SERENA DENNIS

SERENA DENNIS

Hugh Crockett McKee, present superintendent of the Frankfort City Schools, has

given distinguished service since his election to that important office in July, 1904, having become a potent factor in all movements which tend toward the elevation of educational standards in that city. By ancestral record and present loyalty Professor McKee is a representative Kentuckian. His forefathers and their achievements will merit a passing glance.

His parents were Robert B. and Serena Dennis McKee, the former born in the old McKee homestead which was patented under the Virginia government by John McKee, the subject's grandfather. John McKee was born in Virginia and was of Scotch-Irish lineage, and his wife was a daughter of Colonel Anthony Crockett of Revolutionary fame. Professor Hugh Crockett McKee is thus a great-grandson of that celebrated American. John McKee was a farmer by vocation and was the first magistrate of his district after Kentucky became a state. He lived to be eighty-four years of age and was a widely-known and much respected man.

Robert B. McKee, father of the subject, previous to the Civil war was employed for four years in the Western River and Harbor Improvements service. He was warden of the Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson City for six years before the war and devoted the last twenty-five years of his life to teaching in the public schools. He was state examiner under Hon. Deshay Pickett, superintendent of public instruction. At the time of his demise he was seventy-six years of age. His wife, Serena Dennis (1837-1918), was a native of Ohio county, Kentucky, of Scotch – Irish descent. She bore her husband four children, of whom Professor Mckee was the third.

Hugh Crockett McKee was born on the McKee homestead in Franklin county, June 10, 1871. Upon this fair domain he was reared and came to young manhood. He received his early education in the public schools and a JJ. degree in the Kentucky Military Institute. As seen from the foregoing Professor McKee may claim his pedagogical inclinations by right of heritage. Soon after his graduation and during the time of the war between the states he was a member of the Home Guards at Newport. He was married twice, first to a Miss Krontz, who was the mother of two sons, and after her death he married Mary Collutt. 

Source: A HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS; THE LEADERS AND 

REPRESENTATIVE MEN IN COMMERCE, INDUSTRY AND MODERN ACTIVITIES, 

Vol III.  Published 1912.