Leadership Tri-County presents Keck with Leader of the Year Award

John Bill Keck poses with his former pastor, Jimmy Siler, and his wife and sons after receiving the Leadership Tri-County Leader of the Year Award last Thursday evening during a banquet held at First Baptist Church in Barbourville. From left, Brandon Keck, Jeff Keck, Siler, John Bill Keck, Gloria Keck and David Keck.

Corbin businessman John Bill Keck has held a lot of titles in his life, including: teacher, soldier, salesman, pilot, wedding photographer, Sunday school teacher, choir leader, husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.

Last Thursday night, he has one more title to add to that list. Leadership Tri-County named him its 2022 Leader of the Year during its banquet held at Barbourville’s First Baptist Church.

Also, during the ceremony, Leadership Tri-County presented the 2022 Luminary Award posthumously to Knox County businessman Curt Corey, who passed away on Jan. 9, 2017.

John Bill Keck addressed the crowd after receiving his plaque for being named Leadership Tri-County’s Leader of the Year.

“There are a lot of things that can be learned from our two leaders tonight. I know that Mr. Corey left a great legacy. I also know that Mr. Keck is a living legacy. We would all be better if we could lead our lives similar to what they have led theirs,” noted Leadership Tri-County Director Lee Richardson.

Keck was raised in Gray, grew up on a farm, and attended Keck School for the first four years of his life where grades first through eighth were all taught in the same room with 40 kids inside. He then transferred to Gray School and Lynn Camp High School before graduating from Cumberland College with a bachelor’s degree and then he got a Master’s Degree in Education Administration from Eastern Kentucky University.

After college he enlisted in the U.S. Army and went in the Combat Engineers, where he learned to build temporary bridges.

Keck taught school at East Ward School in Corbin for five years and was selected as Teacher of the Year in 1966.

Jimmy Siler, who was Keck’s pastor for 12 years at Keck Baptist Church and presented the award to Keck Thursday night, noted that Keck was on pace for a successful teaching career and maybe as an administrator until his wife, Gloria, invited him to a cookware party that changed his life.

Jimmy Siler presents John Bill Keck with his Leader of the Year Award as Keck’s wife, Gloria, watches.

“While he was at that cookware party, he thought, ‘I can sell this,’” Siler said. “So he started selling cookware and enlisting other people to help him sell cookware. Thus began his adventure as a salesman. He became so successful at it that he took a great leap of faith and left the education business to become a salesman.”

Keck noted that he tried selling part-time for a while and then calculated out how much he could make by selling full-time as opposed to what he could make teaching. When he told his wife that he planned to quit teaching to do sales full-time, she was pregnant with their oldest child and wasn’t exactly enthused that they would lose their health insurance.

Despite his wife’s concerns, John Bill Keck persisted that he was going into sales fulltime. It proved to be the correct decision.

“Nothing happens unless somebody sells something in business,” Keck noted.

“Good things don’t happen unless somebody sells … I still like it today. I do.”

He became a salesman for SMC Industries and Masterguard Corp. of Dallas, Texas, Kentucky Family Security Life Insurance Company and National Underwriters Stock Company of Lexington.

He sold everything from encyclopedias to stocks and insurance.

His sales efforts won him not one but two trips around the world each of which lasted 22 days, and his first color television.

“God has just blessed him tremendously to work and lead others in industry,” Siler added. “John Bill found out something to be true … in the scriptures it says, ‘those who sow bountifully reap also bountifully.’ There is a law in business of sewing and reaping as there is anything in life. If we sew into business our work, our effort, leadership skills, determination all of those things put into business there will be a reward.”

“I believe John Bill has been blessed to see that reward in his business life. Many other people have been blessed because of his success as well, who have partnered with him and worked with him in his life.”

In 2000, Keck was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year.

Siler added that Keck is always willing to tell everyone and anyone, who is willing to hear, about his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and what He has done for him in his life.

He has three children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.

At the age of 82, he still works six days a week and goes to church on Sunday at Keck Baptist Church where he teaches Sunday school and is the choir leader.

“I am really happy to tell you all today that I am a Christian,” he said.

“Some people hear the truth but want to take off in the other direction. It is really hard to honest with yourself. If I had one thing to say it would be honest with yourself,” Keck said.

Siler added that he has always found Keck willing to go the extra mile to help someone in need and to encourage someone.

“One thing he has been concerned about is the drug abuse issue in our communities. He has taken it upon himself to take leadership roles and to try to help those who are caught up in addiction and the families, who are affected by addiction in our county,” Siler noted.

Leadership Tri-County first selected Keck for the award in 2020, but the banquet the last two years was canceled due to the pandemic.

Curt Corey honored

In 1964, Corey started Farmers Supply Hardware in Barbourville and later Farmers Supply and Explosives to sell ammonium nitrate to area mines for blasting.

Mike Corey presented members of the late Curt Corey’s family with this plaque recognizing him as Leadership Tri-County’s 2022 Luminary Of the Year.

Over the years he expanded into other industries building Grove Marina on Laurel Lake and then purchasing Holly Bay Marina and Gwinn Island Resort.

In 1992, he and a partner purchased land in Corbin and started a coal processing plant known as C.H. Development. At one time he employed 106 people.

“What a great work ethic this man had,” noted Mike Corey, who presented Thursday’s award to Curt Corey’s family. Mike Corey was a former employee of Curt Corey.

“Curt Corey was a truly light to many people. He started from very humble beginnings, as a lot of us have, but he never forgot where he came from.”

Curt Corey was also active in First Baptist Church in Barbourville where he served as a deacon, worked with the youth, and visited the sick. In 1981, he was selected as Kentucky Small Business Man of the Year and was awarded the 1994 Daniel Boone Festival Outstanding Citizen Award.”

“He always had a heart for young people,” Mike Corey noted. “Curt Corey was a giver in life. He was not a taker … He was a great giver and we need more of that today.”

Siler added that Keck and Corey are two men, who he has respected and admired for many years.

During the banquet, on behalf of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Donna McClure presented Keck and Corey’s family with U.S. flags that had flown over the nation’s Capitol.