John Hervey Kerr (1921 - 2003)

Born 9 Oct 1921 in Lexington, Fayette Co., KY

Husband of Mary (LaBach) Kerr — married 17 May 1947 in Lexington, Fayette Co., KY

Died 31 May 2003 at age 81 in Lexington, KY

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This person was created through the import of LaBach Family TreeApril28_2011.ged on 05 May 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability.

Event

Event:

Type: resides

Place: Lexington, Fayette Co., KY

Occupation

Occupation: Funeral Director

User ID

User ID: 5444A6E6045945E39C6DC0F7F23D55544159

Note

Note: John H. Kerr, Jr. was a licensed funeral director at Kerr Brothers

Funeral Home, founded by his family in 1905, since 1949. He was state

GOP chairman from 1968 to 1973. In addition to being chairman of the

Republican State Central Committee, he was a former district

Republican Party chairman, had been a member of the party's Fayette

County executive committee, was a Fayette County commissioner in the

1950s, and was a Lexington city commissioner and mayor pro tem in the

1960s. He was heavily involved in several campaigns on the local and

state levels, including the campaigns of former U.S. Sen. John Sherman

Cooper and former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He

was executive secretary of the Funeral Directors Association of

Kentucky from 1952 to 1982 and secretary/ treasurer of the association

from 1952 to 1993. He was also was a charter member and former

chairman and secretary/treasurer of the Kentucky Funeral Directors

Burial Association. He was a former campaign chairman for the old

United Community Fund and helped organize an annual community

Christmas program. He was a president of the Lexington Junior Chamber

of Commerce. The organization once named him Fayette County's

Outstanding Young Man. The state Jaycees named him one of three

Outstanding Young Men in Kentucky during the 1950s. He was born Oct.

9, 1921, the son of J. Hervey Kerr, a former longtime Fayette County

coroner, and Elizabeth Latham Kerr, a former Republican state campaign

chairwoman and Republican State Central Committee member. He was a

1938 graduate of Henry Clay High School and a 1942 honor graduate of

the University of Kentucky, where he received a bachelor of science

degree in commerce. A first lieutenant in the infantry in Germany

during World War II, he received a Purple Heart for wounds he received

in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a director of the Central Kentucky

Chapter of the Reserve Officers Association. A member of Broadway

Christian Church, he was a member of the church's board of deacons and

choir. He was also a Mason and had been active in the Lexington Club

and the Lexington Lions Club.