Attorney English celebrates 90th birthday at law firm
Published 6:00 am Monday, September 29, 2025
Longtime Bowling Green attorney Charles English arrives with family members and friends to an award dinner in February at La Gala honoring him and retired Kentucky Chief Justice John Minton.
Charles English can still remember the earliest days of his legal career, joining the Kentucky bar in 1960 and arguing cases beginning that year in Warren County before John Rodes, at the time a 90-year-old district court judge who remained on the bench until his retirement at 93.
English, one of the founding partners in the Bowling Green law firm English, Lucas, Priest and Owsley, considered Rodes a “scholar and a leader” to be emulated.
The venerable legal figure has emulated the judge in terms of longevity, celebrating his 90th birthday Thursday at the law firm he established 52 years earlier.
“I’ve lived a long life, I’ve lived an exciting life and got to do a whole lot of things and work with some wonderful people,” English said. “I had no idea I would be practicing this long, it didn’t even cross my mind.”
The Warren County native earned his law degree at the University of Kentucky before returning to Bowling Green to embark on a legal career that has seen him specialize in areas that include business law, appeals and estate planning.
He has been the local counsel for Fruit of the Loom, the Simpson County Water District and the Western Kentucky University Student Life Foundation in a number of pivotal cases, and also spent nearly 40 years at WKU teaching accounting, business law and communication and serving as an assistant coach for the university’s debate team.
English has been a prior president of the Kentucky Bar Association and was named its outstanding lawyer in 1999.
He was also a six-year member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, helping conduct evaluations of prospective nominees for federal judgeships.
Earlier this year, the Kentucky Bar Foundation honored English with its inaugural Chief Justice John Minton Jr. Award, presented in recognition of the attorney who best exemplifies character, professionalism and a commitment to fair and impartial justice.
“In practicing law, you have an opportunity to serve others and serve the community and make a difference,” English said.
Attorney Michael Owsley, a founding partner with English in the law firm that bears their names, said that English served as a “sounding board” for him as they worked to grow their firm and lauded English for his work mentoring younger lawyers.
“He was always ethical, always represented his clients zealously but professionally and it’s just a privilege to have worked with him all these years,” Owsley said. “He’s somebody you can go to to bounce issues or problems off of and he would have good advice as to how to handle something.”
