Roy L. Ramey

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Roy L. Ramey
Image of Roy L. Ramey
Elections and appointments
Last election

May 14, 2024

Education

Bachelor's

Marshall University, 1992

Military

Service / branch

U.S. Army

Years of service

1989 - 2022

Service / branch

U.S. Army

Personal
Birthplace
Huntington, W.Va.
Religion
Christian
Profession
Agriculture
Contact

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Roy L. Ramey (Republican Party) ran for election for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture. He lost in the Republican primary on May 14, 2024.

Ramey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Roy L. Ramey was born in Huntington, West Virginia. Ramey's career experience includes working in agriculture. He served in the U.S. Army from 1989 to 2022. Ramey earned a bachelor's degree from Marshall University in 1992.[1]

Ramey has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1]

  • Wild Ramp Market
  • WV Home Educators Association
  • Farmer Veteran Coalition
  • WV Maple Syrup Producers Association
  • WV Cattlemans Association
  • Cabell-Wayne Beekeepers Association
  • WV Farmers Market Association
  • WV Farm Bureau
  • Christian Home Educators of WV
  • Home School Legal Defensee Assoc.
  • WV Herb Association
  • Veterans of Foreign War
  • American Legion
  • AF&AM Lodge, Huntington 53
  • Knights Templar
  • Scottish Rite
  • Shrine
  • AMD
  • Eastern Star
  • Big Red One Assoc

Elections

2024

See also: West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner election, 2024

General election

General election for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Incumbent Kent Leonhardt defeated Deborah Stiles in the general election for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on November 5, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Kent Leonhardt
Kent Leonhardt (R)
 
70.3
 
430,333
Image of Deborah Stiles
Deborah Stiles (D) Candidate Connection
 
29.7
 
181,680

Total votes: 612,013
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Deborah Stiles advanced from the Democratic primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on May 14, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Deborah Stiles
Deborah Stiles Candidate Connection
 
100.0
 
84,557

Total votes: 84,557
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Republican primary election

Republican primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Incumbent Kent Leonhardt defeated Joshua Higginbotham and Roy L. Ramey in the Republican primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on May 14, 2024.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Kent Leonhardt
Kent Leonhardt
 
50.8
 
97,958
Image of Joshua Higginbotham
Joshua Higginbotham
 
30.1
 
57,950
Image of Roy L. Ramey
Roy L. Ramey Candidate Connection
 
19.1
 
36,831

Total votes: 192,739
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Endorsements

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Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Ramey in this election.

2022

See also: West Virginia House of Delegates elections, 2022

General election

General election for West Virginia House of Delegates District 22

Incumbent Daniel Linville won election in the general election for West Virginia House of Delegates District 22 on November 8, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Daniel Linville
Daniel Linville (R)
 
100.0
 
3,495

Total votes: 3,495
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Republican primary election

Republican primary for West Virginia House of Delegates District 22

Incumbent Daniel Linville defeated Roy L. Ramey in the Republican primary for West Virginia House of Delegates District 22 on May 10, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Daniel Linville
Daniel Linville
 
80.5
 
970
Image of Roy L. Ramey
Roy L. Ramey
 
19.5
 
235

Total votes: 1,205
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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2020

See also: West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner election, 2020

General election

General election for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Incumbent Kent Leonhardt defeated Robert Beach in the general election for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on November 3, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Kent Leonhardt
Kent Leonhardt (R)
 
65.0
 
480,386
Image of Robert Beach
Robert Beach (D)
 
35.0
 
258,912

Total votes: 739,298
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Robert Beach defeated David Miller and William Keplinger in the Democratic primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on June 9, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Robert Beach
Robert Beach
 
48.2
 
83,997
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
David Miller
 
26.0
 
45,329
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
William Keplinger
 
25.8
 
44,963

Total votes: 174,289
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture

Incumbent Kent Leonhardt defeated Roy L. Ramey in the Republican primary for West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture on June 9, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Kent Leonhardt
Kent Leonhardt
 
63.3
 
115,217
Image of Roy L. Ramey
Roy L. Ramey
 
36.7
 
66,780

Total votes: 181,997
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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2014

