Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare of Letcher, Kentucky
In the official 1973 Kentucky general election return for the 91st House District, the candidate’s surname appeared as “Dewahare.” The spelling was wrong, but the man was familiar to voters in the mountains. Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare of Neon and Whitesburg was part of a family whose name had already been written across Eastern Kentucky storefronts, coal camp roads, and local business life. That election sent him to Frankfort, where he would become one of Letcher County’s recognizable political figures of the late twentieth century.
From Syria to the Kentucky Coalfields
The Dawahare story in Eastern Kentucky began before Hoover’s birth. His father, Serur Frank Dawahare, was born in Syria in 1888 and came to the United States as a young immigrant with little money and no English. After time in New York, he came into the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky and became a pack peddler, carrying goods to mining families and coal camp communities. With his wife Selma Cury Dawahare, he built that beginning into a family business rooted in the mountain towns of Jenkins, Neon, Whitesburg, Pikeville, Hazard, and beyond.
The first Dawahare’s department store opened in Neon in 1922. The family lived above the store, a detail that places the business not only in commerce, but in daily family life. Whitesburg followed in 1935, and the business expanded after Selma’s death in 1939, with family members keeping the work going during the war years and later carrying the name across Kentucky and nearby states.
Named for a President, Raised in a Store Family
Herbert Hoover Dawahare was born in Neon, Kentucky, the son of Serur Frank and Selma Cury Dawahare. The family’s tradition of naming sons after American presidents gave Eastern Kentucky a Woodrow, a Harding, and a Herbert Hoover. Hoover Dawahare grew up in a household where business, family duty, and community standing were tied together. The Dawahares were not simply store owners passing through mountain towns. They became part of the civic life of those towns.
That background shaped the public life Hoover later led. He was a partner in Dawahare’s Inc., served on the company’s board of directors, founded Hoover’s Furniture, and operated that business for thirty years. He also served on the board of First Security Bank in Whitesburg. By the time he entered politics, Hoover Dawahare was already known through family, business, and local institutions.
Storefronts, Newspapers, and the Mountain Business World
The public record of Dawahare’s family business can still be found in local newspapers. A 1963 issue of The Mountain Eagle carried Dawahare’s Inc. advertising for Whitesburg and Neon, showing that the family name remained a visible part of Letcher County’s commercial life before Hoover’s legislative career began.
The business also reached Hazard. A later history of the old Hazard Dawahare’s and Hoover’s Furniture building remembered a 1973 ribbon cutting at 146 High Street in downtown Hazard, where the department store and furniture business became part of the city’s commercial landscape. That building, long after the Dawahare era, remained a symbol of downtown reinvestment and memory.
The 91st District Race
Hoover Dawahare entered Kentucky House politics in the 1973 race for the 91st District. In the Democratic primary, the official return listed him against Chester Jones, J. R. Hurt, and Jimmy Brown. Dawahare carried Letcher County with 2,160 votes and received 1,170 votes in Perry County, giving him 3,330 total votes in the primary.
In the 1973 general election, the official return listed him as the Democratic candidate in the 91st District and gave him 6,960 total votes from Letcher and Perry Counties. Although the state return misspelled his name, the result marked the beginning of his service in the Kentucky House of Representatives.
A Mountain Democrat in Frankfort
Dawahare’s legislative career continued through repeated elections in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1975, he won the Democratic primary against Terry Braddock and Richard Blount with 3,047 total votes, then won the general election with 5,800 total votes. In 1977, he faced a stronger Democratic primary challenge from Alva A. Hollon Jr., but finished ahead with 5,063 total votes to Hollon’s 4,180. The 1977 general election gave Dawahare 7,092 total votes.
The local campaign trail also left traces in the press. A 1977 Mountain Eagle campaign advertisement asked voters to re-elect Hoover Dawahare as Democratic candidate for state representative. The ad is valuable because it shows how his public image was carried not only through official returns, but through the same local newspaper world that had long documented Letcher County business, politics, and community life.
His later returns show the durability of his political support. In the 1979 general election, the official state return gave Dawahare 5,887 total votes in the 91st District. In 1981, he received 6,353 total votes. In the 1984 Democratic primary, he faced Paul Mason and Enoch O. Holbrook and won with 2,515 total votes. That fall, he defeated Republican Willard M. Gilliam, 6,634 votes to 2,575.
A Life Recorded in His Own Voice
One of the strongest primary sources for Hoover Dawahare’s life is the Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Dawahare sat for at least two interviews in 1992, one on February 11 and another on April 21, both conducted by Judy K. Bowen. These interviews are especially important because they place Dawahare’s political and personal story in his own voice, rather than only in campaign returns, obituaries, and later family histories.
For a historian of Letcher County, those interviews matter. They suggest that Hoover Dawahare should not be remembered only as a name on an election return or a figure from a business family. He belonged to a generation of Eastern Kentucky public men whose lives crossed several worlds at once: immigrant family memory, coalfield retail work, local banking, small town newspapers, and state politics.
Remembered in Frankfort
Hoover Dawahare died at his residence in Lexington on March 16, 2004, at the age of seventy-five. His obituary remembered him as the husband of Dorothy Dawahare, the father of Ernest Wade Dawahare, and a member of the Old Paris Road Church of God. It also recorded the central parts of his public life: thirteen years in the Kentucky House, service with First Security Bank in Whitesburg, partnership in Dawahare’s Inc., and the founding of Hoover’s Furniture. He was buried in Lexington Cemetery.
