Yvonne Guy

Former Warren County Clerk Yvonne Guy of Bowling Green died Wednesday. She was 86.

Guy worked in the Warren County Clerk’s Office for 55 years. When she started there in 1947, that meant hand-writing voter rolls and vehicle registration and typing deeds on a manual typewriter.

Guy’s daughter, Deniese Taylor said her mother began work at the clerk’s office when she was 16.

“She loved the people that she served and she loved the courthouse itself and what it represents,” she said.

Taylor said the words “integrity” and “strength” best describe her mother.

Yvonne Guy’s health suffered after she retired, and she slowed down, but she missed working,” she said.

“She was a fighter til the end,” Taylor said.

Guy’s son, Mark Guy, said his mother, who was a four-term clerk, was a gentle woman.

“I never heard her raise her voice in my life,” he said, noting she was married to his father, Wayne, for 65 years.

Hardy & Son Funeral Home is handling arrangements, which are incomplete.

Warren County Sheriff Jerry “Peanuts” Gaines was a longtime friend of Yvonne Guy. She began work in the clerk’s office when he was still in high school, he said.

“She was cute as a button and everybody just loved her on account of how nice she was,” Gaines said.

Gaines said Yvonne Guy was extremely competent at her job and recalled her keeping a large book of the Kentucky Revised Statutes on hand.

“I nicknamed her dragon lady because she was on top of everything,” he said.

Former Warren County Clerk Dot Owens worked with Yvonne Guy, who was the clerk when Owens was running for her first term for the office.

Owens said Yvonne Guy was very knowledgeable.

“I think she went to sleep at night reading the KRS book,” she said.

Owens said Guy was a fair boss who related well to customers.

Current Warren County Clerk Lynette Yates worked under Yvonne Guy in the 1970s.

“She was one of the most professional women that I’ve ever worked with,” she said.

Yvonne Guy was highly regarded throughout the state, and other county clerks would call her with questions because of her knowledge, Yates said.

When Guy ended her career with the clerk’s office in 2003, she sat down and talked with the Daily News.

She told the Daily News that she started at the clerk’s office with the intention of soon attending Bowling Green Business College, by saving money from her $100 a month paycheck. But she never made it to school, and stayed in the courthouse. Back then, she and the other six employees might only have seven or eight deeds to do per day.

“There was many days when we didn’t have much to do,” Guy said. So she and the others might stroll down to the drugstore to get a magazine, though she’d always try to look busy if her father dropped by.

Things changed. By the time Guy retired, the number of clerk’s office employees quadrupled as their workload increased.

“This county has grown so,” she said. “When I started working here, you practically knew everybody.”

– Follow government beat writer Katie Brandenburg at twitter.com/BGDNgovtbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.