Until Friday night, I didn’t realize what a production GameDay in Putnam Stadium has become and how professional those working behind the scenes make it look so impressive.

While most Ashland Tomcat fans know that Chuck Rist is the public address announcer – he’s been doing the job he loves for more than three decades – watching him work with the operation team in the pressbox gave me an even greater appreciation of what the consummate professional does so effortlessly and how he leads a team that provides a valuable service.

It used to be the PA announcer told us who was carrying the ball and who made the tackle. Push the mic on and off, make the call, rinse and repeat. If he had a good spotter, that made it an easier night. Nothing is easy now. It’s an entire production.

Chuck still has a spotter – Tierra Kingery – and she is good. Make that great. I sat beside her Friday night watching her give Chuck the numbers of the ball carriers and tacklers (she doesn’t miss either) and has the added job of running the controls for the Jumbotron scoreboard’s various videos, advertisements and graphics. She and Chuck work like clockwork, talking through what needs to be shown and when, never getting rattled or flustered. Nobody gets missed on the PA calls, and the giant scoreboard becomes a big part of the game.

They also have a camerawoman that’s associated with the scoreboard in Jessica Taylor, the daughter of the late Mel Smith, who was Chuck’s spotter for more than 30 years. She is equal opportunity, too, Friday night she focused attention on the Boyd County band as well as Ashland’s band.

Much like Tierra, she needs no instruction. She’s top-notch on the camera. In basketball season, Jessica controls the video board along with her daughter, Gracie, in Anderson gym.

Chuck is on the PA in basketball, too, and Tierra is the official scorer for basketball.

On the other side of the football pressbox, Tierra’s brother, Demacrus Caslisle, handles the scoreboard clock and down-and-distance and he’s also the timer in basketball. Those jobs demand complete concentration with no room for error

Chuck’s name is probably the only one that most Tomcat fans knew was working in the pressbox but there’s a lot more activity than eating Giovanni’s pizza. Chuck is the “coach” but his operations partners are the best, and a team just like the one playing on the field. Either you work together or you get embarrassed.

Ashland’s GameDay experience is second to none on the high school level. The bells and whistles associated with the rebuild of Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Putnam Stadium make it a GameDay experience supreme.

My Town TV has provided impressive hype videos that are played on the scoreboard, giving the stadium a college atmosphere. Putnam Stadium is certainly a showcase and the Jumbotron gives them another level of information and entertainment with an operation crew that serves on a championship level.

I’m personally thankful for My Town’s excellent coverage since moving to northern Kentucky in 2022. I’ve hardly missed a snap, but when the Tomcats are on the road, radio voice Tyler Rowland often becomes my eyes.

Hello, again

Charlie Chatfield, the last radio partner in Dicky Martin’s long and accomplished career of covering the Tomcats, was back in the press box as a guest sidekick for Rowland.

Charlie, as he so often did with Dicky, fit right into the flow of the game, providing informative nuggets and analyses as needed. He was happy to be there but said it was tough, and emotional, to be back in that seat without his longtime partner beside him. Charlie partnered in home and nearby football games for several seasons with Dicky, who passed away a year ago this coming Thursday.  

Book No. 12 is about another great Ashland Tomcat season – “The Boys They Called JAWS.” It chronicles the 1975 season when Ashland won its first 14 games before losing to St. Xavier in the first Class AAAA championship game. It pitted the Class AAAA state at-large champions against the Jefferson County champion. The book is available in softback ($25) or hardback ($35). Follow the link to order today! https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/TU53F77YFGW5Y

Kenner Ellis Johnson’s family ties made him basketball royalty in Ashland. He and his father, Ellis Johnson, played on two of the Tomcats’ most famous teams — the undefeated 1928 state and national champions and the 1961 state champions that many still consider the best there ever was in Kentucky.

Known as Kenn, he passed away Saturday morning in Mount Sterling after an extended battle with Parkinson’s. He was 81. His father died in 1990.

Johnson grew up under the long shadow of his father in Ashland, although he didn’t seem to mind, taking great care of the legacy. Ellis Johnson would be in any conversation about the greatest athlete ever produced at Ashland High School.

“I knew my father as a rotund, slick-bald fellow with a slight limp from an old football injury. I’d give anything to see those flickering newsreel images of him as a slim, muscled youth with a lock of curly hair flopping on his forehead as he dribbled the seconds away,” Kenn wrote in Kentucky Living magazine.

