Laurel County Homecoming Honoree: Out-of-Towner

Nita Johnson, The Sentinel Echo, London, Ky.
·2 min read

Aug. 19—Elizabeth Griffin McCoy could have stayed in Laurel County and worked in her family's successful grocery wholesale business. Instead, she headed west to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, after graduating from the University of Kentucky with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, a Master of Business Administration in Accounting, and earning her Certified Public Accountancy. McCoy is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Planters Bank of Hopkinsville, an institution she helped grow from $100 million in assets to now over $1 billion.

As well as leading a successful bank, McCoy is on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis of the Board. She was voted into that office by her peers in the St. Louis region of banks of similar size to Planters Bank. McCoy also holds the distinction of being the only second-generation member of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, from which she recently completed her second term. In addition, she is on the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics' Business Partnership Foundation Board and Business Economics Dean's Advisory Council.

However, McCoy finds her work with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce to be equally important and satisfying. "The chamber is not just an organization for large businesses, it's important to the small businesses of smaller towns," she said.

McCoy is currently serving on the Kentucky Chamber Board of Directors and was a past Chair, the Kentucky Economic Development Partnership Board, the Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation Board of Directors and Executive Committee, the South Western Kentucky Economic Development Council Board of Directors and Executive Committee. In 2018, she was awarded the Martha Layne Collins Leadership Award.

"Not everyone is lucky enough to be from Laurel County," McCoy's father used to often tell her. Her strong upbringing here in Laurel County by parents who believed in her and expected success from her helped into the powerhouse she it. Yet for all her successes, McCoy remains humble, crediting her team at Planters Bank for all the work they do.

Previously, she has been associated with The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Board, the Jennie Stuart Medical Center as a member of the Board of Directors and as Past Chairman, the Kentucky Bankers Association Board of Directors, Murray State University's Board of Regents and many other local and regional organizations.

McCoy is married to Hal H. McCoy and they have one son, Griffin Bell McCoy. Ms. McCoy is also the daughter of the late G.W. Griffin and Elizabeth "Sis" Griffin. Her brothers are Winston Griffin of London and the late George Griffin.