Ernest Pell

Longtime Paducah resident, Ernest J. Pell, died March 31st, 2011, at the Hospice Care Center in Lexington, Kentucky, following a brief illness. He was 95.

He was an early pioneer in radio broadcasting in Western Kentucky, both as an engineer and announcer, who later moved into television as technical director of WPSD-TV in Paducah. In 1959 he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Paducah School Board and was subsequently elected to two full terms, serving a total of nine years.

He was an active member of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church for several decades before moving to Kentucky Lake where he and his wife were among the founding members of St. Matthew's on the Lake Lutheran Church in Draffenville.

Ernest Joseph Pell was born on December 31, 1915, in Paducah, the son of Walter Stewart Pell and Nell Hymarsh Pell. He was a graduate of Tilghman High School and the Coyne Electrical School in Chicago. He became intrigued by the new phenomenon of radio broadcasting at an early age, building crystal sets to receive signals from the few stations broadcasting during his youth. He later became a licensed "ham" radio operator.

He began his career as an announcer/engineer for WPAD in Paducah in 1938. Two years later he moved to Henderson to oversee the startup of a new radio station there. After the start of World War II he began working for the Girdler Corporation in Louisville, then a major producer of war materials, as a field engineer for the duration of the war.

He returned with his family to Paducah in 1946 to become Chief Engineer at WKTM in Mayfield, and later served in the same capacity at WKYB in Paducah. He then began his career in television, helping design and overseeing construction of WPSD-TV.

In 1968, Mr. Pell joined NBC International which at the time had a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development to build and oversee operations of a television network in South Vietnam. Mr. Pell became head of the project and served for 30 months in Saigon during the height of the Vietnam War.

Later in retirement, Mr. Pell traveled extensively throughout the United States, Asia and Europe before settling for many years at Kentucky Lake near Aurora.

He is survived by his wife of 75 years, Edna Stewart Pell; one sister, Dorothy Cochran of Paducah; four children, Gene Pell (Susan) of Syria, Virginia, Carol Goodman Taylor (Paul) of Lexington, Kentucky, Sandria Cox of Woodbridge, Virginia, and Clark Pell (Debbie) of West Coxsackie, New York; 10 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

Ernest Joseph Pell will long be remembered as a loving and dedicated husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather; a good friend; a man dedicated to the church and to community service; a person who was kind, helpful and generous, possessed with a passion for education and travel, and always a source of inspiration and wisdom.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Milward Funeral Home of Lexington, Ky. Burial will take place at Maplelawn Cemetery in Paducah. A graveside service is being planned and will be announced in the future.