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).
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