John Kay of Young Harris, GA, is the 2024 recipient of the Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award

Rev. Dr. John Kay of Young Harris, Georgia, received the 2024 Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award at MountainTrue’s 16th Annual Hiwassee Watershed Gala in the Charles Suber Banquet Hall at Young Harris College on February 29.

In 2023, John retired from 24 years of service representing Towns County, Georgia, on the Blue Ridge Mountain Soil & Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors. He served as chair for the last 13 of those years, following Jim Dobson of Union County, Georgia, who was the inaugural Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award winner in 2009. The District works with farmers, landowners, homeowners, partner organizations, and other government units to educate people and actively promote conservation programs and practices for soil, water, and related natural resources. It was important to John to work with like-minded organizations like the Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition (now MountainTrue) toward this mutual goal. 

John volunteered for many years with the former Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition’s water quality monitoring team in the mid-2000s. Most recently, John has been involving the Creation Care Committee at Sharp Memorial United Methodist Church in MountainTrue’s work. 

John was born and raised in Hart County, Georgia, where he grew up in a farm family of 12 children. He holds degrees from Young Harris College (A.A., 1956), LaGrange College (B.A., 1958), Drew University School of Theology (M. Div.,1962), and Vanderbilt Divinity School (D. Min., 1983). A United Methodist minister, he retired from the North Georgia Conference in 2001 after 39 years of ministerial service. From 1967 to 1980, John was the pastor of Sharp Memorial United Methodist Church in Young Harris. He taught courses in religion and philosophy at Young Harris College from 1967 to 2001, serving on the faculty full-time beginning in 1980. For 15 years (1967-1982), he was also the College’s Director of Religious Life. 

In 1991, John co-founded the Institute for Continuing Learning (ICL) at Young Harris College. From then until 2005, he served as the College’s representative to ICL. In March 2001, John received the Governor’s Award in Humanities for his contributions to ICL at YHC. He and his late wife of 60 years, Patti, have three children.

“John truly is devoted to these mountains and the quality of life here, as well as the quality of water,” wrote Brenda Hull in summing up her nomination of John for the award.

Each year, we present the Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award to the person or group who has done the most to sustain good water quality in rivers, lakes, and streams in the upper Hiwassee River watershed of Towns and Union counties in North Georgia and Cherokee and Clay counties in North Carolina. The award is named for Bill Holman, a lifelong conservation advocate currently serving as Senior Advisor to the Conservation Fund in NC. The Holman Award is sculpted by David Goldhagen of Goldhagen Blown Art Glass, whose studio is located on the shores of Lake Chatuge near Hayesville, NC.