Adventurer, Athlete, Artist, Author: Saying Farewell To Ken Pennington

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

Lookout Mountain resident Ken Pennington has known for nearly two months that he is dying, but that doesn’t bother him. “I’ve had a fantastic life,” he said. The Sentinel sat down with Pennington to hear about his adventure-filled life and to learn a little bit more about local history.

Those who preserve our local history refer to Pennington as the expert on Native Americans in the area, but he also searched for caves, won three awards in Golden Gloves boxing, served in the military, published two books, and is quite an artist. First and foremost, Pennington is proud of his family history, and Lookout Mountain is the only place he calls home.

He was born in 1942 in the farmhouse that had been in the family since his great-great-great grandfather purchased 1,130 acres of Lookout Mountain land (from Canyon Grill to the Alabama state line). Pennington’s other great-great-great grandfather also owned land that adjoined this large farm.

“I have always been fiercely proud of where I was born,” Pennington said. “This mountain belonged to me; I was part of it. I have studied this mountain and the people all my life. My grandmother would tell me these stories, and I could not stop asking questions about my family. They moved here in the late 1830s.”

With the family name “Driggs” from several generations ago, Pennington found out a lot about his broader family tree, and he’s put together close to 190 family trees. “Everybody in the world named Driggs are kinfolks,” he said. “They say that the first Driggs was bound to the mast of a ship that wrecked at the mouth of the Connecticut River. From there, I can connect to everybody named Driggs.”

Among other stories, he told the Sentinel about the Harpe Brothers from the Nickajack area who were America’s first serial killers and the Melungeon people of Appalachia who were descended from Native Americans and slaves. Pennington’s mother was Melungeon.

“If people will look at their family history and be stubborn, it’s amazing what you can find,” he said. Pennington became quite agile at sorting through old documents and finding small connections that paint the larger picture. One source was newspaper articles dating back to the 1700s that include details about the tri-state area.

He wishes he could share as much of this history as possible with the community, which is one reason he published “The Rockeaters” and “The Chronicles of the Downtrodden.” (See the Jan. 19, 2022, Sentinel for more about “The Rockeaters.”) These books weave fact and fiction together, and he’s been working on a third, “In the Name of God, Amen.” He chose the title because it’s often a line in last wills and testaments. “This book is my last will and testament, in a way, telling the story of the Driggs family.”

Almost frustrated by the difficulty of concisely capturing all of the knowledge he’s gained, Pennington said, “My head is filled with thousands of stories.” Going back to his own story, however, he remembers when Lookout Mountain was much less crowded. “There were no houses all the way through here (Sunset Drive) to Old State Road in Head River. I would walk through there as a child, along this bluff.”

This led to Pennington’s passion for Native American artifacts, of which he collected thousands. He began discovering the rock caves along the bluff that Native people had used for shelter during hunting trips. He kept journals of when and where he found arrowheads, pipes, pots, tomahawks, and other artifacts. From the age of 12 until his late 60s, he searched for Native American artifacts from Charleston, S.C. to Blytheville, Ark.

He also found that his crook of Lookout Mountain has over 30 caves. “It didn’t matter how tight the hole was, I did everything I could to get in. I didn’t worry about getting out.” Over the course of his life, Pennington explored over 500 caves.

Although people often refer to our area as Cherokee territory, Pennington explained that the Cherokee didn’t arrive until the 1770s. Dade County was Muscogee territory (also called Creek Nation).

Pennington shared stories about his role in discovering the Tunnacunnee mounds (Tunnacunnee is the Native American name for Lookout Creek), other sites he was invited to help dig, how he could identify old Native home and burial sites, and even how tensions arose between people who were racing to find artifacts. He is full of far too much information to capture in just one article.

When he worked at Standard Brands Chemical in Kensington, Ga., he would head straight to nearby rivers after his shift to dig for artifacts. “I was a nut! I would go by myself to an island, swim the river to the island, spend the night by myself, and dig.”

One of Pennington’s dreams that didn’t come to fruition was establishing a Native American museum here in Dade. Noting that the Cherokee’s name for themselves was “aniyunwiya,” he said, “I wanted to be Aniyunwiya.” He learned, however, that he is of Native American, African, Scottish, and English heritage.

In high school, Pennington found success as an athlete. He won three Golden Gloves boxing awards and played football for Dade County High School. He reminisced, “Back then, I was a football hero, and all the girls would kind of flirt with me, and I thought that was great.”

When he was 13 years old, one adventure led him all the way to Jacksonville, Fla. Pennington and his 14-year-old best friend, John Richard Logan, decided they wanted to live in Brazil, so they packed a bag of oranges and their combined total of 50 cents and started hitchhiking. 

They planned to join a banana boat headed to Brazil, but first, they decided they needed to experience a setting that’s as close to a jungle as the southeast provides: the Okefenokee Swamp. “We didn’t like it,” Pennington recalled. “It didn’t look like a place we needed to wade into.”

When they met another 12-year-old boy in Jacksonville, the adventure came to an end. This boy tried to convince them to steal a boat, but Pennington said he wouldn’t steal, so he and Logan returned home. Plus, they found that oranges don’t keep your stomach full for long and 50 cents only goes so far.

Pennington lived in Chicago one summer, washing windows and pumping gas at a service station, and he spent three years in the United States Army after high school, but he always came back to Lookout Mountain.

Through the Buddy Team Enlistment Option, he joined the army with two of his friends who decided they wanted to become paratroopers. An old football injury prevented Pennington from becoming a paratrooper, but he was persistent. “I just kept asking that doctor to let me. Well, I finally made it, but my two friends didn’t. I made 40-something military jumps. They weren’t into combat because Vietnam hadn’t cranked up yet.”

He recalled loading up to go to Cuba, but he was never deployed. “I always wondered, could I actually fight with somebody shooting at me? When we were loading those planes, I would be so excited, but I was a kid; I was foolish.”

Throughout these formative years, Pennington never intended to leave the mountain forever. “I had friends who did, but I could not understand how anybody who was born and raised here on Lookout Mountain could leave and never come back.”

Pennington’s life includes three failed marriages, which he readily admits, but Becky became the surprising perfect match for him. “She has loved me dearly for over 40 years,” he said. “That’s the only thing that bothers me—leaving her behind.”

Becky was a waitress at a truck stop at Sulphur Springs, Ala. when Pennington met her. “I was sitting in there one day eating, and I heard this real country drawl behind me. I thought, ‘Man, I love the way that girl talks!’ When I got up, I had to look and see who was talking, and it was Becky.”

Even with a 17-year age gap, the two became friends, and, intrigued by Pennington’s adventures, Becky began caving and hunting relics with him. He eventually asked her to dinner, but she was hesitant and stood him up twice before their dating relationship began.

“My favorite restaurant was The Loft in Chattanooga,” he explained, “and I thought I’d like to take her to eat there with me; she went everywhere else. The third time I asked her, I said, ‘Becky, if you stand me up this time, I’ll never ask you again.’” The third time proved to be the charm.

Pennington talked about Becky’s love of animals, describing deer and foxes coming to her and how she takes care of rabbits and skunks. “Becky loves everything,” he said with a smile.

The pair are also both artists, with a studio full of striking paintings, and Pennington painted the cover for “The Rockeaters.” It’s not a far stretch to call him a renaissance man; he found a way to pursue as many interests as he could in his life. “Everything I’ve done, I was a fanatic,” he reflects.

Looking back on a life filled with people and adventures, Pennington calmly faces death and soaks up his closing days on Lookout Mountain surrounded by Becky and his children, Kamille, Rachel, and Joseph, and many friends.