The Beta-Nu Chapter of
KAPPA SIGMA
The University of Kentucky
Barry R Ogilby was born in Dixon, Kentucky in 1947 to Jesse B Ogilby and Ann Sutton. Jesse worked as a coal miner and welder and Ann as a bookeeper. At Webster County High Barry played baseball and basketball and graduated in the top 10 of his class of 163 students. Barry went on to play two years of AA minor league baseball.
Barry entered the University of Kentucky with the class of 1969 and was in the Fall pledge class of 1966 of the Beta-Nu Chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity. Barry was elected Grand Master (President) of Beta-Nu in the Spring of 1967 and was later elected to a second term. While Grand Master, he and the very capable house father alum Babe Kimbrough ‘23 turned the fraternity around from being a fraternity house that was half full with small pledge classes into large pledge classes and full fraternity house. The fraternity went from being one of the least desirable to one of the most desirable on campus. Due to the recognition Barry received throughout the UK Greek system, he was elected as President of the Inter-fraternity Counsel for one year.
Upon graduation Barry married and entered law school at the University of Memphis.He graduated fourth in his class in 1972 and went to work in Houston, Texas for Exxon Corporation. While with Exxon he mostly practiced environmental, energy, and employment law litigation and compliance. Barry’s assignments took him to live in Houston, Washington D.C., Memphis and both Los Angeles and San Francisco. He left Exxon Corporation in the Fall of 1987 while living in Los Angeles to go into private law practice. Barry is admitted to practice in Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and California.
After about six years in practice in Woodland Hills, California, he was approached by the oil and shipping industry to become an Assistant General Counsel of a non-profit oil spill response corporation which was being formed in the wake of the Valdez spill. After three years in starting up the new non-profit around US coastal areas, Barry went back into private practice with a major California law firm in San Francisco where he practiced for over nine years before joining Cooper, White & Cooper, LLP as a Partner in their Walnut Creek, California office.
Barry and his wife Patricia, who is also an attorney, live in Orinda, California (near San Francisco). He has two sons and three granddaughters that live in Austin, Texas. His oldest son is a VP for a large investment firm and his youngest is a singer song writer. Barry has always considered Kentucky his home and fondly remembered his time at UK and Kappa Sigma. Go Wildcats!!