The Kentucky State Trooper killed in a Sunday night shooting on I-24 in Lyon County was a Hardin County native who will be buried Friday at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery in Radcliff.
31 year old Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder died at a hospital in Princeton, KY just hours after being shot during a routine traffic stop that turned tragic. The suspect, Joseph Johnson-Shanks of Missouri was shot and killed by police after an hours-long search.
Ponder had just graduated from the State Police Academy in January. He was in the process of transferring back home from the State Police Post in Mayfield to the one in Elizabethtown.
Trooper Ponder was a 2002 graduate of North Hardin High School where he won all-state honors in track. He turned down a track scholarship from WKU to enlist in the Navy instead.
Ponder's body was transported to Coffey and Chism Funeral Home in Vine Grove Monday following an autopsy in Louisville. A KSP Trooper will stand guard by the casket 24 hours a day until his burial Friday.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 Friday morning at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown. Burial with full military honors will follow at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery in Radcliff.