Kenneth Bates, a former county magistrate and the host of a gospel music program on local radio stations for more than 40 years, has died. He was 71.
Bates had been ill recently and was found deceased on Tuesday at his First Street residence, his cousin Willie Canty told Hoptown Chronicle.
“He was an icon. He was Hopkinsville all over,” Canty said.
In a January 2022 interview with Hoptown Chronicle, Bates spoke about the gospel music programs he hosted on WHOP and WNKJ in Hopkinsville and on WEKT in Elkton. His first program aired about 45 years ago on WHOP. He recorded the weekly sessions in a studio he created at his residence.
This news outlet called him Hopkinsville’s “dean of gospel music.”
Bates was a longtime deacon at the Original Church of God on Younglove Street, where he also had played organ and taught Sunday school. More recently he served as president of the Hopkinsville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
On Jan. 8, 2022, he played with the Fabulous Equinox at the Alhambra for a concert to benefit tornado victims.
WHOP announced the station will play a tribute to Bates at 6 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 19, on its FM station, 98.7, and online at lite987whop.com.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.