FRANKFORT — The onset of cancer has slowed former Kentucky Supreme Court chief justice and Covington native Robert Stephens, but it hasn't stopped him from working.

        Now 74, Mr. Stephens still tries to put in full days at his Frankfort office, where he's worked for two years as Gov. Paul Patton's justice secretary.

        On Tuesday, Mr. Stephens plans to speak in the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol at a portrait dedication for former Gov. Bert T. Combs.

        But the cancer, diagnosed in his left lung in late June and now in his liver, is taking its toll.

        “I have developed a severe case of anemia so I can't always take the chemo on time,” Mr. Stephens said.

        “I've had about five different blood transfusions. I can't have surgery.”

        The illness has made him focus, Mr. Stephens said, on “what is truly important.

        “The most important thing in your earthly life is your family and friends,” he said.

        “But the most important is your spiritual life. I'm 74. I've had a good life here.”

        Mr. Stephens was born Aug. 16, 1927, in Covington. He graduated as valedictorian from Beechwood High School in 1945.

        After practicing law from 1961 to 1970, Mr. Stephens ran for Fayette County judge and won.

        He was a key to pushing the merger of the governments of Lexington and Fayette County. He considered running for mayor after the merger, but Gov. Julian Carroll advised against that.

        Instead, he ran in 1975 for state attorney general and won. He beefed up consumer protection laws and modernized the state's prosecutors' system.

        A month before his term expired in 1979, Mr. Carroll appointed Mr. Stephens to the state Supreme Court, where he would serve 19 years.

        Mr. Stephens won an election to the high court in 1980. In two years, his colleagues on the bench chose him to be chief justice.

        Among the three biggest court decisions of the Stephens era were allowing state subsidies to help Kentucky land the huge Toyota plant in Georgetown; striking down the state law forbidding sodomy between consenting adults; and the 1989 ruling that junked the state's public school system and led to the Kentucky Education Reform Act.

        The education ruling contributed tremendously to the nation's school reform movement, said Bob Sexton of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

        After stepping down from the bench, Mr. Stephens accepted Mr. Patton's request in 1999 to become justice secretary.

        “He's an excellent leader and he's still making a significant difference in his state,” said state police Commissioner Ishmon Burks.

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