When bureaucratic roadblocks threatened plans for a maximum security prison in far Southwest Virginia, George Allen's young secretary of public safety advised the Republican governor to move forcefully to break the logjam.

Just months after Allen took office in 1994, the tough-talking governor saw efforts to build a prison on Red Onion Mountain in Wise County being thwarted by the state Board of Corrections. The board would not accept a deed for the donated property from Pittston Coal Co., and some lawmakers were questioning whether the new facility should even be built in Southwest Virginia.

Allen turned to Jerry Kilgore, his 32-year-old public safety secretary, for advice. Kilgore reminded his boss that the corrections board, which had been appointed by Allen's Democratic predecessor, served at the governor's pleasure. He advised Allen to clean house, to appoint a new board that would accept the deed and fulfill a promise the governor had made during his 1993 campaign.

Allen followed Kilgore's advice and, in the process, gained a greater appreciation for a Cabinet officer whose youth and rural background had been fodder for Capitol Square skeptics.

"I knew I could trust him," said Allen, now a U.S. senator. "When I had to make tough decisions, I had a great deal of confidence in him -- even though he was young."

When reminded in a recent interview of his recommendation to Allen, Kilgore laughed wryly and said: "Does that tell you something about how I work?"

To Kilgore, there was more at stake than a piece of Allen's high-profile criminal justice reform agenda. The Red Onion project also promised jobs in a region that badly needed them, a region that Kilgore called home. Under those circumstances, he said, a purge was justified.

"He was just real committed to that project and he was being stonewalled," said Kilgore's identical twin brother, Terry, a freshman member of the House of Delegates at the time.

Once dismissed by critics as too young and too inexperienced to serve in a governor's Cabinet, Kilgore flourished as Allen's point man on criminal justice matters. His easygoing demeanor masked a steely competitiveness that allies admired and adversaries occasionally misjudged.

Kilgore later built his own political operation and was elected attorney general in 2001. He carved out his own identity on law-and-order issues during his three years in the attorney general's office, pushing for aggressive measures to punish gang activity, computer crimes and domestic violence. He also cemented his standing as a party leader by speaking out when he disagreed with lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Mark Warner.

Now, at 44, Kilgore is the Republican nominee for governor, trying to complete an improbable climb from the Scott County courthouse to the executive mansion.

Hard work, meticulous planning and a love of politics have fueled Kilgore's rise. So have his Southwest Virginia roots, which Kilgore wears like a badge of honor. His distinctive twang is tangible evidence of his Scott County origins. And his campaign rhetoric suggests that he won't forget them.

Kilgore peppers his stump speeches with references to home -- often to explain the values that shape his politics and his persona, and sometimes to call attention to disparities that limited opportunities for some of his peers.

"So often -- because we grew up where we did, we grew up how we did -- expectations aren't as high for us," Kilgore said during an August interview. "I just want to break that barrier, break that mold."

Kilgore grew up along the Tennessee border near Gate City, some 350 miles southwest of Virginia's capital. His father, John Sr., was an iron welder at Eastman Chemical Co. in Kingsport, Tenn. His mother, Willie Mae, was Gate City's first female police officer before becoming the Scott County voting registrar, a job she still holds. His brother John Jr. heads the county's economic development authority.

Raised on a farm, Kilgore delights in telling stories of helping out in the fields, of slaughtering hogs on Thanksgiving and developing an addiction to sweets that he maintains today. Brisk morning runs burn off the calories he consumes in his dessert binges.

"He grew up with such a strong work ethic," said Kilgore's wife, Marty, who met her husband in Gate City during one of his summer breaks from college.

Marty Kilgore, the daughter of a Methodist minister, remembers her mother doing some "homework" on Kilgore before their first date. She said she learned three things about her future husband from her mother's scouting report: that he came from a tight-knit family, that the Kilgores were "good Christian people" and that Jerry was "very active in politics."

Politics indeed was a family pastime for the Kilgore family. John Sr. has been chairman of the Scott County Republican Committee since 1980 and has been active in the party even longer. Kilgore recalls childhood trips to state political conventions and other events, experiences that he considered "just as important as the courses we were taking in school or in college."

Kilgore was fascinated with politics at an early age. By 15, he was organizing his parents' voting precinct for the GOP. He pored over election returns like a baseball fan studies box scores. His encyclopedic knowledge of voting patterns, precinct organizations and other political minutiae would eventually make him a valuable resource to Republican office-seekers -- including his twin brother.

"I thought he would be the one sitting here today running for governor," Kilgore said of Terry, who was Scott County's commonwealth's attorney before getting elected to the House in 1993.

Kilgore said he was happy to be the "chief political adviser" for his look-alike brother, a role he took on during Terry's student government elections at Clinch Valley College (now the University of Virginia's College at Wise). He graduated from law school with no aspirations for elective office, expecting instead to practice law and participate in local Republican politics.

Kilgore landed a job in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Roanoke and later moved to the Abingdon office, where he concentrated on drug cases brought by five regional task forces. After Democrat Bill Clinton was elected president in 1993, Kilgore returned to Gate City to practice law and work as a part-time prosecutor with his brother. He also served as chairman of the Republican Party's 9^th Congressional District committee, becoming a key Southwest Virginia organizer in Allen's 1993 campaign. After the election, Kilgore planned to seek the prosecutor's job vacated by his brother and stay in Gate City with his wife and baby son. But, he said, "all of that went by the wayside" when Allen offered him a Cabinet post.

State Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, was adamant that Allen's Cabinet include a Southwest Virginian. Wampler figured Kilgore's experience as a prosecutor made him a good fit for public safety secretary, a high-profile post in an administration committed to abolishing parole and reforming the criminal justice system. When Wampler met with other Republicans from the region to discuss prospective Cabinet officers, Kilgore's name surfaced quickly.

Kilgore endured what he described as "Washingtonian-style" confirmation hearings and "brutal" treatment from the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Democrat Joseph Gartlan of Fairfax County. Gartlan would join the rest of the Senate in confirming Kilgore's appointment, but not before telling the fresh-faced prosecutor: "I think you have an appalling lack of understanding about the core problem of public safety in Virginia."

"The majority party, the Democrats at the time, decided to pick on Jerry," said Wampler, who helped guide his friend through the confirmation process.

Kilgore allies said the young Cabinet secretary showed his mettle right away by taking charge of Allen's signature initiative, the abolition of parole.

The bill passed during a special legislative session in 1994, with Kilgore playing a key role as administration point man.

"He had to work on a No. 1 piece of legislation for the Allen administration with a hostile General Assembly and he didn't alienate anybody," said Sen. Ken Stolle, R-Virginia Beach.

No one feels more strongly than Allen that Kilgore answered his critics.

"Just look at the record," said the former governor, using the Red Onion dispute as an example of Kilgore's leadership ability.

"That was an example of him sticking to principles, being smart and being creative," Allen said.

If the early doubts about Kilgore bothered him in any way, he long ago put those feelings behind him.

He said he enjoys "swimming against the tide and defying the odds."

"I've been underestimated my whole life," he said with a broad grin. "I like that role."