Lexington, Ky. - Nine notable Kentucky entrepreneurs will be recognized as the inaugural class of inductees for the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame on Nov. 17 in downtown Lexington.  Ceremonies will be held at the headquarters of Awesome, Inc., located at 348 East Main St. in downtown Lexington. The event kicks off with networking at 6 p.m., with the program set to begin at 6:30 which will be streamed live on the Internet at www.Livestream.com/LeXenomics.

Al Smith, former Host of KET's Comment on Kentucky, will talk about some of the hall of fame inductees that have made major contributions to the Commonwealth. Curt Jones, Dippin' Dots Founder and Chairman changed the way the world enjoys ice cream and he will speak about the importance of entrepreneurship in Kentucky.

The 2010 Inaugural Class includes: John Y. Brown Jr., KFC; Pearse Lyons, Alltech; the late William T. Young, W.T. Young Storage. & Overbrook Farm; Warren Rosenthal, Jerrico - Long John Silver's/Jerry's Restaurant; John Schnatter, Papa John's; Jim Host, Host Communications and Printing; the late Ralph G. Anderson, Belcan; Davis Marksbury, Exstream Software and University of Kentucky President Lee Todd, Projectron, Inc. and DataBeam Corp. The web site for the Hall of Fame is http://entrepreneurhof.org.

Inductees were selected based on a variety of attributes including revenue and profit growth, entrepreneur activity or visibility, innovativeness of product or service offered, contributions to community-oriented projects and society, creating jobs, and contributions to their industry.

"I am humbled to be recognized alongside some of the heavyweights of Kentucky's business world," said UK President Lee Todd.  "I thank all of the sponsors for this honor, and I applaud them for creating the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.  We need more Kentuckians to realize that they can create their own jobs right here in Kentucky, and I hope this hall of fame will help spark curiosity and imagination in people across the Commonwealth."

"We are excited about this historic event," says Bobby Clark, President of Kentucky Student Ventures Corp, a Lexington-based non-profit promoting the development of high school and college students starting their own business.  "Entrepreneurship is the key to Kentucky being successful in the global economy."

The Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame is sponsored by Awesome, Inc.; Kentucky Student Ventures Corporation; Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation and the Kentucky Small Business Development Center/KyBIZ.info.com.

In addition, another major sponsor is the Kauffman Foundation's Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010, which is being celebrated this week in 100 countries, with 40,000 events and an expected 10 million people participating in this global movement unleashing new ideas. http://www.unleashingideas.org/

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Davis Marksbury
Exstream Software
In 1998 Exstream Software was founded by Davis Marksbury and his partner Dan Kloiber, after selling their product StreamWeaver, the world's most commony used print stream processing software solution to Broadvision. Exstream provides enterprise software solutions for more than 400 large enterprises around the world. Exstream was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2008.