See also: West Virginia State Senate elections, 2014

Elections for the West Virginia State Senate took place in 2014. A primary election took place on May 13, 2014. The general election was held on November 4, 2014. The signature filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was January 25, 2014. Robert Alexander was defeated by Mike Woelfel in the Democratic primary, while Vicki Dunn-Marshall was unopposed in the Republican primary. Woelfel defeated Dunn-Marshall and Roy L. Ramey (I) in the general election.[2][3][4]

West Virginia State Senate District 5, General Election, 2014
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.pngMike Woelfel 49.8% 12,511
     Republican Vicki Dunn-Marshall 47% 11,818
     Independent Roy L. Ramey 3.2% 793
Total Votes 25,122


West Virginia State Senate, District 5 Democratic Primary, 2014
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.pngMike Woelfel 74.5% 5,218
Robert Alexander 25.5% 1,784
Total Votes 7,002

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Roy L. Ramey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ramey's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

I am a Christian, family man, retired veteran of 33 years in the Army and a regenerative farmer. I attend Barboursville Baptist Church in Barboursville, WV. My wife is Frances and I am very active in homeschooling my teen daughter including teaching at our local homeschool coop.

I began my service as an enlisted Private and worked my way up the Lieutenant Colonel. I served in all components including active, national guard and army reserves. I also served in combat in Iraq as a company commander in an armor battalion.

I practice regenerative agriculture on our small family farm in Cabell County, WV. I have been very active in promoting local food including starting a year round indoor farmers market 12 years ago and has seen continual growth every since.

  • We have lost too many farms and farm land in WV which is not sustainable and hurts local food choices.
  • We have entirely too many regulations at the state and federal level. Heavy regulations only helps massive industrial agriculture and hurts small farmers like we have in WV. I support and actively work to cut these onerous regulations while my opponent actively defends regulations and makes excuses why we cannot eliminate them. I will use the authority of this office to work with legislators in eliminating heavy regulations to support small farmers in WV.
  • I support agriculture education at all levels. Having a long background in education, from teaching in college to serving as a military school commandant and now promoting homeschooling in WV, I know what it takes to teach others about agriculture. I will promote FFA and 4H for school age children as well as develop workshops on our state owned farms to help WV farmers learn about low cost infrastructure and profitable methods so they can put these skills to use and grow their farms. We will also use the marking arm to promote WV farms and WV products. WV has the capacity to produce a lot more food and create excellent opportunities for small farmers.

Cutting regulations against small farms. Particularly in meat processing and local dairy. I support the PRIME Act which will allow farmers to sell their meat under the Custom slaughter guidelines. That alone will promote more custom facilities to open and more farmers to increase meat production in their local communities.

And look, we're not going to follow that woke nonsense about cutting meat and eating the bugs. We need more farmers to produce quality pastured livestock and that is what we will promote in WV. When other places cut meat, they will be begging for real meat from WV.

Since it is a constitutionally elected officer, I would not be beholden to the governor as many other appointed executives are. I get to work for and represent the people directly and serve the will of the voters.

So, as many of the heavy regulations are in fact unconstitutional and often not even founded in law, I am at liberty to follow the constitution first and refrain from enforcing unconstitutional regulations.

Also, the legislators often see this official as "the expert" on food and farm issues and takes their input regarding new legislation. So whatever the Commissioner says is a huge influence. I will use that power to the benefit of promoting small farmers and consumers in WV instead of what normally happens of supporting big industry lobbyists.

I will always eri on the side of liberty and freedom for the people of WV first.

George Washington as the father of this nation. He set the example for others to follow.

My step dad, who raised me as his own son, after my father was killed in Vietnam. He provided the strong family values to set my life to and set the example for me to follow in my own life.

Joel Salatin, who sets the example in regenerative and profitable farming and helps to educate others.

Congressman Thomas Massie, who is a modern day statesman, unlike any other elected official today. He knows, understands and follows the constitution and makes that the rule and guide of his decision-making in the capitol. It's not about personal gain or what special interests he can help.

A good starting place to understand my philosophy is to understand some of my mentors and like minded people. If you ever watch Congressman Thomas Massie or look at his voting record, you will see me. Politically, he is my identical twin brother.

Watch any video or read any book by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. Particularly, his book "Everything I Want to do is Illegal" is a good starting point. Also, as I subscribe to helping others "You Can Farm" is a way to show others that you can just do it and is an encouraging resource.

