Floyd Hays Ellis

It had been three decades since the University of Kentucky football team had a victory at the University of Georgia – and the family of Floyd Hays Ellis thinks he might just have had something to do with its win Saturday.

Ellis died Saturday while having breakfast with his friends in the Liar’s Club at Barnyard Cafe, formerly known by regulars as Murray’s Restaurant.

For several decades, the quick-witted 83-year-old has spent every Saturday with the group his friends said he called “the movers and shakers of Bowling Green, who have gotten to the place where they’re mostly just shakers.”

Ellis was with a roomful of his cronies passing stories about life and the things he had seen during his lifetime as a farmer, state senator, property valuation administrator, president and CEO of Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. and serving on more boards than any one person can recollect.

As he waited for breakfast, Ellis would ask his friends if they’d rather go to dinner with Rick Pitino or go for a ride with Billy Gillispie. It was his usual subtle humor that got big laughs and that his friends and family said they will miss the most.

Tears were quickly overtaken by laughter by most people as they recalled the incredibly involved life of Ellis.

His daughter, Anna Sue Heller, said her father always wanted to “live life until the day he died,” and said she thinks he did just that.

“He died at 83, but he was still really active,” she said. “That morning, he was supposed to go to Murray’s and then come by my house and rake leaves … he wanted to be active, he wanted to be engaged until he passed away, so that worked out for him.”

Heller said she grew up on her father’s farm selling eggs door-to-door and worked on his senate campaign that led to his representation from 1965 to 1969. Ellis was a lifelong Democrat who enjoyed politics as much as he did finding the good in people, his daughter said.

Ellis served as Warren County PVA from 1971 to 1980 and 20 years as president and CEO of WRECC until he retired in 2000.

An 81/2 by 11 sheet of paper full of line-items couldn’t account for all the boards Ellis served on. But some of those included director and chairman of the board of Citizens First Bank, former director and chairman of the executive committee of Trans Financial Bank Corp., chairman of the board of Commonwealth Health Corp. and chairman of the board of directors of the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives.

Ellis celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary last year with his wife, Sarah. True to character, their anniversary announcement in the Daily News concludes “Mr. and Mrs. Ellis have no plans for divorce at this time.”

The former Jaycee president was loyal to everyone around him, according to friends.

“He was disappointed if he went somewhere and didn’t see someone he knew,” Heller said and at least five men have come to her since Saturday and said her father was their best friend.

“We had so much fun,” Heller said. “He was the kind of person if you went to the doctor’s for an appointment and waited, you had a good time. He was fun. I told someone I just wasn’t through having fun yet.”

Charlie Hardcastle, former Bowling Green mayor and longtime member of the Liar’s Club, said Ellis was more than just a best friend, he was a “friend’s friend, I guess you could say.”

“If Floyd had his druthers … that’s the way he’d want to go, he was with his friends,” Hardcastle said. “People would always say ‘if you do this, you’ll live five years longer,’ but Floyd said, ‘I don’t think I want to live five years longer in a nursing home.’ ”

Hardcastle said it was obvious that Ellis cared about people and was honest in his pursuit to do the best thing for the community. Ellis served in the Army during World War II in the Philippines and often did things for people without anyone ever knowing.

Heller said the family, including her sister, Nancy Chilton, and her brother, Ricky Ellis, learned at the hospital that their father had been anonymously sending flowers to a widow on Valentine’s Day ever since the woman’s husband died several years ago.

Hardcastle said the former chair of the Warren County Democratic Party and recipient of the Golden Rooster Award kept a positive outlook on life and was always looking at how things could be better.

“He had a rich life and I don’t think he’d go back and change much of it,” Hardcastle said.

For years, Ellis taught the men’s Bible class at Bowling Green Presbyterian Church, a role that his daughter said he had recently started again. His friend, Whayne Priest, said he remembers the farmer-at-heart bringing tomatoes to all his friends in the Liar’s Club each Saturday they were in season.

Priest said he didn’t see Ellis fall Saturday, but felt an immediate void before he even knew what happened. He described Ellis as “a Warren County country gentleman in every respect” who “always shouldered his responsibility in doing things for the community.”

“Everyone that knew him was better off for knowing him,” Priest said. “Warren County is going to miss a citizen like that.”

Charles English said he has been friends with Ellis since they were in 4-H together as children. The two served on the CHC board together and English said his friend made a great impact during the re-organization of the hospital.

“He was a real leader in this community,” English said. “But Floyd was also a very caring person. Whenever someone was sick or in the hospital, he was one of the real persons who was always there.”

Heller said her father, a UK graduate, always valued education and sponsored two scholarship funds with the Western Kentucky College Heights Foundation. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Warren Rural Electric Floyd H. Ellis Scholarship Fund or the Commonwealth Health Floyd H. Ellis Scholarship Fund through WKU.

Heller said the family was taken off guard by the suddenness of her father’s death, which is being attributed to a heart attack even though he had never had any heart troubles, his daughter said.

Despite the sudden loss, Heller said her family is enjoying all her father’s stories that continue to bring smiles to faces. They will share those with other members of the community during a memorial service from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at The Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green. Memorial service is at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church, and a reception will follow.

“He loved people and he believed in them,” Heller said. “He was just going to find something about you that was special.”