Dr. Kay Johnson-Gentile

Johnson-Gentile, Dr. Kay

Nov 11, 2025

Dr. Kay Johnson-Gentile, beloved wife, mother, sister, teacher, musician, author, counselor, and lifelong advocate for the healing power of music, passed away peacefully on November 11, 2025, at the age of 82. Born and raised in the small town of Moberly, Missouri, Kay was the cherished daughter of Nadine and Norris Burgher. Kay's love of learning was as deep as her love of song. She pursued music and education over a lifetime of study, ultimately earning a progression of degrees that culminated in a Ph.D. in Elementary Education from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1990. In 1975, Kay was diagnosed with breast cancer, beginning a hard-fought journey that included nine months of chemotherapy. During that season of fear and uncertainty, she found herself "rescued" again and again by music-especially the songs of John Denver. His music helped carry her out of depression and into a renewed sense of faith, hope, and purpose. She traveled for the American Cancer Society, sharing her story and offering music-therapy workshops to patients, their loved ones, and physicians. From this work grew her album "Faith Hope Love" featuring songs she wrote during and after her cancer treatment. Her concerts and presentations took her across the United States, always with the same message: that music is not a luxury but a lifeline. Kay's academic career blossomed alongside her musical one. After years in the elementary classroom, she joined the faculty of Buffalo State College as a professor of elementary education. Known to her students simply as "Dr. Kay," she was a demanding, joyful, and deeply encouraging teacher, and in 2002 she received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of the university system's highest honors. In her seventies she launched a "second career" as a writer, contributing stories to magazines such as Mysterious Ways and Woman Alive, and to several volumes of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. In 2016 she published her memoir, "My Walk of Faith, Hope, and Love," an intimate account of how music, faith, and community had carried her through illness, fear, and transformation. Blending her training as an educator and her study of spirituality and symbolism, she helped people discern meaning in their lives and navigate seasons of challenge and change. Those who sought her guidance remember her listening ear, her gentle humor, and her unshakable belief that every life carries a unique, sacred purpose. Across all of these roles-teacher, professor, musician, therapist, author, and spiritual companion-Kay was animated by a single calling: to uplift others and help them discover faith, hope, and love in their own stories. Her students, readers, audiences, and clients encountered not just information, but a woman whose very presence said, "You matter. Your pain matters. Your gifts matter." Kay was devoted to God and was intimately involving with charitable activities and the Catholic Church, including the Sisters of St. Joseph in Clarence, New York. Kay is survived by her loving husband, Ronald Gilmore; her son, Christopher Johnson, and his wife, Becky, and their children and grandchildren; her brother, Rex Burgher, and his sister, Lois Kaznica, and their families. Kay's other son, Timothy Johnson, passed in 2012. May her memory be a blessing, and may her song continue-quietly, steadily, and joyfully-in all those she inspired. A service celebrating Dr. Johnson-Gentile's life will be held this coming summer, at a time to be announced, at the home of her son, Christopher. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to a cancer survivor support fund in Kay's honor.