Carl Dewey Perkins

1912 – 1984

The Federal Perkins Loan Program honors this Representative from Kentucky. Representative Perkins was born in Hindman, Kentucky on October 15, 1912. He attended Caney Junior College (now Alice Lloyd College), Lees Junior College and graduated from Jefferson School of Law (now the University of Louisville School of Law) in 1935. He served in the US Army and served in the European Theater.  After he was elected to Congress, he served as the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor.  In 1964 his committee produced landmark legislation to provide financial aid to disadvantaged college students, and, for the first time, extend general federal aid to elementary and secondary education. Perkins helped formulate the Economic Opportunity Act, centerpiece of Johnson's War on Poverty, and was one of its strongest advocates. He was a champion of the Head Start program, the school lunch program, adult education, federal assistance to libraries, and federal aid for the construction of highways and hospitals in the depressed Appalachian region.  He died of a massive heart attack.