[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15575]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   WELCOMING REVEREND KENNETH JOHNSON

  The SPEAKER. Without objection, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. 
Schmidt) is recognized for 1 minute.
  There was no objection.
  (Mrs. SCHMIDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. SCHMIDT. I am honored today to have Reverend Ken Johnson as our 
guest chaplain.
  Too often, we don't recognize true heroes among us. But I want to 
tell you the story of Ken Johnson and Phil Fulton, two pastors in Adams 
County. You see, they believed that our students and our Nation need to 
understand the morals of our country. And the best example of that is 
the Ten Commandments.
  So they went out and they gathered money together--not public money, 
but donations--to put the Ten Commandments monuments on the steps of 
each of the four high schools in Adams County, one of the poorest 
counties in Ohio.
  The courts didn't like it. So they gathered more money and put up 
four more monuments. The Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, 
the preamble to the Constitution, and the Justinian Code. But again, 
the courts didn't like it. And they lost the fight nearly 10 years ago 
at the U.S. Supreme Court.
  But the neighborhood rallied behind these two men and their efforts 
by taking those Ten Commandments when they were removed from public 
property and putting them directly across the street on private 
property. But the momentum swelled because throughout the Nation, 
people understood the courage of these two men. And so hundreds of 
thousands of yard signs were in each and every State in the Union, 
proclaiming that we should acknowledge the Ten Commandments and that 
they have a right to be placed on public property.
  Phil Fulton and Reverend Ken Johnson didn't realize where their 
journey would lead. But I am proud to know both gentlemen, and I am 
proud today to have Ken Johnson here with his wife, Doris, whom he met 
on a mission trip to the Philippines, and their son Joshua. They also 
have two other children, Matthew and Mary.
  Ken Johnson was born in southern Ohio, right in Adams County, and he 
has lived there his entire life. He became a pastor in 1978, and he has 
been pastoring ever since.
  Thank you for your courage, Reverend Johnson, and God bless you and 
the United States of America.

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