Bumgarner sworn in as commonwealth's attorney

“I will and our office will continue to strive to be a voice for victims and make our community a better and safer place,” Bumgarner said Thursday at her swearing-in ceremony.

A Bowling Green native and graduate of Western Kentucky University and Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University, Bumgarner was appointed commonwealth’s attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit last month by Gov. Andy Beshear, succeeding Chris Cohron, who won election for a circuit judgeship.

The 8th Circuit covers Warren and Edmonson counties.

After obtaining her law degree, Bumgarner joined the commonwealth’s attorney’s office in 2012 as an assistant prosecutor.

Warren District Judge Kim Geoghegan, who previously served as first assistant commonwealth’s attorney, said that Bumgarner distinguished herself early by being willing to volunteer to take on difficult cases, particularly those involving allegations of child abuse and molestation.

“As soon as Kori was assigned a case, she met with the victim immediately and started to develop a rapport with that child, which is so important,” Geoghegan said, adding that she knew Bumgarner to travel to elementary schools to have lunch with child victims in order to build that relationship. “In order for a child to come in and testify, it’s a very difficult process. They’re very insecure and very vulnerable and it’s really important you establish a rapport with the victim early on and Kori always did that.”

Bowling Green City Attorney Hillary Hightower, another former prosecutor who once worked alongside Bumgarner, remembered her as being eager to learn as a young prosecutor, turning to Hightower frequently for advice.

Hightower recalled one of Bumgarner’s first criminal trials, a successful prosecution that saw Bumgarner often ask Hightower after questioning certain witnesses or arguing her case whether she would have done anything differently.

“I told her I probably would have because all attorneys try cases differently, but for you, no I wouldn’t have tried the case differently and I couldn’t have tried the case as well as you have,” Hightower said. “The most impressive thing was her intuition. For such a young attorney, she knew not to ask certain questions, when to ask questions, how to ask them. I knew she was going to be super successful at trying cases.”

When Bumgarner told her father, attorney Ralph Beck, she was interested law school, she remembered being “terrified” to broach the subject and that Beck tried at first to talk her out of it before reconsidering.

“I remember you told me the practice of law is one of the noblest things a person could do and I would have the ability to change peoples’ lives,” Bumgarner said.