The Kentucky General Assembly formally remembered him the same week. House Resolution 251, introduced and adopted on March 17, 2004, adjourned the House in honor of Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare. Senate Resolution 199 was introduced on March 17, moved to the Senate floor on March 18, and adopted by voice vote in his memory.
The Meaning of Hoover Dawahare’s Mountain Career
Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare’s life was tied to Letcher County in more than one way. He was born in Neon, connected to Whitesburg business and banking, and elected from a House district rooted in the Eastern Kentucky mountains. His family’s story reached back to Syrian immigration and coal camp peddling, then forward into department stores, furniture, community leadership, and Frankfort politics.
His career also shows how public life in Appalachia has often been built from local trust. Before Hoover Dawahare represented mountain voters in the Kentucky House, the Dawahare name had already been known in the stores where families bought clothing, furniture, and household goods. In that sense, his path to Frankfort did not begin with a campaign speech. It began with a family store in Neon, a father carrying goods through the coalfields, and a mountain community that came to know the name Dawahare long before it appeared on a ballot.
Sources & Further Reading
Kentucky Oral History Commission. “Interview with Hoover Dawahare, February 11, 1992.” Interview by Judy K. Bowen. Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries. https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7wcn6z1m0c
Kentucky Oral History Commission. “Interview with Hoover Dawahare, April 21, 1992.” Interview by Judy K. Bowen. Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries. https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/catalog/xt7pg7371t1p
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky General Assembly Membership, 1900–2005. Frankfort, KY: Legislative Research Commission, 2005. https://legislature.ky.gov/LRC/Publications/Informational%20Bulletins/ib175b.pdf
Kentucky General Assembly. House Resolution 251: A Resolution Adjourning the House of Representatives in Honor of Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare. 2004 Regular Session. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/04rs/HR251.htm
Kentucky General Assembly. House Resolution 251: Bill Text. 2004 Regular Session. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/04rs/HR251/bill.doc
Kentucky General Assembly. Senate Resolution 199: A Resolution Adjourning the Senate in Honor of Herbert “Hoover” Dawahare. 2004 Regular Session. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/04rs/SR199.htm
Kentucky General Assembly. Senate Resolution 199: Bill Text. 2004 Regular Session. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/04rs/SR199/bill.doc
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1973 Primary Election Results: State Representative, 91st District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1973-1979/73prirep.pdf
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1973 General Election Results: State Representative, 91st District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1973-1979/73genrep.pdf
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1975 Primary Election Results: State Representative, 91st District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1973-1979/75staterep.pdf
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1975 General Election Results: State Representative, 91st District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1973-1979/75staterep.pdf
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1979 Election Results: State Representative, 91st District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1973-1979/76-79/79res_staterep3.txt
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1984 General Election Results: State Representative, 89th District. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/SiteCollectionDocuments/Election%20Results/1980-1989/1984/84staterep7.txt
Kentucky State Board of Elections. 1984 Primary and General Election Results. Frankfort, KY: Kentucky State Board of Elections. https://elect.ky.gov/results/1980-1989/Pages/1984.aspx
“Herbert Dawahare Obituary.” Lexington Herald-Leader, March 17, 2004. Reprinted by Legacy.com. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/kentucky/name/herbert-dawahare-obituary?id=8795155
Kerr Brothers Funeral Home. “Hoover Dawahare Obituary.” Accessed July 8, 2026. https://www.kerrbrothersfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Hoover-Dawahare?obId=30256283
The Mountain Eagle. “Re-Elect Hoover Dawahare.” May 19, 1977. Mountain Heritage and Regional Studies Center Digital Collections, University of Kentucky. https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/digital/api/collection/mhross/id/93346/download
The Mountain Eagle. “Dawahare’s Inc. Advertisement.” August 29, 1963. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/xt70k649pn35
Federal Communications Commission. “Notice of Broadcast Application.” Federal Register 33, no. 43, March 2, 1968. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1968-03-02/pdf/FR-1968-03-02.pdf
“Changing Hands.” Broadcasting: The Businessweekly of Television and Radio, March 2, 1964. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1964/1964-03-02-BC.pdf
Crocker, Mary Beth. “All in the Family: Dawahare’s Celebrates 100 Years in Business.” Smiley Pete Publishing, March 2, 2012. https://smileypete.com/business/2012-03-02-all-in-the-family-dawahares-celebrates-100-years-in-business/
Blue Ridge Country. “The ‘Sticks’ Lesson of Sticking Together: An Appalachian Love Story.” September 1, 2025. https://blueridgecountry.com/features/the-sticks-lesson-of-sticking-together-an-appalachian-love/
Mountain Association. “From Boarded Up to Bustling: Another Hazard, KY Building Renovated.” June 18, 2024. https://mtassociation.org/lending/boarded-up-to-bustling-dawhares-hazard-ky-building-renovated/
HathiTrust. “Kentucky General Assembly Membership, 1900–2005.” Catalog record. Accessed July 8, 2026. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005344160
Find a Grave. “Herbert Hoover Dawahare.” Memorial page. Accessed July 8, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8099947/herbert-hoover-dawahare
Wikimedia Commons. “Rep. Hoover Dawahare of Whitesburg.png.” Accessed July 8, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rep._Hoover_Dawahare_of_Whitesburg.png
KET. “The Mountain Eagle.” Kentucky Life. Kentucky Educational Television. Accessed July 8, 2026. https://www.ket.org/program/kentucky-life/the-mountain-eagle/
Author Note: This article follows Hoover Dawahare through the Letcher County storefronts, family businesses, and election records that shaped his public life. It also treats the Dawahare family story as part of a larger Appalachian history of immigration, coalfield commerce, and mountain political service.