Ellis Johnson was known for his elite dribbling skills, often putting games on ice with that talent, in a much different style of game than is played today. He went on to the University of Kentucky, where he played football and basketball and became the first All-American under Adolph Rupp. Ellis later coached at both Marshall and Morehead, where the basketball arena is named in his memory.

“My father was, by all accounts, a noted athlete who, as a college freshman, was a member of the committee that hired a young Adolph Rupp to coach at the University of Kentucky and who later was named an All-American on the 1933 Wildcats basketball team,” Kenn wrote in the magazine story.

Of the national championship tournament in Chicago, Kenn wrote that his father was named captain of the tournament’s All-American team due to being the only unanimous choice of the selection committee.

“Back in Ashland, the city had virtually shut down, with most of its citizens gathered around telegraph outlets for play-by-play accounts of the games. When the news came that the Tomcats were the national champs, the citizens “went stark, raving crazy” and car horns and shotgun blasts were heard well past midnight, according to reports from the Ashland Daily Independent,” Kenn wrote in the magazine article. “When the Tomcats arrived home Sunday afternoon, 10,000 wild fans met them at the train station on 11th Street, and fire trucks inched the heroes through the throng down Winchester Avenue to 17th Street in a jubilant celebration that lasted for hours, actually weeks, as the Tomcats traveled the state for dinners and ceremonies well into the summer.”

Two days after the Tomcats returned home, the Grand Theater showed newsreel footage of the tournament, including Carr Creek against the New Mexico team and Ashland against Canton, he wrote.

The good genes were passed on to his son. Kenn Johnson was a sophomore on the 1961 state championship team led by Larry Conley and Harold Sargent and coached by Bob Wright. He didn’t play much on that talented team, but he started the next two seasons.

In 1962, Ashland returned to the state championship game and nearly pulled off an upset of top-ranked St. Xavier, falling 62-58 to a team led by the great Mike Silliman.

Johnson’s 20 points in the semifinals against Caneyville helped advance Ashland to the finals at Freedom Hall in Louisville. He scored 13 in the championship game, one of three double-figure scorers for Ashland who fell just shy of the repeat.

During his senior season, Johnson averaged 11.5 points per game for a 19-11 team. Olive Hill shocked Ashland 59-57 in the first round of the 16th Region Tournament at Morehead’s Wetherby Gymnasium, ending the Tomcats’ three-year streak of regional championships.

Johnson scored 813 points during his Ashland career. His play was good enough to attract the attention of Georgia, which offered him a scholarship. He played on the Bulldogs’ freshman team in 1964-65, but that would be the end of his basketball career.

A graduate of Morehead State University, Johnson earned degrees in history, journalism and English. He taught English and journalism at Montgomery County High School from 1986-2006 and was faculty sponsor of the award-winning high school newspaper, The Tribal Tribune. He founded the Broadcast Journalism program at MCHS and was also the sponsor of Co-Ed-Y.

Kenn also dabbled in coaching, serving for a short time as an assistant to Marvin Meredith at Russell High School and Bart Rison at Montgomery County High School.

In addition to teaching, Johnson was a reporter and cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader and served as a photographer, sportswriter and sports editor for the Mt. Sterling Advocate from 1988 to 1992. Johnson also penned a popular human-interest column called Sidelines.

Johnson’s interests extended well beyond teaching and journalism. He was a visual artist, songwriter, music and film buff and voracious reader. In 2014, he had a solo exhibit, “Paintings from a Man Cave,” at the Gateway Regional Art Center.

He and his wife traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States, returning many times to Martha’s Vineyard, a place that held special meaning for them.

Johnson is survived by his wife of 35 years, Janet (Hays) Johnson; his daughters, Lindsay (Troy) Porcelli and Rory (Aaron) Gruler; and his grandsons, Henry Kenner Porcelli, Ellis Joseph Porcelli and Jack Emerson Gruler. He was preceded in death by his parents and his sister, Barbara Kennedy.

A funeral service honoring Kenner Johnson’s life will be Saturday, Sept. 12, at Taul Funeral Home, 109 East Main Street, Mount Sterling, with Pastor Paul David Prather officiating. Visitation will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by the funeral service at 1 p.m. A memorial stone will be erected at Haysville Cemetery in Lebanon, Kentucky, at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).