Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey will face a formidable primary challenge in her reelection bid with former Books-A-Million CEO Lew Burdette announcing a run for the GOP nomination, the Associated Press reports.
A lifelong Alabama resident and an alumnus of the University of Alabama, Burdette ran the bookstore chain from 1985 to 1998 before becoming president of a faith-based nonprofit organization that runs residential group homes for abused and neglected children, and another set of homes for abused women and families.
A political neophyte, Burdette has a compelling history: when he was 15-years-old, he was kidnapped from in front of his father’s grocery store in Roanoke, Alabama. His kidnappers shot and stabbed him, and then dumped him in a well. He spent hours in the well before being rescued.