About Us

The Henry Clay Memorial Foundation has created The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship to create a globally-recognized center which effectively promotes the principles and practices of statesmanship and embodies Henry Clay’s ideals of debate, diplomacy, communications and beneficial compromise.

Located in Henry Clay’s Law Office on Mill Street in Lexington, Kentucky, The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship is governed by a Board of Directors and a National Advisory Committee Co-Chaired by the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Honorable Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former United States Senator from Kansas.

The Board of Directors is Co-Chaired by Robert N. Clay, owner of Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky, and Advertising Consultant Bill Giles. The President of the Board of Directors is D. G. Van Clief, Jr., Past President of The Breeders’ Cup. The Executive Director of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship is Mindy Shannon Phelps, Owner of Phelps Communications in Lexington, Kentucky.

To help educate a new generation in the skills and processes of statesmanship, The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship will develop and operate an annual undergraduate short course which will expose top college juniors from every U.S. State to a curriculum in diplomacy, dialogue, listening skills, negotiation and mediation. The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship will serve as a resource to those who seek to improve their roles as statesmen and to enhance the United States’ ability as a nation to communicate internally and externally.

Support for The Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship will celebrate the life of one of our nation’s preeminent statesmen and will advance the values of public discourse he so eloquently and successfully represented; values still relevant and needed in the 21st century.