Two other strong mentors of mine are Jack Spirko who produces a daily podcast about resilience and liberty and John Moody who worked with Salatin to conduct the annual Rogue Food Conference based on liberty and "can do" spirit to empower others to farm despite overwhelming conditions against small farming.

The most important thing is to protect our inhearant natural rights in accordance with the Constitution. Along with that is to have high ethical standards of honor and integrity.

So as I have swore to protect and defend the Constitution for over 33 years in the military, I actually taught that Constitution to my military cadets in college and gained a tremendous understanding of what that means. Even as I learned more, I saw many rights get trampled in this country. I'm committed to defending everyones rights even when various levels of government are trying desperately to trample those rights.

Although there are several laws and regulations which are unconstitutional, I will refuse to enforce those measures which are unconstitutional and instead work with the legislatures when possible to reverse bad laws which violate the rights of the people.

I have a strong will to serve the people in protecting their rights. I'm not going to get rich. I have to will power to avoid giving preferential treatment to special interest groups with money who use that money to entice officials to help them at the expense of others.

The number one responsibility is to protect everyones inhearant natural rights in accordance with the Constitution. Next is to promote farming and food production in WV. Along with that is to ensure food safety in accordance with good constitutional laws.

I want to cut heavy regulations so that we can see a growth in small farms in WV. I want to see a growth in our economy and local power and resilience. I want to see an environment where my children and grandchildren can have significant opportunities without government infringement.

I remember the Bi-centinial celebration in 1976. I was 6 and it was a grand celebration everywhere in the country. School, church, TV, out at events. Everyone talked about it coming up for a long time.

I remember at a local park in Huntington, WV, officials dug up a time capsule and showed several items that had been buried long ago to be exhumed on this prescribed date. In kind token, they buried a new vault as a time capsule for the future. I dont think I'll live to see the Tri-centinial, but who knows what God has in store for me.

Formally earning money, I mowed lawns for my neighbors all through high school. Starting in the summer before my freshman year and continuing until I graduated and started college at Marshall University. But I also worked construction in the summer for the same company as my dad and worked stocking shelves at a warehouse part time as well.

I continued doing lawn and odd jobs through college as well as joining the national guard for part time work and service.

"You Have Permission to Figure it Out."

This is actually not a book yet, but rather the title of the book I will write in the future from notes I have gathered over several years of my service.

It will be about using critical thinking to solve the problems which plague all of us. I taught critical thinking as part of my coursework in the army and decided we need more of that. Its lacking in so many areas of our lives. We should be teaching this to children at the youngest age.

The title was inspired by my then young daughter when I was pondering on a problem one day. She told me that I had permission to figure it out and I realized I needed that for the title of my future book on that topic.

I'm just happy to be me and that I have a worthy purpose in life to serve others. No fictional character could be that.

Standing up against others who try to flex their power and authority over others. Bullies. We have them in private and public sector. We just dont need that in our lives.

I think this office was created to control small farms to and stifle competition against the industrial farming system. But that needs to stop. It's not good for WV farmers or consumers. We need to remove some of this government power and restore those powers to the people themselves.

So again, protecting peoples inherent natural rights is the most important function. But then use the office to support and promote the growth of more small farms in WV and support the expansion of food choice and healthy food products for WV consumers. This will strengthen WV economy and help WV to become more resilient from outside influences, resilient against fluctuations in the economy and global agendas which are not in the best interest of WV.

Its important that this official have experience, but not as a big government bureaucrat. The first experience is in protecting the constitution and individual rights. Nothing else is important if we fail at that. I have this history through my military service.

After that, we should have experience IN Agriculture. Specifically agriculture which is favorable to what we can do profitably in WV. We are unique and different from Indiana where they plow 5,000 acres, plant corn and spray roundup. But we can do a tremendous amount of variety of Agriculture in WV. So someone who farms like Polyface Farms where it is similar to WV terrain and conditions would be beneficial. I also have this experience and have demonstrated it to others.

Additionally, leadership experience is essential. The officeholder will be leading men and women who affect farm and food policy in WV. You have to have vision and goals and understand a mission. Be able to teach and mentor others. I have been a leader in the military since the beginning of my career. And as my later job was establishing and implementing army policy for the entire force, I have that experience and understanding the implication of how that policy affects others all the way down to the bottom.

