Born in Tallega, Lee County, Ky., on August 9, 1912. Banker. Attorney. Financier. Insurance Company Executive. University of Kentucky, A.B., 1934; LI.B., 1937. Died, November 21, 1975.
Born into a family of modest means, he worked to help pay his way through high school and college by delivering newspapers, clerking in a grocery store, doing janitorial work and binding books in the Eastern Kentucky Library in Richmond, where he attended school for three years.
He was considered one of the most successful businessmen in Kentucky history. In 1945, at age 32, he became the youngest bank president in Kentucky after he and some colleagues acquired the majority interest in Central Bank & Trust Company, Lexington. In 1959, he purchased control of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company, and took it from the relative obscurity of a small, regional insurer to one of the nation's largest life insurance companies.
He had begun the practice of law in 1937, following receipt of his law degree from the University of Kentucky, although he had passed the bar exam and had been admitted to the bar the previous year. For the next few years he bought and sold several hundred houses. His entrance into the financial community began in 1940 when he bought a small consumer finance company. He parlayed this company into Kentucky Finance Company, one of the largest consumer finance companies in the state.
In 1965, he was named "Outstanding Kentuckian of the Year," by the Kentucky Press Association.
One of his favorite projects was the Kincaid Foundation and its predecessor organization, the Boys Club of Lexington, through which he gave more than 1,500 college scholarships over a 20-year period.
At the time of his death in 1975, he was Chairman of the Board of Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company; held controlling interest in 20 banks in Central and Eastern Kentucky, and headed the Lexington law firm of Kincaid, Wilson, Schaeffer and Hembree, and a number of enterprises engaged in consumer finance, real estate, and radio and television broadcasting.
He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Lexington YMCA, a member of the Christian Church, and a Mason. He served on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees.
Garvice Delmar Kincaid was named to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni on April 7, 1975.
