them.
“I didn’t use many names in the book because it’s aimed at chambers across the United States and Canada,” Adkisson said.
“There are about 7,000 chamber executives in the U.S..” he said. “The National Association of Chamber Executives will push the book. It’s the first book for chambers since a textbook in 1960. But this isn’t a textbook.”
Adkisson said, “Chris Mead, senior vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, challenged me 10 years ago to write it. He said he didn’t know of anyone who had led a small city chamber, a metro chamber and a state chamber.”
He started his career at what was then the Owensboro-Daviess County Chamber of Commerce as special projects director on Jan. 1, 1976.
A couple of years later, Adkisson became executive director of the organization.
“I was there for seven years,” he said.
Then, he worked as a field representative for U.S. Sen. Wendell H. Ford and then executive director of the local Citizens Committee on Education.
In 1987, Adkisson was elected mayor of Owensboro, the youngest mayor in the city’s history.
In 1995, he returned to the chamber as president, a post he held until 1999, when he resigned to become chairman of the Birmingham, Alabama, chamber.
Five years later, Adkisson returned to Kentucky as head of the state chamber, a post he held for almost 15 years — the longest in the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s history.
So, what’s he going to do now that the book is published.
“I have a couple of other projects up my sleeve,” Adkisson said.
He’s the volunteer project manager for Red River Economic Development, a private group working to develop a high-end destination resort at Red River Gorge an hour east of Lexington.
“We have 891 beautiful acres under option,” Adkisson said. “We hope to buy the property by March 31.”
He said, “There’s a market in Kentucky for a high-end resort. It will create more than 500 jobs. There’s about a 60-40 chance of it happening.”
By Keith Lawrence Messenger-Inquirer