Keen Johnson was the 45th Governor of Kentucky, serving from 1939 to 1943. Johnson served in the U.S. Army during World War I. He purchased and edited the Elizabethtown Mirror newspaper. He used the profits to obtain his journalism degree from the University of Kentucky in 1922.
About Keen Johnson in brief
Keen Johnson was the 45th Governor of Kentucky, serving from 1939 to 1943. He is the only journalist to have held that office. Johnson served in the U.S. Army during World War I. He purchased and edited the Elizabethtown Mirror newspaper. He used the profits to obtain his journalism degree from the University of Kentucky in 1922. He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the United States Senate in 1960. He died February 7, 1970, and was buried in Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, Kentucky. He was the only son of Reverend Robert and Mattie Johnson. His parents named him in honor of John S. Keen, a family friend from Adair County, Kentucky, on January 12, 1896. He married Eunice Nichols on June 23, 1917, while still completing his military training. Their only child, a daughter named Judith, was born May 19, 1927. He took a year-long leave of absence in 1946 to accept President Harry S. Truman’s appointment as the first U. S. Undersecretary of Labor, serving under Lewis B. Schwellenbach. Johnson was one of three contenders for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 1935. In the primary, he received more votes than his opponents, but a newly enacted law required a runoff if no candidate received a majority of votes. In September 1935, Johnson was named secretary of the State Democratic Central Committee in 1932.
He continued to hold this position and publish the Richmond Daily Register through 1939. After his term as governor, Johnson joined Reynolds Metals as a special assistant to the president. He later purchased half-ownership of The Anderson News and served as the paper’s editor. In 1925, Johnson asked the publisher to enter into a joint venture to purchase the daily paper Lured by the idea of publishing a daily paper. He bought the struggling paper almost from the ground up, and a competitor soon bought him out for a profit. Johnson used the profit from the sale of the Mirror to continue his education at the university. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in 1922 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1940. He went on to become a special adviser to the governor of Kentucky and served in that position until his death in 1970. He also served as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1947 to 1958. He served as mayor of Richmond from 1957 to 1958 and was on the state’s Board of Education from 1958 to 1961. Johnson died in 1970 and is survived by his wife, Judith, and two daughters, Catherine and Christine.
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This page is based on the article Keen Johnson published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