What we dont need experience at is career politicians and those who take one office, then quit mid-way through to step up to another office for their own gain. I have never been elected or served in political office. But I have worked with legislators to pass new laws, repeal bad laws and affect regulation to become more favorable for the people.

The officeholder should be able to relate to people and talk with them. Be able to hear what they say and understand what they want. Then they need to be able to distill this down to knowing how high level policy will affect those at the lowest levels, the people.

Since I started at the bottom and worked my way up in the military, and since I operate my own own farm and a farmers market outlet, dealing with customers, I have that understanding and know the effect of laws and regulations on the final product.

Congressman Thomas Massie, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, John Moody of Rogue Food Conference, Rodney LaRose of Mid-State Auto, Wil Spencer of Patient Advocate Bulldog, Vets 4 Vet Leadership,

All government money is taxpayers money. First, we should cut spending so we dont need as much government spending, leaving more for the people to begin with. Then, for every penny taken from taxpayers, there needs to be strong accountability and complete transparency of how it is spent. We constantly see how government wastes money. Government uses a shell game to hide money. And government uses fear tactics to scare you into giving more money for some unnecessary purpose. That needs to stop. The less money we take from taxpayers, the less we need to account for and the less we are able to waste.

I am committed to analyzing all of the spending by the WVDA and finding ways to cut spending and returning more money to the taxpayers.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.



Campaign website

Ramey’s campaign website stated the following:

Roy Ramey is a proud husband and father, small farmer and retired Army officer of 33 years service. He practices regenerative livestock and forest farming as well as agro-education.

Ramey believes there are entirely too many regulations at both the state and federal levels. These onerous regulations only benefit massive industrial scale corporations and hurt small local farmers in WV. Government spending is out of control and unsustainable. WV has lost over 1200 farms in the past 6 years under the current administration.

Ramey is a constitutional conservative. As an elected official, he will first uphold the constitution to protect your inhearant individual natural rights as he did during his decades of military service. He will do what’s best for the people and farmers of WV first above the financial interests of Washington, foreign nationalists and industrialists.

He will aggressively and drastically reduce onerous regulations in several ways. First, by changing department policies which limit administrative help to farmers. Also by providing legislative liaison to the WV Legislature as well as US Congress to change laws which stifle innovation and free choice in healthy food options. And finally, where existing laws and regulations are unconstitutional, Ramey will simply stand against and refuse to adhere to them.

Ramey will promote small farming that is both regenerative and profitable in WV. He will place an emphasis for marketing WV farmers and production facilities.

He will emphasize education in agriculture throughout WV, including using WVDA State Farms as a demonstration site based on regenerative practices with low cost infrastructure, conducting educational workshops to share those principles and practices. He will support youth education through FFA and 4H as well as general classes.

Ramey will use a common sense approach to keep the environment clean while still increasing agriculture in WV. First, he will prohibit the use of dangerous herbicides and pesticides on WVDA State Farms as an example to others, as he does on his own farm. Second, will remediate and reclaim abandoned mines to transform into available and clean farm land for more WVian farmers to have access.

– Increase small farms in general
– Increase meat processing facilities
– Reclaim abandoned mines for future farms
– Demonstration sites based on Polyface Farms example
– Expand education of local, regenerative and profitable agriculture
– Reduce cost of government spending
– Defend and expand free market enterprise
– Defend health freedom through food and medicine access
– Allow farm fresh dairy
– Expand forest farming access, including maple syrup and ginseng[5]

—Roy L. Ramey’s campaign website (2024)[6]

2022

Roy L. Ramey did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

2020

Roy L. Ramey did not complete Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection survey.

Campaign finance summary


Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.


Roy L. Ramey campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2024* West Virginia Commissioner of AgricultureLost primary$0 $0
2022West Virginia House of Delegates District 22Lost primary$1,050 $115
Grand total$1,050 $115
Sources: OpenSecretsFederal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

See also


External links

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Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 15, 2024
  2. West Virginia Secretary of State, "Official primary candidate list," accessed February 7, 2014
  3. West Virginia Secretary of State, "Official primary election results," accessed June 18, 2014
  4. West Virginia Secretary of State, "Statewide Results," accessed June 18, 2014
  5. Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  6. Ramey for West Virginia, “Platform,” accessed March 10, 2024